Smiting With Both Hands

God wants me to crit for ×5 damage on a smite.

This is a paladin build focusing on pulling the largest amount of damage possible. To that end, it dual-wields khopeshes and stacks on as many bonuses to damage as it can. 3d6 sneak attack, the paladin capstone for +1d6 versus evil, as high a strength as we can manage, and Divine Might adding another six damage per swing. In addition, we've got twelve smites that regenerate and have increased crit range - on a smite with a khopesh, we're looking at critting on a 15 or higher for ×5 damage. Finally, if we run low on those, there's always Divine Sacrifice to fall back on.

While what this build attempts would probably be better suited to a character who has reincarnated at least once - allowing for a higher Constitution or Dexterity - it's quite possible to make it work even without a reincarnation. The build does, however, require tomes to be at its most effective - by the end of level 15, it needs to have used a +2 Charisma tome, and by 17, a +2 Dexterity tome. Without it, we don't qualify for Divine Might III or Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, which isn't unmanageable, but it's a significant hit to overall DPS.

On the weakness front, the build suffers from an absolute dearth of skills - it can't afford anything higher than an 8 Intelligence, so we're looking at one skill point per level. Pick your poison - either Intimidate so you can occasionally peel hate from someone squishier, or Diplomacy so you can keep your threat down below that of someone else. On a similar customization front, there's no deity mandatory for this build to work. I suggest Sovereign Host for the very nice full heal later on, but just about anything will work without being too much of a mechanical difference.

Baseline Information

Leveling Breakdown