Optimization A Guide to the D&D 5th Edition Paladin through the eyes of a 3.5 Player [Archive]

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-24, 04:15 PM

Introduction

Playing a Paladin can be jarring at first, because of how stereotype can work against you. It’s not as simple as saying “a Paladin is a LG blend of Fighter and Cleric traits set into a single class, with a code that forces them to be sticks in the mud”, because that would be not only a disservice, but wrong. The original intention of the Paladin was to be a variant of the Fighter, and the 1st Edition Player’s Handbook of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game clearly points it out: they get the same progression of abilities as a Fighter, but replace their ability to build a castle and become a baron with some divine blessings. At most, their original intention was to evoke the feel of the knights in chivalric stories, such as the noble Paladins of the Chanson de Roland, the Knights of the Round Table from the Arthurian Cycle, and even the various famous knights that filled the imagination of Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes’ novel, El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (though, I’d be sure that Cervantes would point out that the real writer, or rather, herald, was Mr. Ahmed Eggplant ;P). However, they have evolved into the divine champions of the gods, despite their original intention not being that, and thus people have compared them with the real divine champions of the faith, the Cleric. It doesn’t help that in nearly all editions the Cleric and the Paladin are quite similar. Still, even as the divine champions of their faith, they are still perceived as warriors first and foremost, clad in shiny heavy armor and brandishing a gleaming shield, living a virtuous path. This is certainly a way to play it, but if focusing on playing a good Paladin (an effective one, in comparison to a Good Paladin, who follows the tenets of altruism and self-sacrifice), it’s not the best. The guide, thus, is designed to point out where the Paladin excels and where it falters, but from a point of view of a 3.5 player.

Regarding format, I will use a simple color-coding system seen in other guides, particularly those of 4th Edition:

Red means a bad option; a “trap”, in geek parlance. This color appears when there’s an option that may seem good for Paladins, but actually isn’t. If the option doesn’t apply for Paladins, then it won’t even appear here.
Black means it’s a neutral option: not good, but not bad either. Most options will end up here.
Blue means it’s a good option, if not the best.
Light Blue means that, of all options, it’s the absolute best. Expect few of these.

Finally, there’s a few phrases I’ll point out.

Bear with Me: this is a mini-rant about something. I may be enthusiast to 5th Edition, but some things just bug me. Just as I asked you to “bear with me” regarding some things I didn’t agree with Pathfinder, this will be the same for 5th Edition.
Friendly Reminder: this is mostly to people who usually play 3.5, so that they remember that some rules have changed, wherever they’re appropriate.

Transition Guide

Very well, so you’re a 3.5 player, someone who knows how to play a Paladin, or love the “A-Game Paladin” cooked by Tempest Stormwind & friends. You’ve read Dictum Mortuum’s Paladin’s Handbook and you’re confident you can make a Paladin that would get the approval of Sameo and sir Peter Fairgrave. But, you have a problem.

You’re not a good DM, and you really WANT to play. Your group decided “hey, let’s test the 5th Edition rules!” Most of you will have a free copy of the Player’s Basic Rules (It’s on the Wizard’s page, BTW), which has mostly basic options. However, let’s say the DM was kind enough to grab a copy of the Player’s Handbook, for additional options. Don’t fret, my good friend: this small transition guide is for you.

The game uses the same Core Mechanic (what would you expect from Wizards of the Coast, anyways?), but the playstyle can range from “a bit different” to a “whole new ballpark”. Things you used to rely may or may no longer be here, and those that do might have changed enough to matter. You may be surprised to hear you can play a Paladin for all 20 levels (though Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards is still in effect), in fact! Then again, you could play a Paladin for 30 levels in 4th Edition, and it wasn’t bad at all, so YMMV. If you want to do it right, though, you’ll need to know a few things.

First: Theater of the Mind. Why I set this before anything else? Well: 3.x and 4th Edition pushed a lot for the use of miniatures and grid-based combat, and most players will be used to such mechanics. 5th Edition is assuming you’ll keep using it, but is pretty lax on this. Instead, it pushes a new kind of experience, that being the “theater of the mind”. In other words: all the events occurring are done in your mind, without any physical prop. Thus, instead of counting how many squares you’re away from the opponent, you count how many feet, and you’re not limited to 5-ft. steps worth of movement. Likewise, combat is more abstract. Chances are not all DMs will use this, but take note if this happens; it can be an interesting experience, but jarring for people used to grids and minis.

One thing you may notice is that 5th Edition is pretty lax with the rules. How lax? Well, type “D&D 5th Stealth rules”, and you’ll see peculiar discussions about how Stealth works in the game. This may not seem like it fits with the concept of “theater of the mind”, and in a way, it’s true; in a way, however, it works as a perfect introduction to what may seem like a big problem.

Currently, there’s two main lines of thought regarding the game. One espouses the benefits of ambiguity, considering that ambiguity correlates with expediency (that is, the game flows faster because you’re not focused on the letter of the rule) and reduces exploits, while the detractors mention that ambiguity leads to potential contradictions, multiple dysfunctional rules and lack of unity between tables. The detractors, those who prefer clarity, champion the importance of clear and concise rules to prevent dysfunctionality, not to mention the importance of strict rules in case of Organized Play; its detractors (those who prefer ambiguity) mention that sometimes, rules that are too rigid lead to discussions that slow gameplay or stunt player creativity by means of restrictions that may be senseless or completely absurd.

The subtitle refers to the euphemisms by which both sides’ extremists are better known. “Rules lawyers” vie for clarity of rules, but detractors consider them disruptive as they seek to use the rules to their advantage, particularly when a specific read of the rules lead to an exploit. While not a defining factor, the essential tool of a Rules Lawyer is “Rules as Written” (RAW), which implies that the rule must be followed to the letter (whether the player’s character is Lawful or Chaotic). “Magic Tea Partygoers” vie for the value of ambiguity in rules, but detractors attack said support as it gives the Dungeon Master WAY too much power and makes the game irregular. You can identify an attack to MTP rules if you hear the words “Mommy, may I?” (referring to how a player may end up having to convince the DM that the action is successful, even if the result would otherwise be a success on a stricter ruleset). A huge argument used by detractors against MTP is the concept of non-specific Difficulty Class parameters: without a defined table specifying the exact DC for the action, a DM may arbitrarily set a DC too high to succeed, thus denying the player success despite its skill (proficiency). A supporter of ambiguity may consider this an opportunity to be creative, suggesting a different course of action; a detractor of ambiguity may use this as an example of how a DM will eventually determine, arbitrarily, if a character succeeds or not regardless of the character’s stats.

Now, this is my interpretation of both sides, and of course, being a subjective matter it might be wrong. I don’t intend this to take a side for one or another: I personally prefer concise rules, but have absolutely no problem with sensible interpretations of the rules, even if strict and concise, if it helps the story. You’re free to look for both sides, but make sure you wear a flame-retardant suit while doing that surf. Maybe with an acid-resistant coating, for the vitriol.

Second: Proficiency bonus. You may remember that each class had huge amounts of numbers: 1e had the to-hit matrix, 2e had THAC0, 3.x had BAB; all classes had saving throws that ranged from the specific (save vs. petrifaction, save vs. system shock) to the abstract (Fortitude, Reflex, Will). 4th Edition changed some of this by providing a fixed bonus, but wasn’t truly unified. 5th Edition decided to unify everything in a single bonus, which is the proficiency bonus.

All characters have a proficiency bonus, which starts at +2 and ends at +6 at 20th level. The key isn’t on the existence, but how it applies: as the name implies, you apply this bonus on all things you’re proficient with. Proficient with martial weapons? Add this to your attack roll. Proficient with a skill (or tool)? Add your proficiency bonus to the ability check. Proficient with a saving throw? Add it to your saving throw. As you can see, it is simpler, but it leads to little distinction between classes. This is an example of what the 5e developers call “bounded accuracy”: that is, rather than have big numbers, you have a deliberately small amount of numbers (more often than not your proficiency bonus and your ability score modifier) that form a lower and an upper boundary. This allows for challenges on every level (or so the devs claim) as the progression between characters of different levels are not entirely distant (oftentimes a difference in numbers of 1 or 2). This also makes small numeric bonuses important, as they’re also deliberately few.

Third: Proficiencies. Redundant? Well, the reason why I split the bonus and the concept of proficiency is simple: this is a HUGE change.

There’s several kinds of proficiencies, which I’ll detail briefly:

Weapon Proficiency: this implies that you’re proficient with a specific weapon, or a type of weapon. You apply your proficiency bonus to an attack roll if you’re proficient in the weapon. This is simple enough.
Skill Proficiency: this implies that you’re proficient in a specific application of an ability. Before, skills were defined by ranks, with each rank adding a +1 bonus to a skill check. In 5th Edition, skill checks are a thing of the past: all skill checks are ability checks. However, for specific applications of a skill (such as Stealth), you can gain proficiency and thus apply the bonus. To put it simpler: rather than make a Hide check, you make a Dexterity (Stealth) check; if you don’t have proficiency in Stealth, you make a Dexterity check when attempting to hide; if you do, you add your proficiency bonus to your Dexterity check in the same action. Some classic skills were collapsed: Climb, Jump and Swim are now Athletics, Balance and Tumble are now Acrobatics, Hide and Move Silently are now Stealth, Listen and Spot are now Perception. Likewise, some skills were split: Search is now divided between Perception and Investigation, where one is a glance and another is thorough (both are good to detect traps). Some skills got a name change: Sense Motive is now Insight, Heal is now Medicine, the Knowledge skills are now known by their name (though Nobility and Royalty was folded into History), and so on.
Tool Proficiency: this implies you’re proficient in a tool. Some skills now pass to be tools: Disable Device and Open Lock are now actions you make with thieves’ tools, so you need proficiency in them to do so. Same for Forgery, which now requires a forger’s kit. Most Craft and Profession skills are now tool-based. You can also be proficient in vehicles (you add your proficiency bonus to driving or piloting them) and games (yes: you need proficiency in a gaming set to gamble or cheat).
Saving Throw: this is another big difference, but to put it simply: there’s now six saving throws. Each saving throw relates to its ability score. Fortitude is now a Constitution save, Reflex is now a Dexterity save and Will is now a Wisdom save. Strength saves deal with resisting things like being pushed or tripped, and also to escape from physical bonds. Intelligence and Charisma saves are incredibly rare, but deal mostly with mental assault (Maze, the Intellect Devourer’s incredibly broken attack) or force of personality (Banishment, for example).

Fourth: Concentration and buffing spells have been incredibly nerfed. Concentration as a skill no longer exists; it’s a Constitution save now, and you can’t “cast defensively” anymore. However, this is of little importance compared to the biggest change: most spells have “Concentration, up to X” durations. The concept can be a bit alien to people who haven’t played other systems than D&D, but to Shadowrun players it should be familiar: Concentration implies sustaining a spell. Sustaining a Concentration spell takes no action, but if you’re attacked, you need to make a Constitution save or have your spell disrupted. A lot of spells are now Concentration-based, including uber-powerful spells like Gate, and some old stalwarts like Dominate Monster. Note that some spells have no such durations, particularly old broken spells like Mirror Image…

Fifth: Spellcasting itself. 5th Edition returns to a “Vancian” format of casting (that is, fire and forget), except they forgot about the “forget” part (pardon the redundancy; I find it hilarious). There are prepared (that is, they prepare their spells each day) and spontaneous spellcasters, but prepared spells have a huge advantage now: they can cast their prepared spells each day without losing the spell, so as long as they have a spell slot of the right level. Thus, a Cleric can prepare Cure Wounds and cast it as many times as it has 1st level or higher spells.

You may have noticed the “or higher” bit. You see, spells no longer scale with “caster level”, as it was on nearly every edition before 4th (unless you entered Epic territory); spells now scale based on the spell level you cast them, so a 2nd level spell will be slightly more powerful or affect more people than a 1st level spell. Think of it as psionic augmentation, except with spell slots. The sole exception to this are cantrips, which have another peculiarity: they’re at-will spells. The best way to put it would be the reserve feats from Complete Mage: at-will, and technically based on your spellcaster level to an extent.

Spell save DCs are also different. No longer does a spell save DC need to be based on its spell level; now, it’s a simple calculation of 8 + your proficiency bonus + your key ability modifier (Bards, Paladins, Sorcerers and Warlocks use Charisma; Clerics, Druids and Rangers use Wisdom, while Wizards use Intelligence). Thus, everyone has a range from 10 (+2 proficiency bonus, average ability score) to 19 (+6 proficiency bonus, maximum ability score). This includes the Paladin, BTW.

Sixth: Ability scores. They’re still the same we know and love: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. The difference? You can’t have an ability score higher than 20 (with some exceptions). You heard that right. Monsters can have higher scores, but no higher than 30. On the other hand, ability score increases are more generous (2 per level), and races have no more ability score penalties, so it’s a big win. Again: “bonded accuracy”. So not only does your proficiency bonus is deliberately small, your ability score modifier is also small. There’s only three known ways to beat this: Polymorph (and its ilk, but beware of losing your mind!), magic items (which set your score to the defined amount, rather than give a boost), and the Barbarian capstone.

Seventh: Actions in combat. You have only one Action (think Standard Action), one bonus action (think Swift/Minor) and one Reaction (think Immediate Action/Interrupt). You can move up to your speed, but it’s no longer its own action; on the other hand, you can move between your Action, so as long as you save some movement for the end of the Action. This is of great boon to melee characters, because you can move between attacks. You can make some specific actions “freely” during movement, and talk is as always a free action.

Some classics also changed. Hiding is an Action now: you can’t move while Hiding (though some classes provide a way to make it a Bonus Action, so…) There’s no flanking bonus; Aid Another is now known as “Help” and it provides Advantage to one ally’s action by sacrificing yours. Withdraw is now “Disengage”, and…erm, Total Defense is now Dodge (except you can move while getting it). Of the combat maneuvers, only Bull Rush, Grapple and Trip survived.

Speaking of combat maneuvers: they’re now very simple. How simple?

Make a Strength (Athletics) check against your opponent’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check.
…
Profit! (Bounded Accuracy means it can also be a Loss)

Compared to old-school maneuvers, these are hilariously easy. There’s only two, thus far. Shove combines Bull Rush and Trip, and replaces one melee attack (in most occasions, your only attack, but martial characters get more than one attack eventually): you can either push a target 5 ft. or knock it prone. Grapple simply adds the Grappled condition, which hinders movement. From there, you can keep attacking. BTW: Attacks of Opportunity are now a Reaction (i.e. can only be used once) and Two-Weapon Fighting requires your bonus action and fighting with two light weapons.

Eighth: Feats and Multiclassing. That is, they have their changes, but here’s the big one: they’re OPTIONAL. You heard it right, sir (or madam); you can’t assume that you’ll have free access to them anymore. They’re also somewhat different.

Ability score increases are no longer something you gain from progressing a level by itself; they’re tied to class level. Instead of increasing your ability scores, you can choose to replace it with a feat. Feats in 5th are better for the most part: some duds, some broken ones, some that make you roll your eyes in disgust, but you’ll notice that each and every one grants two or three features. Thus, the dilemma: feats are great, but you have to choose between your ability score increase and your feat every four levels, although most have their last ability score increase at 19th level. Thus, you’ll have to make extremely hard choices.

This complicates with multiclassing. MC’ing is similar to 3.5: you start as a 1st level character of another class, but with some limitations. First, you don’t get all proficiencies of the class; only a handful, and NEVER another saving throw proficiency. Second, you need to meet a specific ability score requirement for both classes to pull off multiclassing (some require one score, some require one of two, some require two). Third, multiclassing delays your ability score increases by at least 4 levels, since ability score increases are no longer tied to character level progression. If done correctly, though, you can net some surprising boons; otherwise, you’re hindering yourself.

Ninth: Backgrounds. If you’ve played only D&D, these may seem weird, but if you managed to play d20 Modern, these should be familiar: they’re Occupations. Backgrounds imply what you did before entering adventuring: you could have been a Sailor, a Noble, an Acolyte, or something like that. Mechanically, Backgrounds offer proficiency in at least two skills, plus a set of tools or languages. They also grant a Trait, which is a minor benefit that ranges from free lodging to having contacts to knowing Thieves’ Cant (a Rogue class feature). Backgrounds can be completely different from the class’ fluff (thus, a Paladin could have begun as a Criminal and thus knows Thieves’ Cant and has proficiency with Thieves’ Tools), making for interesting characters. However, Backgrounds are a superb roleplaying tool: they provide examples of Personality Traits (quirks about your character), their Ideal (what they strive for), their Bond (what they consider important) and their Flaw (something that they hide or make them disgusting). Thus, they are tools for novice roleplayers in order to make interesting characters, rather than a bland Fred the Fighter. They also provide one more mechanical benefit: Inspiration. If your actions conflict or concord with the story in such a way, you can draw Inspiration from them (for example, staying true to your Bond, facing your Flaw and changing because of it, defending and promoting your Ideal, or simply having a Personality Trait become essential to the progression of the story). It’s a Boolean concept: either you have it (TRUE) or you don’t (FALSE; the concept of opposite, not that it’s actually false). If you have it, you can spend it to gain Advantage on one roll. Simple enough, no? They also determine your starting package, if you chose your class’ starting package.

Tenth: Subraces and Subclasses. You may have noticed that, with Feats and Multiclassing being optional, there’s not enough difference between characters other than their Class, Background and Race, right? Thus, two Elf Fighters with the Soldier Backgrouund would be effectively the same, no? Enter Subraces and Subclasses. Subraces are the old distinctions between the races: for example, one Elf Fighter could be a High Elf, while the other could be a Wood Elf. Subclasses (which have their own names, actually; Paladin subclasses are Sacred Oaths) allow a character of the same class to distinguish by adding features related to a theme. Thus, the High Elf Fighter could be an Eldritch Knight (!!) while the Wood Elf Fighter could be a Champion. One could wield sword and steel, the other a mighty longbow. See how they allow distinctions, even if at the core they’re Elf Fighters with the Soldier Background? Not all races have subraces, but ALL classes have subclasses.

Eleventh: Death. Rather than use “negative hit points” or ending your life at 0 hit points, 5th Edition used 4th Edition’s concept of Death Saves. All Death Saves are Concentration saves, but instead of spending one to survive unscathed, you make saves every round. If you succeed on three, you’re safe and stable; fail three, and you’re dead. Negative hit points are still used, though: one hit makes you auto-fail a save, a critical hit means you fail two saves, and if the damage exceeds your maximum hit point amount, you’re dead no matter what. Raise Dead and its progeny still exist, though.

Twelfth: Healing (see what I did there?). Healing returned to old-school, rather than spending Healing Surges (though at higher levels 4th Edition characters could heal without spending surges), but the concept still remains with Hit Dice. Hit Dice can only be used with a Short Rest, and you effectively roll 1dX + Con modifier, with the X being the Hit Die you rolled for your classes (for a Paladin, that’s a d10), you can spend up to your maximum amount of Hit Dice, but once spent, they aren’t recovered until you make a Long Rest. On a Long Rest, you recover all Hit Points and a considerable amount of Hit Die. Simple, no? Multiclassing complicates this, as you’ll need to jot down the different Hit Dice of all classes because you could end up spending all your higher Hit Dice on a Short Rest.

War (dur-hur-hur!): Passive checks. A returning aspect of 4th Edition, you may not be required to roll a check, instead determining the average of your check (10 + proficiency bonus + ability modifier) and use that as the hallmark. The only defined Passive check is Passive Perception, for when someone attempts to ambush you. You can extrapolate other Passive checks, such as Passive Investigation when looking for clues, or Passive Persuasion…if you’re a fan of Shadowrun and want to duplicate the effect of Etiquette on high social circles.

Joanna Lumley (GAH-HA-HAH!!): Resistance and Vulnerability (and energy types). In other words: damage reduction and energy resistance went the way of the Dodo. Resistance is simple: if you’re resistant, you take half damage instead of full. If you’re vulnerable, you take double damage. If you’re Immune, you take no damage. Also, get used to the following terms: Fire, Cold, Electricity, Acid, Thundering, Force, Poison, Radiant, Necrotic and Psychic. Those are the damage types other than Slashing, Bludgeoning or Piercing that exist. They’re taken straight from 4e. Thundering replaces Sonic, Poison involves its own kind of damage, Radiant replaces positive energy (and light spells) while Necrotic replaces negative energy. Psychic is unique in that it’s not tied to actual psionics, but instead groups all mind-affecting abilities that deal damage (such as Phantasmal Killer).

These are nearly all the changes, but there’s a lot more changes spread around. Person Man’s guide for Grognards (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?358474-A-Grognard-s-Guide-to-5E-D-amp-D-Rules) is a better guide for the changes than this.

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-24, 04:33 PM

Class Features

At its core, the Paladin is a class meant for combat, with some divine magic and powers as back-up. They are immune to a good amount of conditions, and the rest they can survive, with good choices of armor, class features that provide better saving throws and some solid amount of spells. Unlike earlier editions, Paladins are no longer bound to Good, though the flavor certainly leads to it.

Hit Dice: A respectable d10, the baseline for all combat-oriented classes. Only the Barbarian has a d12 Hit Dice, but that doesn’t mean the Paladin is deprived of hit points. You also have a respectable amount of healing on Short Rests, making you last quite a bit.

Weapon Proficiencies: All simple and martial weapons, giving them a respectable selection.

Armor Proficiencies: All armor, plus shields. Also quite respectable, allowing them to have a potentially high amount of AC, which is scarce here.

Skill Proficiencies: As with most classes, Paladins get two skill proficiencies. They have a respectable amount of six skills, from a nice list.
In case you may have wondered, a Paladin can get more skill proficiencies by carefully choosing their starting background. You may also gain proficiency with tools, something a Paladin lacks.
Athletics: a superb Strength-based skill proficiency that aids you when you need to climb, jump or swim. It is also used for the Grapple and Shove skills, which are phenomenal for battlefield control (particularly knocking prone via Shove, which is now a far more dangerous condition than before).
Insight: a Wisdom-based skill that helps you sense something’s wrong, or catch someone in a lie. A great defense against mundane ways of fooling you.
Intimidation: somewhat less useful than before, you use this Charisma-based skill to threaten an opponent. You can no longer demoralize an opponent with it, unless your DM finds it appropriate.
Medicine: somewhat more useful than before, you use this Wisdom-based skill to help someone fend the effects of disease and poison. You can also stabilize creatures (as with the Heal skill, though the exact procedure is not defined), and with a feat, provide some degree of healing.
Persuasion: this Charisma-based skill replaces Diplomacy, allowing you to amicably solve a predicament. Your DM may determine if it also works to Gather Information, though that’s most likely a Charisma check.
Religion: the only knowledge proficiency you get, this Intelligence-based skill allows you to know the specific rites and lore of all religions, organized or wild. Other than that, not very useful.

Saving Throw Proficiencies: Paladins add their proficiency bonus on Wisdom and Charisma checks.
Traditionally, Paladins were always considered as having superb saving throws against physical effects, mostly poison, petrifaction and death/necromantic effects. These eventually collapsed into a good Fortitude save, as befitting a front-liner. Even 4th Edition and Pathfinder kept it, though they also made their Will saves/defenses pretty good.

5th chopped this sacred cow by making Paladins proficient in what’s essentially a Will save, but dropping their Fortitude save. Before the final release, the Paladin was proficient with Constitution and Charisma saves, which wasn’t so bad at all. Unfortunately, a last-minute change (who knows why) made them stronger-willed, at the expense of their superior resilience to physical ailments.

This is inane. Paladins, as you’ll see later, have little to worry about Will saves other than maybe Hold Person, so dropping their traditionally-good save is…I doubt there’s a good word that doesn’t sound insulting but keeps the same impact and meaning as what I intend to say, but here it goes: brutish. Or better yet, provoking.

Honestly: are you guys worried so much that the Paladin will be the only class that has almost unbreakable Concentration? Note that NONE of the casting classes, with the sole exception of the Eldritch Knight Martial Archetype for the Fighter, have proficiency in Constitution saves. Thus, a Paladin will suck at casting Concentration spells, because its frickin’ job is to make enemies hit him instead of the squishies!!!!!! That choice defies explanation, and changing one good, essential and thematic save for another good and thematic but not-essential save is absurd beyond belief. At least it’s not Intelligence and Charisma; that would be downright insulting.

There’s the bit about a specific aura that causes me glee, which might explain why, but it’s still inane IMO.
Divine Sense: aka, Nerfed Detect Evil. Yes, nerfed. Sure, it no longer detects ONLY evil, but it detects more things: fiends, celestials, undead, consecrated or desecrated areas…and that’s it. Oh, and you can only use it an amount of times equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier, instead of at-will. And it requires an Action, meaning you can’t use it in combat.

Lay on Hands: Another standard of the Paladin, straight from 1st Edition AD&D. The touch is no longer based on Charisma (!!), instead being your paladin level times five. It still requires an Action, so you’re on your own if you want to use it on combat. Seems they took a page from Pathfinder (or rather, from the Dragon Shaman and its Touch of Vitality), as you can use it to remove a disease or a poison straight from 1st level. You can’t use it to harm undead this time, though, but it’s no big loss. All in all, a fair improvement.

Fighting Style: You get one of four Fighting Styles, related to the four ways you can play a Paladin: a survivor, a Sword & Boarder, a Two-Hander, or a tank.

Defense: you gain a mere +1 to AC, but consider that bonuses to AC are rare beyond magic items. It’s also ONLY while wearing armor. So, you can reach a maximum of AC 21 with Full Plate: a Wizard can achieve AC 23, but only if it spends spell slots on a Shield spell (which it won’t get indefinitely until 18th level) and its reaction, and you’re only 2 points behind. Bounded Accuracy, gentlemen!
Dueling: a surprisingly good feature. A +2 to damage is actually pretty huge in this edition, since there’s few damage boosts lying around. Now, note what it says: if you wield a melee weapon in one hand and NO OTHER WEAPON, you gain the bonus. That means no two-handed weapons and no two-hand fighting, but wielding a Shield is fair play. So much, that a developer confirmed it. So: you can have your cake (Sword & Board) and eat it too (high damage and decent AC).
Great Weapon Fighting: an interesting ability, if not awesome. You reroll all 1s and 2s on a damage die, but it doesn’t mean that it’s only ONE die. Rules Lawyers will support the idea that it’s EVERY damage die that falls into 1 or 2, though only if rerolled once (thus, two straight 1s or 2s, or a 1 followed by a 2 or viceversa won’t help, but everything else does). That also means…Sneak Attack damage dice, damage dice from spells, damage dice from Smites… Notice just how good it is?
Protection: the tanking style. It’s pretty specific (creature that you can see, that attacks a target other than you, and the target must be within 5 ft. of you), and it eats your reaction, but it provokes Disadvantage, which is huge. Turn a critical into a miss, or even a fumble? Well worth it. Opportunity Attacks also use Reactions, so be careful when and how to use it, but for the most part, a great tactic. Requires a Shield to use, BTW.

Close Quarters Shooter (Thr): +1 to attack rolls with ranged weapons, ignore disadvantage when shooting on melee range, ignore half-cover and three-quarters cover when shooting within 30 ft. of target. For someone based on archery (or better yet, throwing weapons!), it's an amazing catch - you get half the benefit of the Archery fighting style, but with greater benefits (pretty much tacking the Sharpshooter feat on top of it).
Mariner: +1 to AC and climb/swim speed = base land speed when not wearing heavy armor and/or using a shield. On one hand, you get an excuse to use medium armor and still have decent AC, and alternative movement speeds are very, VERY good. On the other hand, most builds will rely on heavy armor, so Mariner is not for everyone. Still - it's better than Defense: you get an actual benefit other than AC, even if your total AC is actually lower.
Tunnel Fighter (LD): Enter defensive stance as bonus action; while on stance, make opportunity attacks without spending reaction, use reaction to make melee attack against creature that moves more than 5 ft. This is basic Lockdown strategy, when mixed with other options (like turning that free reaction attack into Shove, since it is a melee attack, or using the Sentinel feat). The primary benefit is somewhat lost if you use the Marking optional rule in the DMG, which grants a similar benefit.

Spellcasting: This area is big, and thus requires its own page, but it has changed from its earlier incarnation. First, you gain it at 2nd level; second ,you can cast up to 5th level spells; third, you use Charisma for your spell save DCs (and spell attack rolls, if any). You’re still a prepared caster, though you can only prepare a number of spells equal to ½ your level plus your Charisma (between 1 to 15 spells, essentially); once you cast them, you can use any of them so as long as you have the right spell slot. You also get a fairly high amount of spells, as well.
Divine Smite: Your friendly 3.5’s Smite Evil, but improved. Improved, you say? It’s still one attack, sure, but it deals a fairly high amount of damage (2d8 from the start, which is an average of 9 points), and it gets better if the target is a fiend or undead (1d8; average of 4 or 5 points). Still, I have my qualms with it, but despite that, I must recognize that it’s a superb ability. That qualm being…

You may know how bad was my rant when Pathfinder decided to call its marking effect “Smite Evil”, so this is a touchy subject for me. Yes, I feel this is a smite: it is a sudden, dramatic effect. However, the problem is not with its execution, but with its resource.

What is the problem, then? You need to spend a spell slot to smite. YES. How do you think I feel about this? At 2nd level, I can smite twice per day (er-hem, per “long rest”), but I can’t cast any spell if I do so. I have a limited resource that becomes even MORE limited. Considering there are Short Rest abilities, this is kinda bad. By 19th level, I get 15 spell slots (no less, no more), which I can spend on spells or smites. Both the spell and the smiting have strong competition between each other, because some Paladin spells are awesome.

This is reduced by one thing: most of the Paladin’s unique spells ALSO happen to be Smites with Rider effects. In a way, you can cast a spell and smite (and add a nasty effect) all at once, but it forces a Paladin player to care for its resources. This isn’t a very good idea: a Paladin can happily go nova (i.e. spend its entire resources thin rather than saving them for a rainy day) in one battle, potentially.

I wouldn’t have cared if Smite was once per Short Rest, even if that has its own set of problems (Short Rests last for 1 hour, meaning sometimes it’s more effective to go all 8 hours and get a Long Rest, meaning all Short Rest-recoverable abilities suddenly turn into daily effects); that said, it would be comparable to Action Surge, which is a phenomenal Fighter class feature.

Divine Health: An old stalwart, this makes you immune to all diseases. No biggie. Somewhat more important because, again, Paladins have no Constitution save proficiency.

Sacred Oath: Another feature with its own section, but to boot: it gives you more spells, it gives you Channel Divinity (read: Turn Undead), a new aura and a cool class feature.

Ability Score Improvement: Paladins get five Ability Score Improvements, much like all other races (save for the Fighter and the Rogue).

Extra Attack: This ability allows you to attack twice when making the Attack action. Remember you can move and attack, so you can spread your attacks (and make a “full” attack after moving). You can also Shove and Attack, which is a strong tactic now. A necessity for a martial character.

Aura of Protection: Ahem. SQUEEEEEEEEEE! Holy mother of all that’s Good and Sacred, this is why I want to be a Paladin, dammit! In case you haven’t figured: it’s Divine Grace, gained a bit late. However, it’s now an Area of Effect, making the Paladin the ONLY class to grant the HIGHEST saving throw bonus. It’s still based on your Charisma (but isn’t it obvious that you’re a sucker for Charisma!?), so chances are you’ll get a +5 to ALL your saves, PLUS you grant that to all allies. So yeah: 20 Constitution, 20 Charisma, and you get a +10 to your Constitution save. This is probably why having no Constitution save proficiency wasn’t an issue, but to me, this is the ultimate example of WHY a Paladin had to have Constitution save proficiency. How else can you make a character implacable? I mean, a +16 to your Constitution save would have meant effectively permanent Concentration effects. Note that this also means you’re the best friend of ALL casters, since it allows them to extend their Concentration-based spells. Oh, and it also works with all other saves, but chances are those saves won’t be as high.

Aura of Courage: Although somewhat late, this version of Aura of Courage is actually worthwhile. You still retain immunity to the frightened condition (fear effects have been collapsed to frightened now), but now you grant that benefit to all allies. That said: you are already factually immune, and the Aura of Protection you gain earlier on actually makes failing a save against Frightened somewhat difficult.
In case granting immunity to the frightened condition and a whopping +5 bonus to all saves wasn’t enough, the Paladin has another nifty gift by 18th level. The range of all these auras triple, meaning you don’t need to be that close (and thus set up for a Fireball) to gain the benefit. This also includes the auras gained via Sacred Oath.

Improved Divine Smite: Jumpin’ Jehosaphat on a Pogo Stick; is there a way to make this any better? The Cleric has a way to add 1d8 to its attacks, but no Extra Attacks unless it multiclasses; the Fighter has lots of attacks but requires spending a not-exactly renewable resource (Superiority Dice) to gain the extra 1d8 (or higher) on its attacks, and only if they take a specific Martial Archetype (the Battlemaster). The Paladin has both the damage AND the Extra Attack, but it also applies to any other attack. Two-Weapon Fighting? All attacks get the extra damage. Opportunity Attacks? All the attacks gain the extra damage. Compared to the Cleric’s Divine Strike, this works with every attack, not just one. It’s also right when you cross the half-mark threshold, so it’s pretty good. AND it stacks with Divine Smite.

Cleansing Touch: This is a genuinely new class feature, though probably based on a 4e power (or a 3.5 Alternate Class Feature). This feature is separate from Lay on Hands, and has limited uses (up to your Charisma modifier), but it allows you to end one spell on yourself or one willing creature. In other words: Break Enchantment, people! Well, only applying to ONE spell, but it’s automatic and requires no roll. Petrified? Cleansing Touch. Polymorphed and about to lose your mind? Difficult on yourself, but you can help an ally with Cleansing Touch. It’s not clear whether it works only with ongoing (read: Concentration-based) spells or with any other spell, but it’s clearly good.
Let’s face it; you may have missed it. All classes get a capstone. Some are fascinating (Primal Champion, Stroke of Luck, Signature Spell), others are disappointing (Foe Slayer, Perfect Self, Eldritch Master to an extent), and others are improvement to earlier features (the 3rd Extra Attack for a total of 4 attacks, Divine Intervention at 100% chance of success) However, ALL classes get a capstone, right?

You may notice that the Paladin also has a capstone, but instead of being a specific one (You turn into a Celestial creature! …For example), it is a mutable one. Yes, this is a unique aspect of the Paladin, in that its capstone is related to its choice of Sacred Oath. Most subclass options end at 18th level, but the Paladin is unique in that it ends at 20th level, making it the ONLY class that has MORE than one capstone. So there’s your capstone. Interesting, huh?

Sacred Oaths

By now, other than the loss of the capstone, you might be missing something. In all editions save for 4th, the Paladin has a shackle that it can’t ignore: the Code of Conduct. The discussions are decenal (think millenary, but speaking in terms of decades and not of millions of years): “my DM forced me to fall”; “how can I make my Paladin player fall?”, and so on. 4th Edition broke with this paradigm, and 5th attempted to bridge this.

It just happened that they needed a flavorful and mechanically sound subclass. Thus, they bound the old Code of Conduct with the concept of the Subclass and created the Sacred Oaths.

More than any other class, the Paladin’s choice of Sacred Oath affects the character’s roleplaying and mechanical aspects. Rather than have a single kind of character (the holy knight crusading against evil), the Paladin is defined by the oath it takes. Based on that oath, it gains unique powers that follow a similar format, but are distinct from each other. On the other hand, they are somewhat bound to follow the tenets of the oath, or else they may end up losing their powers (or gaining access to the Oathbreaker). However, the penalty for the transgression is not immediate revocation of its powers, so it allows for fallible Paladins that nonetheless strive to follow the good path.

To which I say: about fraggin’ time, Wizards! (No, the “Paladins don’t care about Oaths anymore” doesn’t count.)

Because they’re what defines each type of Paladin, all Sacred Oaths are treated separately, and evaluated as a whole and as the sum of their parts. The format used will be similar to the one I used for Archetypes in my Pathfinder Paladin Guide, specifically on…what else, the Oaths. Two things merit their own discussion:

Oath Spells: All Sacred Oaths grant the Paladin their own set of spells. These spells work a lot like a Cleric’s Domain (or the Warlock’s Otherworldly Patron), in which they can expand the Paladin’s list of spells (and also expand the list of spells they can prepare). All Paladins get 10 spells from each Oath, and they don’t need to prepare the spell to cast it: they know it automatically (meaning a 20th level Paladin with Charisma 20 has actually 25 prepared spells). These are the same amount of spells gained as the Cleric and the Warlock via their subclasses, so they’re mostly equivalent. The levels indicated are when you get the spell, not its spell level.
Channel Divinity: All Sacred Oaths grant the Paladin two sets of Channel Divinity options. This is a concept from 4th Edition, where you had a unified method of Channeling Divinity that makes it unique to each deity, except in this case it varies by Oath. You can Channel Divinity only ONCE PER SHORT REST, so make sure that decision counts. On the other hand, by being recovered as a Short Rest, that means you’re not entirely limited to one use per round. You do get less uses than a Cleric overall, though.

Oath of Devotion: A Paladin swearing this oath upholds, protects and serves the Greater Good and the Law, adhering to rigid standards of conduct. In other words: vanilla Paladin flavor.
Channel Divinity – Sacred Weapon: 1/Short Rest add Charisma modifier to attack rolls for 1 minute; weapon becomes magical and emits light (20 ft. bright/20 ft. dim) while the effect lasts. It’s a strange mix, but an effective one: it’s like Bless Weapon (in terms of bypassing resistance against non-magical weapons), but mixed with a great benefit.

Channel Divinity – Turn the Unholy: 1/Short Rest, each fiend or undead within 30 ft. is turned if it fails a Wisdom save. In other words: the Cleric’s Turn Undead ability, but boosted to add Fiends as well (and usable only once per round). Can be useful when surrounded by Undead or Fiends, and you want them to disperse a bit instead of ganging up on you. The Wisdom save is based on your spell save DC.

Aura of Devotion: You and all creatures within 10 ft. (30 ft. at 18th level) gain immunity to charmed effect while you’re conscious. Shamelessly lifted Inspired from the Pathfinder Paladin’s Aura of Resolve, except it’s better because it grants immunity to everyone else, and the area gets wide enough.

Purity of Spirit: Permanent Protection from Evil and Good effect. The spell changed between editions, eschewing the bonuses for applying Disadvantage, which is pretty nasty. Also, it is race-based, rather than alignment-based. You gain immunity to possession as well, since you’re already immune to charmed and frightened (because of your auras). Because of the actual immunities, you’re mostly using this for the Disadvantage, which means you’re darn hard to kill because opponents have two chances to fail against your (arguably high) AC.

Holy Nimbus: The Devotion capstone; create an aura of sunlight (30 ft. bright/30 ft. dim) for 1 minute, which damages opponents that start their round inside the bright area (10 radiant); gain advantage on saving throws against spells of fiends and undead. A decent combination of offense (damage over time, and radiant is pretty hard to resist) and resilience (Disadvantage on attacks and spells means you’re hard to pin down), but somewhat poor compared to the other two.

Oath Spells: 3rd—Protection from Evil and Good, Sanctuary, 5th—Lesser Restoration, Zone of Truth, 9th—Beacon of Hope, Dispel Magic, 13th—Freedom of Movement, Guardian of Faith, 17th—Commune, Flame Strike

Tenets: This oath is essentially the traditional Code of Conduct, but revised and tempered. It’s actually better explained: you still can’t lie or cheat, and you must aid and protect the weak, but you must also treat others fairly, be fearless, do as much good with the least amount of harm, and most importantly, be responsible for your acts. Duty also adds the “respect legitimate authority”, but only authority over you, and only if it’s just. So, again: revised Code of Conduct.

Oath of the Ancients: A Paladin swearing this oath devotes its life to protect the beauty of nature and to take the side of Light against Darkness. 4e players may recognize the Warden in this Oath, but for the most part it is a unique interpretation of the Paladin.
Channel Divinity – Nature’s Wrath: 1/Short Rest ensnare a foe (apply restrained effect) unless (or until) it succeeds on a Strength or Dexterity save (against your spell save DC). Somewhat pisspoor unless the target has Disadvantage against your saves.

Channel Divinity – Turn the Faithless: 1/Short Rest, each fey or fiend within 30 ft. is turned if it fails a Wisdom save; reveal creature if hiding behind illusions or shapeshifting. Like Turn Undead (and Turn the Unholy), except it affects fey instead of undead and has a rider effect.

Aura of Warding: You and all creatures within 10 ft. (30 ft. at 18th level) gain resistance to damage from spells. This is HUGE; almost the same kind of protection as Aura of Protection, but adding another layer. In short: you make the live of all Evokers twice as hard. Paladins get Circle of Power which grants Advantage on spells, which means you can reduce spell damage by a fourth. Most likely the best aura after Aura of Protection, if not better.

Undying Sentinel: 1/long rest, if dropped to 0 hit points but not killed, drop to 1 hit point instead; ignore drawbacks of old age and can’t be aged. In short: once per day (pretty much) you can last for probably one more round (that valuable round that turns the tide of battle) and you gain the benefits of Timeless Body as well. Makes you slightly harder to kill, but not for that much.

Elder Champion: The Ancients’ capstone; assume a fey-like form that grants fast healing 10, allows casting certain Paladin spells as bonus actions and impose Disadvantage on saving throws against your Paladin spells and Channel Divinity options. Read the first two again very closely. Yes: for 1 minute (and only 1/day), you get fast healing AND Battle Blessing. You’re already hard to kill, and this not only makes you HARDER to kill, but also lets you cast spells and make full attacks, something the College of War Bard and the Eldritch Knight Fighter only DREAM of. Arguably the best of the Paladin’s capstones, bar none.

Oath Spells: 3rd—Ensnaring Strike, Speak with Animals, 5th—Moonbeam, Misty Step, 9th—Plant Growth, Protection from Energy, 13th—Ice Storm, Stoneskin, 17th—Commune with Nature, Tree Stride

Tenets: The Oath’s tenets involve being the champion of Light: be kind, merciful, forgiving; fight against those who would ruin all that’s good and beautiful; admire art and song, and look for great deeds. In other words: take a hint of Tinkerbell, mix it with a dash of a Swashbuckler, a shot of Bard, a drop of hedonism…well, it is a pretty complicated set of tenets, I can say. Mostly: do good, fight evil, and cheer up sad pandas. That’s pretty much it.

Oath of Vengeance: A Paladin swearing this oath is implacable in its fight against evil, at all costs. Basically: Powder Keg of Justice + Grey Guard as a subclass
Channel Divinity – Abjure Enemy: 1/Short Rest, one target within 60 ft. is frightened if it fails a Wisdom saving throw (Fiends and Undead have Disadvantage) for 1 minute or until hit; target also acts as if restrained. This feature is pretty decent, particularly since it has a “suck it” effect on a successful save. It’s not really meant to disable an opponent, but rather to stop it from leaving; however, you can use it as a way of leaving an opponent for last (such as stopping the BBEG or its Dragon while mowing mooks or dealing with the most difficult target).

Channel Divinity – Vow of Enmity: 1/Short Rest, gain Advantage on attack rolls against single creature for 1 round. This is a pretty nice ability, though somewhat diminished by Sacred Weapon. However, if you have a high attack bonus, chances are it can help on overall damage by denying you the chance of low rolls. Use it on bosses, pretty much.
Major UPDATE: Now that the Oath of Conquest has Guided Strike, it's time to re-evaluate. See, as I mentioned, it's not better IMO than Sacred Weapon, but it's definitely better than Guided Strike. Vow of Enmity has great worth on late-game fights, where you'll probably have one big fight before a Long Rest, so it's more than obvious going Nova is the key. If you can identify the biggest threat, you can use Oath of Enmity and take it down ASAP. In that case, affecting only one creature and being used pretty much only once really don't diminish its worth. Plus, as mentioned, it's a bonus action. That means it has competition with Hunter's Mark, but on the other hand, you start hitting hard from the very beginning, and it's not like you can't cast HM before approaching the target, no?

Relentless Avenger: Hit target with Opportunity Attack, move up to half your speed after doing so. This is a weird move, but it works. Ideally, rather than pursuing your opponent, you cut off its path of escape to allow you another Opportunity Attack next round. Somewhat less useful with the Sentinel feat and/or Polearm Master, but the movement rate is fairly high enough to set up controlled movement towards a bunch of enemies.

Soul of Vengeance: Target of Vow of Enmity provokes Opportunity Attacks when making its own attack. Normally, this would be a truly awesome move, since it’s effectively Robilar’s Gambit and/or Karmic Strike coupled with a variant of Opportunist, except without penalties. So far, so good; the problem is that it won’t work unless you use Vow of Enmity, and you only have one use of it per short rest (which, in some cases, it could be once per day). On the other hand, it increases your attacks per round even if the target focuses on you, since it’ll provoke an Opportunity Attack no matter what it does (unless it casts a spell or something, maybe).

Avenging Angel: The Vengeance capstone; for 1 hour you gain 60 ft. flight speed and aura of menace (30 ft. radius, Wisdom save or be frightened for 1 minute or until damaged, and attack rolls against the creature have Advantage). The flight speed for 1 hour is great, but somewhat late. The Aura of Menace, on the other hand, wants to make me cry: the DC is fairly high (based on your spell save DC), but the effect lasts for at least 1 round and is no longer penalized. The effect is not THAT great to matter: in many ways, it’s Abjure Enemy as an emanation. Still better than Nimbus of Light, and that’s saying something (flight is ALWAYS good, and the Aura of Menace means you can demoralize mooks while focusing on the real deal).

Oath Spells: 3rd—Bane, Hunter’s Mark, 5th—Hold Person, Misty Step, 9th—Haste, Protection from Energy, 13th—Banishment, Dimension Door, 17th—Hold Monster, Scrying

Tenets: If anything, this Oath has the most flexible tenet: choose to fight the greater evil over lesser ones, by all means necessary, and without mercy. Show your brass spheres with pride! There is one little caveat, though: you still should offer mercy to foes other than your sworn enemies, you’re not given carte blanche to do Evil, and you’re duty-bound to provide restitution to those hurt by your enemies. This last one is the actual caveat: you’re implacable, but still noble at heart. I actually like this tenet, because it lets you be a badass and still be noble enough to matter.

Oathbreaker: Missed the Blackguard? Well, the Oathbreaker is what happens when you break your Sacred Oath and fully embrace Evil. These are meant to be Evil characters (and probably won’t be accessible to you; quite the contrary, you’ll have to face them), but if you can snatch one…

Channel Divinity – Control Undead: 1/Short Rest, one undead creature within 30 ft. must succeed on a Wisdom save or obey your commands for 24 hours. A pretty useful way to get a temporary ally, and the higher your level, the better the creature becomes. If your saving throw DC grows up to be high enough, you could even snatch a Lich! But, again – it relies on having a high saving throw DC, and that the enemy’s Challenge rating isn’t higher than yours.
Channel Divinity – Dreadful Aspect: 1/Short Rest, each creature within 30 ft. of you must make a Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute; they are allowed new saves if they’re more than 30 ft. away from you. The frightened condition is pretty nice, but the way the frightened condition works means that they’ll pretty much always have a chance to save, as they’ll spend the round running away from you. That said, on creatures with lousy Wisdom saves, it’s a superb debuff.
Aura of Hate: You and any fiend or undead within 10 ft. gain a bonus to melee weapon damage rolls equal to your Charisma modifier. Hot. Dang! Since you ALWAYS benefit from it (as well as any creature that you control via your Channel Divinity), you’re effectively adding your Charisma to your damage rolls, meaning you hit pretty hard. At 18th level, the aura naturally improves to 30 ft., so your undead creature doesn’t have to be close. On a party with a Necromancer Wizard, this is insane.
Supernatural Resistance: You gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from non-magical weapons, which is pretty par for the course. You do get it late, though, and it’s not like the Aura of Warding from the Oath of the Ancients which works against what high-level creatures might be constantly using. Most high-CR enemies also count their weapons as magical, so…
Dread Lord: The Oathbreaker capstone; for 1 minute you create an aura that reduces light around you, allows you to protect allies by granting enemies disadvantage on their attack rolls, and any frightened opponent on range automatically takes 4d10 psychic damage, no save and no action whatsoever. This already makes it one hell of a capstone, but you get ONE more thing – as a bonus action, you can make a melee spell attack (using your Charisma, natch) and deal 3d10 + Cha mod. worth of necrotic damage as well, so you’re always dealing damage! Against a frightened enemy with no resistances, that’s a pretty hefty amount of damage while doing pretty much nothing. Of course, it’s a long rest action, but it’s one hell of a capstone.
Oath Spells: 3rd— hellish rebuke, inflict wounds; 5th – crown of madness, darkness; 9th – animate dead, bestow curse; 13th – blight, confusion; 17th – contagion (with slimy doom), dominate person
Tenets: None! Yes, the Oathbreaker exists because you broke tenets, so why follow them? That said – you are evil. Changing your alignment to any non-evil and demonstrating it makes you lose your powers and grants eligibility to any of the other Sacred Oaths, so might as well consider if it’s worthwhile to change alignment. Even being a rocky neutral won’t work.

Oath of the Crown (DR): Yay, a new Oath! You choose to uphold the virtues of civilization (you're not gonna be close friends with your party druid, tho), and while you can follow a deity of law and righteousness, you don't necessarily have to - you could gain your power from defending the values of your country or following your ruler's wisdom (or lack of it).

Channel Divinity - Champion Challenge: Creatures of your choice within 30 ft. must make a Wisdom saving throw or cannot move more than 30 ft. away from you. In short - a taunt. Archers won't mind, but melee creatures will have it somewhat difficult to ignore you. That's basically the intent, right? Except that, if you get incapacitated or move 30 ft. away from them, the effect ends. Kinda weak, particularly when your aura gets better, as allies will have to be very close, right where those melee creatures are.
Channel Divinity - Turn the Tide: Heal 1d6 + Cha mod to all allies within 30 ft. less than half their hit points. While not entirely solid, it's still good as an emergency heal, sorta like your Lay on Hands. Best use of Channel Divinity for the Oath.
Divine Allegiance (DR): As a reaction, take damage for ally within 5 ft. Alright, so the range is hilariously small, but hey - it's textbook Damage Redirection. You, the frickin' tank with mondo HP and defenses up the wazoo, takes damage for the squishy. For most people, it's nice. For a Damage Redirection specialist, it's the closest thing to the Holy Grail.
Unyielding Spirit: Advantage on saving throws against being paralyzed or stunned. This is very nice - between your Aura of Protection, your likely high Constitution and this, it has to take a really nasty DC or a bout of bad luck to be hit with these...and they can be nasty (paralysis specifically, since it can be tantamount to instant death).
Exalted Champion:: The capstone: as an action, for 1 hour you gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons, you and allies gain advantage on death saves and Wisdom saving throws. While the Oath of Devotion and Oath of the Ancients have cooler capstones, this one is effective in a spartan way (aka, boring but practical). What it does is make you undefeatable in war. Advantage on Wisdom saving throws (which are one of your highest) works well against most spellcasters using mind-affecting abilities.
Oath Spells: 3rd— command, compelled duel; 5th – warding bond (DR), zone of truth; 9th – aura of vitality, spirit guardians; 13th – banishment, guardian of faith; 17th – circle of power, geas
Tenets: You wanted a more Lawful Paladin? Here's it - this is a Lawful Paladin first and foremost. Sure - Courage is seen as good, but the way it's written, it's more "take the courage to follow the law". Heck: the first of the tenets is Law, and not just in the figurative sense. Loyalty? Also a lawful thing, though also suitable for Chaotic people who want to survive. I do like the last one - Responsibility, where you have to know the consequences of your actions and act upon them. This is the one that strikes me the most "good", and even then, it's more wise than good.

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-24, 04:34 PM

Approaches to the Paladin

Part of various Optimization Guides meant for Paladin players deal with the challenge of the Code of Conduct and how Paladins lose their powers through “gross violations”, including ways on how to roleplay a Paladin without falling and/or playing it too harshly (the oft-mentioned “Lawful Stupid” method of play, the one that does Detect+Smite first and then asks questions). 5th Edition broke in a way with this trend, but the existence of Sacred Oaths still suggest the idea that a Paladin must be played carefully, particularly because a suggestion for unruly Paladins is to force a class change, so the threat of “falling” is still imminent.

This section deals with this, but also on the mechanical approaches to play a Paladin: that is, the most effective strategies in terms of their combat styles.

Roleplaying a Paladin

Although the Paladin has changed from its early incarnation of a virtuous knight into a champion of the Faith, playing one can be still a challenge. There is a lot of baggage regarding what it means to be a Paladin and how to be an effective one, and this is complicated further by the existence of Backgrounds and the implications of Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds and Flaws (explained later) and the Tenets of Sacred Oaths (mentioned below).

First, let’s dismiss some of the misconceptions of the Paladin, shall we?

The Paladin must be Good: mostly, but that is no longer the case. 4th Edition broke with that concept almost a decade ago, so it no longer applies. 5th Edition chose to backtrack by giving the class a very strong vibe of Good, but the last paragraph that closes the fluff regarding the Paladin mentions that they are “rarely of any evil alignment”. Certainly, a Paladin *could* be Lawful Evil, but it would conflict with its choice of Sacred Oath. That doesn’t mean a Paladin can’t be any Neutral, and the Oath of Vengeance certainly requires some degree of Neutrality (as in, they are tainted by spite to be genuinely Good; that doesn’t mean they can’t, but most of the time, they can’t worry about being Good when Evil is spreading out).
Paladins must serve a deity: not necessarily. There’s a huge step between Faith and deity. In fact, and this is something I might be partly guilty about, but a Paladin doesn’t need to be a believer in religion to devote to said cause. Certainly, a Paladin must believe, but their belief and devotion doesn’t need to be to gods; they can be devoted to an ideal (to the ideal of Good itself, to the ideal of Chivalry, to the ancient idea of Light, or some other ideal). This is true in worlds where worship of a deity is almost mandatory for access to divine magic (such as Faerun and Krynn), but for the most part, the default is that a Paladin doesn’t need to be a believer to be a Paladin.
A Paladin will fall if it fails its tenets: yes and no. The “sidebar” on the PHB regarding “Breaking your Oath” mentions that a Paladin is fallible; it’s not perfect, and it can fail. However, the penance is very light, in fact lighter than before: certainly not the 1st/2nd Edition concept of “fail once, fall forever” or the lighter 3.x version of “fail once, fall until atoned”. In this edition, falling is solely the discretion of the DM, and only if s/he deems it appropriate, and even then it requires that the Paladin is unwilling to repent. Certainly, this is a delicate matter: if you repent but keep doing the same things (and you’re not on the Oath of Vengeance), are you truly repentant? This is a philosophical discussion more than a mechanical one, but the general gist is that, as long as you try to follow your tenets and repent when you don’t, you’ll eventually get the hang of it and stop doing it, therefore not becoming liable to fall. This comes in line with the “apprentice levels” of Paladinhood, and in fact, a 2nd level Paladin isn’t liable to fall as it hasn’t taken its vows yet.

The following are especially suitable to the Oath of Devotion, given that it inherited the baggage of the Code of Conduct:

A Paladin can’t lie, ever, even if s/he doesn’t know what you say is a lie. Note the name of the tenet is “Honesty”: if you don’t honestly know it’s a lie, then you couldn’t have lied; for all you know, it’s the truth. It means something, though: you’re not going to lie deliberately. Lying to protect someone, particularly if you swore to protect someone (following your promise) might be more honest (honest to yourself and to the person you swore to protect) than telling the truth (because then you break the spirit).
A Paladin seeking tactical advantages is cheating. Not really; in fact, that’d be the opposite. A Paladin that doesn’t seek a tactical advantage is either reckless, careless, or naïve. Note that nowhere does it say that a Paladin can’t use poison (something that the other editions treated as anathema), but it means that you’ll seek to be fair in all possible ways.
A Paladin can’t run away from battle. The tenet of Courage is pretty clear in this: “[taking] caution is wise”. If the battle is too difficult, it takes a lot of Courage to accept it and run, but at least you’ll stay to provide others with a way to escape. Once they do, then caution implies that you should remain alive if possible.
A Paladin must be always merciful. To an extent, yes, but again: “[…] temper it with wisdom”. If you know someone will betray you, they insulted your mercy, and thus they can’t be allowed to live.
A Paladin must blindly obey those who have authority over you, even if they order you to do something against your tenets. Obedience and blind obedience are very different: obedient involves showing respect, while blind obedience implies a lack of common sense. If someone orders you to do something against your beliefs (coupled in your Tenets, and to an extent in your Ideal and Bond), you have the right to question why. The response will determine if the one who has authority over you is exercising that authority correctly or not. Remember that you are also bound to be responsible for your actions and their consequences, and if you consider those actions will stain your honor and cause much ill (and would cause you to break your tenets), chances are you’d do worse by following the order than refusing to, and that the person who ordered you to do so has breached its own “just authority”.

These are especially fitting for the Oath of the Ancients, being the more “lax” of the three:

The Paladin must protect everything that provides beauty and laughter, even bars and brothels. That is debatable, but think of it this way: the Oath of the Ancients prefers a more natural approach to beauty, love, song and laughter than that of civilization. Beauty is only skin deep, and laughter can hide deep sorrow. The Paladin that follows the Oath of the Ancients seeks to protect genuine beauty (that of people who are noble and kind in word and deed, even if they don’t ascribe to higher standards) and genuine laughter (the one of a child, or that of a good joke, or of an entertaining act). If the bar (or the brothel) provides that genuine happiness, then chances are they’re worth protecting. As a Paladin of the Ancients, you might notice that is genuine when people of that place approach you: even as business, a place to protect is one where they make you feel like family, and that probably hear your sorrows and help you forget them, or even solve them.
The Paladin must “delight in song and laughter, in beauty and art”; therefore, it must be a hedonist. That isn’t entirely true, but it’s pretty close: you’re still a warrior of the Light, first and foremost. You’re not enjoying things because of personal pleasure; you’re doing it because it’s important to others. You may spend time enjoying it (in fact, it’s part of your tenets), but mostly when others do; in many ways, you share that joy rather than hog it. A hedonist wouldn’t.

This one is especially fitting for the Oath of Vengeance, being darker in nature:

Vengeance at all costs. That is one of the tenets, actually, but the tenet of Restitution is there to temper it. To put it in simpler terms: if you’re looking for ideas, think of the Punisher (from Marvel) and the Eradicator (from DC) as exaggerations of the Oath of Vengeance. A Vengeance Paladin isn’t worried about staining itself in the fight against evil, but deep down, it still has a seed of Good within. Restitution is the way they do so; after beating down the orcs that ravage the village, reconstruct it. There’s always a greater Evil in the world, but for the time being, it hasn’t shown yet. Perhaps there is still some evil in the area (maybe a thief who wants to take advantage of the run-down village to pilfer), but that should be the least of your concern; if the thief shows, then give him/her a lesson. The Vengeance Paladin works with priorities, and they’re always shifting.

These bits fit most the Oath of the Crown, the newest of the Sacred Oaths and the more "Lawful" one:

"The Law is Paramount". Take this with a big grain of salt - remember that, by choosing the Oath of the Crown, you're not necessarily forced to be Good or Evil. What your moral compass does is dictate how that Law is absolute. If you're Good-aligned, Law must work to serve the greater Good, not to serve the whims of others; an Evil-aligned one might think the opposite, and a Neutral character will rarely question the law. That said, the biggest conflict comes as follows - to what extent do I follow the Law? When you're in a lawless place, you ARE the Law, and most likely, you'll follow the Law of your country or deity; after all, you are the champion of Law. If you're on a place with different laws, then it's best to follow those. When those laws conflict with those of your country, consider your country's relationship to it. The blurb of the tenet is what makes it easier to comprehend; it is the setting stone of civilization, so your adherence to the law works to the extent it upholds, forms and strengthens civilization.
A Lawful Paladin cannot relate with a Chaotic character. Well, that's pretty wrong - you can relate with a Chaotic character. You don't have to police that character, but you have the gift of gab and the strength of arms to gently (or strong-armed) indicate s/he's stepping on your beliefs. You're NOT the party's police - you adhere to the rules, the rest doesn't have to. However, if they constantly offend your beliefs, kindly (or firmly) give them notice that you're not stepping on theirs. Remember responsibility - everyone is responsible for their actions, so if they screw it up, let them deal with it. When they see the party doesn't support them, they'll learn responsibility.

As you can see, there are various misconceptions that could be taken from a strict reading of the Tenets of each Oath. The Oath of Devotion, being the closest to the old Code of Conduct, will have the largest amount of misconceptions, but the other two could easily bring a headache to any player with a sadistic DM, or to any DM with a disruptive player (or shared between the sadistic DM and the disruptive player). Note that this is completely subjective, as some might end up being exaggerations made for the sake of an example, but they are still valid nonetheless as they can exist in a lesser, but still disruptive, degree.

The following are ways to play Paladins, from the trouble-less to the awesome:

Powder Keg of Justice: as shown by the elegan/tg/entlemen in 4chan, a Paladin doesn’t have to fear falling. In fact, it may actually seek to fall. The trick in here is to understand the nature of sacrifice: how far are you willing to tarnish yourself, when the time comes? As sir Peter Fairgrave would say, “is this the moment I’ve been waiting for? Is this action worthy enough to make my eventual fall necessary?” A Powder Keg of Justice shows restraint, but gently and sternly mentions everyone that the fuse is really short. It’s not the Paladin who should worry about that one wrong step that makes them fall; it should be Evil who worries, because once the Paladin falls, so do the fetters. That anger and that resentment towards Evil is gone in a flash, and you only remain with the Unfettered. The Oath of Vengeance was made with this kind of character in mind. Your Ideal would be Sacrifice, and your Flaw would be the very definition of the Powder Keg.
The Martyr: worrying about falling means that you’re worried about dying. Plain and simple: you’re not there to give the ultimate sacrifice, you’re there for the shiny bling and the attitude that comes with it. A Paladin who’s willing to give his or her life for the sake of others is a Paladin who doesn’t care about falling. After all: if you die after the fall, that means your deity is (or the forces of Good are) angry with you. You’re the first to engage, and the last to leave, and you’re sure not to die until everyone leaves safely. Once that happens, well…you stay, and you finish the battle until the very end. If you die, chances are your deity (or your friends) will come back, ready to revive you. If they don’t…expect tales of bravery and heroism from you. The Oath of Devotion is the one that fits the most, but all Oaths could harbor martyrs. The choice of background is not as important, but the choice of Ideal is: Faith, Greater Good, and Responsibility fit nicely.
The Surgical Smiter: sometimes, the most effective way to deal with evil is just cutting it from the root. However, what to do when there’s so much Evil in the world? The forces of Good left you quite a bit of tools to fulfill this: a keen sense to detect Evil in people’s hearts, a mark that makes the poor fool writhe as you land every blow unopposed, a strong arm to hit like a truck, and spells that make your blow even more lethal. You spend every time of your day looking for the signs: you don’t care about the small fries, after all. You’re merciful; letting them live because they’re beneath your notice is as much mercy as they can get, because at the moment they cross you, they find out why you’re divinely empowered. However, when you get to see that person whose very presence churns your stomach and burns your eyes, that’s the moment where you smite that bastard into utter oblivion. Do so, clean your blade, set the bloodstain as an example of what happens to those that fall into depravation, and leave. Trust me; when people see that, they’ll be flooding into redemption. Just make sure to drop classics such as “that could have been you”, or “my blade is merciful, for it desires no further blood; you may want to think about that”. The Surgical Smiter overlaps a bit with the Powder Keg of Justice, but whereas the PKoJ uses the threat of force as a weapon, the Surgical Smiter uses directed force as a threat. Another dead-on for the Oath of Vengeance, particularly on the second and third tenets. If you plan to be a Surgical Smiter, you’ll benefit greatly from the Outlander background, particularly using the Bounty Hunter origin (particularly for Survival, to find the next target). Fitting Ideals are Responsibility (“Only I can deal with the greatest of Evils”), Retribution (“Make Evil pay for what it does to those Good”) or, ironically, Might (“Crush Evil where it stands, and it will never stand up again”)
The Knight in Sour Armor: most people expect the Paladin to have armor as shiny as the sun, and a brain just as scrubbed. Sadly, when you see Evil in the face, it sees you back, and it marks you (you know, just as you mark Evil for obliteration). Yes, you are Good, but you’re definitely not Nice. You’re not looking for Evil to slay; you’re looking for that bit of Good that makes everything worthwhile, but while at it, you’re as offensive as the smell of a troglodyte clutch. You know for a fact that the party’s friendly Rogue is just waiting for its time to steal your stuff and make a run for it, and you’re perfectly willing to fight for HIS share because he’ll eventually take it anyways. All you know is that you’re the only Good guy, that there’s probably some good out there, but if it is, it’s well hidden and precious. Sometimes, when you really find genuine Goodness, you drop the charade and maybe believe in idealism again, but for the meanwhile, you choose to fight the good fight until the world ends, because the world’s gonna end anyway. Might as well start the eventual fight against Evil by now, rather than hope it never happens, right? The Oath of Vengeance fits a Knight in Sour Armor, but so does the Oath of Devotion; both are opposites in approach, though (the Vengeance KiSA is not the reason, but the greatest example of the Restitution Tenet, while the Devotion KiSA fits the “Good is not Nice” trope). The Noble and Soldier backgrounds are good fits, and for extra irony, the Folk Hero (what happens when the good and noble hero suffers many defeats and becomes jaded, but not broken). Good Ideals involve Responsibility (“I must fight the good fight for the sake of others”), Sincerity (“I know the world is a dark, rotten place. Does it look like I care? Because I do.”)
The Exemplar: going through the path of idealism, you could prefer to set the example rather than chastise everyone about it. If people see that being Good is its own reward, and that the reward is good, then people will turn to Good in a heartbeat. You’re probably nice to people, willing to help in every bit, and eager to accept change, because change is possible. Just remember: you’re there to set the example. Sometimes, setting the example means showing why Evil doesn’t pay. The Exemplar doesn’t have to be ALWAYS nice; just pepper that niceness with some grimness, and you’re set for life. People will want to be in your nice side rather than seeing the bad side come forth. Maybe being grim hurts, but eventually, you’ll let that sit aside. You’re willing to forgive and forget, but eventually, when the CN fool believes that he finally got into your nerves, you gently set the example of why it’s not nice to play with the Dragon. Gently set the example to the haughty mage who thinks he can solve everything that there are bigger fish to fry. Just know when to smile. Paladins who swear the Oaths of the Ancients are excellent fits (a big deal of their tenets is to live and breathe being a follower of the Light), but those who swear Oaths of Devotion also work. The Entertainer background is a great fit for you, as well as the Guild Artisan, focusing on the Beauty or Aspiration ideals (respectively)
Sergeant Rock: sometimes, it’s best to take the reins of the group rather than play with them. However, there’s nothing that people respect more than efficiency, and you’re built for it. You set the rules, you set the tactics, you leave the Rogue to rot because he didn’t follow your rules, but there’s one good reason for it. It works. Don’t nag people because what they do offends you; quite the contrary, point to them that all the bad stuff that happens to them is because of their own damn fault. In battle and out of battle, work as a well-greased unit. Oftentimes, it’ll be the offender who leaves, not you...and when his (or her) luck runs dry, then it’s the time for the lecture to end all lectures. This is more of an “expert” character, meant for expert players who are teaching newbies the rungs of the game. In that way, you can take leadership, and probably teach people how to respect a Paladin. The Oath of Devotion is fit for this, as Chivalry demands an inspiring leader, but those Paladins following the Oath of the Ancients could also gallantly set the example. This method of play fits perfectly with the Soldier (particularly if the Military Rank is of an Officer), but Nobles (particularly of the Knight variant) are also fair fits. Good Ideals to follow are Aspiration (“I’ll make Good out of my ragtag bunch of partners”) or Responsibility (“I must hold their leash, or we’ll all get into trouble”; think Roy Greenhilt for how a Sergeant Rock with this ideal works).

Gaming a Paladin

Mechanically speaking, a Paladin is a “combat-focused” character, akin to the Fighter. This is in contrast with the Rogue, who merely dabbles in combat but focuses more on skills, to the Cleric that focuses on divine magic (healing, buffing and laying divine fury) and the Wizard, who specializes in arcane magic (battlefield control, buffing and dropping the bombs). Your focus is frontline combat; stay in the forefront, and lure enemies to you so that they don’t get

Before we begin, we need to see the ability scores and how they apply to the Paladin. New players will like to see how each ability score applies to the Paladin and why it’s best to leave a few scores behind, while transitioning 3.5 players should look this for re-adjustment.

Strength (SnB, THF, TWF, US, MC)is used to determine your attack rolls and damage rolls with melee weapons, your carrying capacity and your Strength saving throw (bonds and restraints). If you intend to be on the frontlines wielding ANY weapon and dealing enough damage to matter, you need Strength. Also a must if you intend to use Shove or Grapple.
Dexterity (Fen, TWF, Arc)is used to determine your initiative, a portion of your Armor Class (depending on your armor) and your Dexterity saves (halving area of effect attacks, reacting with reflexes). Likewise, it determines the attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons of any kind, as well as melee weapons with the finesse property. As you can see, while having good initiative and padding your Reflex saves is important, you won’t get as much benefit from Dexterity as you’d do with Strength unless you focus on certain weapons. Medium armor fixes how much of your Dexterity modifier you can apply to your Armor Class, and heavy armor eschews it altogether. Being that you don’t have much support for it (you have heavy armor proficiency and no real incentive to use ranged weapons, Dexterity is not that essential (unless you intend to go Light Armor/Ranged Combat). Dex 10 to 14 is fairly good if possible; keep it at 10 if you don’t plan on using this score at all.
Constitution is used to determine your hit points (and the extra amount healed by your Hit Dice when doing a Short Rest) and your Constitution saves (physical ailments, concentration). Being on the frontlines, you need as much hit points as possible, and your lack of proficiency with Constitution saves means you should have this high enough.
Intelligence determines your Intelligence saves (detecting illusions, Maze spell, the Intellect Devourer). Being the least useful skill for you, you can safely dump it (a 10 is fair enough). You draw absolutely nothing from it, and the Intelligence save DCs are often relatively low enough to pass about 50% of the times.
Wisdom is used to determine your Wisdom saving throw (mind-affecting abilities). You have proficiency on Wisdom saves and Aura of Protection works wonders with it. If you don’t use Insight or Medicine that much, you could dump it and lose little, if anything (particularly at 6th level with Aura of Protection kicking in).
Charisma generally is used to determine your success with social skills, and your Charisma saves (probably the rarest of them all, but often used against Banishment spells). Normally, this score would be worthless, but it determines the save DC of your spells, the number of uses of Cleansing Touch (and Divine Sense) and the bonus from your Aura of Protection, so it’s extremely useful for you.

3.5 players will remember that they need to have at least a 14 in Wisdom to cast spells, because the edition made prepared divine spellcasting (the kind of spellcasting that Paladins use) fixed on Wisdom. 5th Edition changed the key ability modifier for Paladin spellcasting to Charisma, so they no longer need to raise Wisdom at all.

Grizzled 3.5 veterans may scare new players with tales of how the Paladin is “MAD”, and not necessarily because being a champion of Good requires being mentally maladjusted. “MAD” is an acronym for “multiple ability dependency”, or the need for a character to depend on multiple ability scores to be effective. Some classes, such as the Wizard or Sorcerer, will depend on a single ability score (Intelligence for Wizards, Charisma for Sorcerers) to be effective because that is the source of their power. Likewise, melee characters will probably focus on Strength (save for some like Rogues which will prefer Dexterity for weapons with the Finesse property), while ranged combat characters will focus on Dexterity. This is known as “single ability dependency”, or SAD, but it seems a bit misleading. A character can, if it wants to, focus on a single ability score, but a well-built character will have two or three scores that are “secondary”. Generally, a Wizard or Sorcerer will have Dexterity or Constitution as its secondary scores, because it wants the traits these offer: good hit points, better AC, high saves related to these two (alongside with Wisdom, they’re the three saves most aimed against), going first in battle, etc. However, the priority for a Wizard or a Sorcerer is its primary ability score, which would be Intelligence or Charisma (respectively). Sometimes, a class may have a primary ability score, but depend on another one so badly that neglecting it will harm the character. For example: a Ranger will often depend on Dexterity for its AC, and can probably focus on Finesse weapons and/or ranged weapons (and Light Armor or the Barkskin spell to pad out its AC), but it also needs Wisdom for its spellcasting, Constitution for its HP and Concentration-duration spells, and even some Strength as Finesse weapons don’t hit as hard. When a class depends greatly on more than four ability scores, it is considered to depend on “multiple abilities” (rather than one [SAD] or two [DAD; “dual-ability dependency”]), and thus is considered “MAD”. Multiple Ability Dependency is a danger, because it either forces you to spread out your ability scores to balance things out, or sacrifice one to empower the others. With good rolls or enough points to buy ability scores, this may not be noticeable, but when you have only one or two good scores, being “MAD” hurts. In 3.5, Paladins depended on good Strength (because they were inclined towards melee combat), Constitution (for their HP and Fortitude saves), Wisdom (for their spellcasting) and Charisma (for their class features), making them MAD. 5th Edition removed the need for Wisdom, making them less “MAD”, making them dependent on mostly Strength and Charisma (with a hint of Constitution). This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t add points (or spend your ability score improvements) only on those scores and not on scores like Intelligence; nothing stops you from doing so. After all, the idea of optimization isn’t to condemn you to cookie-cutter builds, but to take your build and make it more efficient.

“Combat-focused” characters, like Fighters and Paladins, are more efficient when they’re using weapons and tactics to fight, rather than using skills (like the Rogue) or spells (like the Wizard). Being a spellcaster and having class features that allow for healing, the Paladin can certainly focus on its spellcasting or being a combat medic, but this isn’t as efficient as contributing to finishing the battle earlier. The following are the combat styles drawn from the Fighting Styles available to Fighters, Paladins and Rangers: sword & board, fencing, two-hander, archery and two weapons

Sword & Board (SnB): this fighting style relies on using a weapon in one hand (not necessarily a sword) and a shield in the other (the “board”), relying on a combination of offense and defense. Because of bonded accuracy, the added AC bonus from the shield is easily noted, and while two-handed weapons are still kings of damage dealing, the exchange is somewhat equivalent (the two-handed weapon ends up winning because of eventual improvement via magic items, whereas the shield has no such benefit). The signature Fighting Style, Protection, is mostly a tanking style which uses your reaction (often used for Opportunity Attacks) to impose disadvantage on a single attack made by the opponent, which is somewhat disappointing compared to other tactics (such as the Sentinel feat). Sword & Boarders also have access to the Defense and Duelist fighting styles, which increase offensive or defensive capabilities, making them fairly useful overall. If you're using Unearthed Arcana content, the Tunnel Fighter fighting style is also very nice.

Ability Score Priorities: Str > Cha = Con > Wis > Dex > Int
Signature Style: Protection
Options: Defense fighting style, Duelist fighting style, Tunnel Fighter fighting styleUA, Sentinel feat, Shield Master feat

Fencing (Fen): this fighting style relies on using weapons with the Finesse property such as the rapier. Because of this, the style favors Light Armor and high Dexterity, which because of how it applies it allows ignoring Strength to an extent. Finesse weapons deal slightly less damage than Strength-based one-handed weapons or two-handed weapons, but allow using the more favorable Dexterity score. Furthermore, their signature fighting style, Duelist, allows using a shield, therefore providing superb defense in addition to decent offense (almost as good as that of a Sword & Boarder without the Duelist style). Fencers will still like a smidgeon of Strength for the Shove technique, and may want to dip three levels in Fighter or get the Martial Adept feat for Battlemaster maneuvers, in order to use fancy maneuvers reliably. If using Unearthed Arcana content, the Mariner fighting style adds mobility and defense to light armor combat.

Ability Score Priorities: Dex > Cha > Con = Str > Wis > Int
Signature Style: Duelist
Options: Defense fighting style, Mariner fighting styleUA, Martial Adept feat

Two-Hander (THF): this fighting style relies on wielding two-handed weapons and brute force. The simplest of all fighting styles, Two-Handers will deal the highest amount of damage, with a surprisingly lower floor because of Great Weapon Fighting, their signature fighting style. Two-Handers lost their Strength multiplier for wielding a weapon in two hands (this still survives to an extent in weapons like the Longsword and Battleaxe, which have the Versatile property instead, acting like Bastard Swords and Dwarven War-Axes instead), but they still are capable of dealing surprisingly good damage. Great Weapon Master, their key feat, makes them veritable powerhouses by adding the bonus of 3.5’s Power Attack in a fixed ratio, a penalty that is less noticeable with the concept of Advantage. Because they rely on Strength, they also make good use of the Shove maneuver, particularly after getting Extra Attack. Finally, most two-handed weapons have Reach, which while less effective as before, it still can be quite useful.

Ability Score Priorities: Str > Cha = Con > Wis > Dex > Int
Signature Style: Great Weapon Fighting
Options: Great Weapon Master feat, Polearm Master feat

Two-Weapon (TWF): this fighting style relies on wielding a weapon in each hand, typically a pair of weapons with the Light property. Two-Weapon Paladins seek to maximize their damage potential with each attack, using their bonus action as an additional attack. Paladins are not natively efficient with the Two-Weapon fighting style, as they lack the Dual Weapon fighting style (their signature) other than by dipping on Fighter or Ranger, but they have the advantage of applying various damage boosters (such as Improved Divine Smite and Divine Favor/Crusader’s Mantle) into their attacks, therefore compensating. Their key feat, Two-Weapon Fighting, allows wielding one-handed weapons regardless of whether they have the Light property, allowing for a slight boost of damage on each hit. As a clear distinction, Two-Weapon Paladins no longer need to rely on high Dexterity, therefore making them easier to work with.

Ability Score Priorities: Str > Cha = Con > Wis > Dex > Int
Signature Style: Two-Weapon Fighting (unavailable, requires multiclassing)
Options: Dual Weapon feat

Archery (Arc): this fighting style relies on using ranged weapons, such as a bow or crossbow. The addition of Dexterity to damage rolls with ranged attacks means they can ignore Strength for the most part, particularly since they can’t use the Shove maneuver at range. Paladins lack access to the signature fighting style of Archery, which grants them a rare static bonus to attack rolls, but this is less necessary than the benefit of other Fighting Styles, so they can be quite efficient regardless of it. Archer Paladins cannot make Opportunity Attacks, however, and fight at Disadvantage if someone is nearby, which serve as weaknesses to this fighting style. Furthermore, they're the only build that can't use Divine Smite, Improved Divine Smite or the Smite-based spells with ranged weapons, though they can still benefit from Elemental Weapons and Divine Favor/Crusader's Mantle, further weakening a pure build and its suitability. They can benefit from using maneuvers with ranged weapons, making the Martial Adept feat very suitable for them. If using Unearthed Arcana content, Close Quarters Shooter provides benefits to Archery styles, making them less inefficient than before.

Ability Score Priorities: Dex > Cha > Con >Wis > Str > Int
Signature Style: Archery (unavailable, requires multiclassing)
Options: Crossbow Expert feat (for crossbows), Martial Adept feat, Sharpshooter feat

Throwing (Thr): this fighting style relies on using specifically thrown weapons. While it overlaps with the Archery style, the Throwing style sacrifices range for flexibility; most of the game's thrown weapons are also useful at melee. A key aspect of thrown weapons is that they use the same modifier as their melee version; ergo, they use Strength, and Strength is good. The choice of weapon is also pretty fair - while you get daggers and handaxes that deal poor damage, you also get javelins (great range), spears and tridents (versatile, meaning you can two-hand them, and deal nice damage). The signature fighting style, Close Quarters Shooter, is available on Unearthed Arcana (and as the time I write this, not available in any other book), and it aids immensely with the fighting style - better to-hit chance, the ability to ignore most cover, and able to fight in melee. This is mostly a secondary fighting style, but with the right weapon, it can become a viable, versatile fighting style. Just remember to have more than one available.

Ability Score Priorities: Str > Cha > Con >Wis > Dex = Int
Signature Style: Close Quarters ShooterUA
Options: Sharpshooter feat

Lockdown (LD): an unusual fighting style, this style relies on using reach weapons and keeping the enemy from moving or acting, hence "locking it down". It's not an offensive fighting style but a tanking one first and foremost. It overlaps with Two-Hander because it relies on reach weapons, which are almost often heavy and two-handed; this places Small Paladins at a massive disadvantage. Proficiency with Athletics and high Strength is a must, as the most basic form of lockdown is to knock the enemy prone - feats make this much better, as Sentinel has another form of lockdown, and Martial Adept gives access to Tripping Attack. Its signature fighting style, Tunnel Fighter, sets you on a defensive stance where you can make opportunity attacks without using reactions; while it cancels extra attacks from other feats (like Polearm Master), combined with Sentinel it makes you more difficult to beat. Even without feats, spending your reaction to knock the target prone via Shove is a viable strategy. Do note, of course, that if you use the DMG's optional rules, Marking becomes another excellent lockdown tactic; in fact, one that combined with Sentinel and Polearm Master may allow you to use another fighting style of your choice.

Ability Score Priorities: Str> Cha > Con >Wis > Dex = Int
Signature Style: Tunnel FighterUA
Options: Duelist fighting style, Marking optional rule, Polearm Master feat, Sentinel feat

The following combat styles also exist, but aren’t tied to Fighting Styles and thus are added as an afterthought:

Unarmed (US): this fighting style involves fighting without any weapon. Generally, this involves maximizing the damage from the Paladin’s unarmed strike and use Grapple and Shove reliably. Unfortunately, the base damage of unarmed strikes is pitiful (1 damage!!), requiring a dip in Monk (for the Martial Arts class feature) or taking the Tavern Brawler feat. Even then, the amount of damage is too little to matter, compared to other fighting styles.

Ability Score Priorities: Str > Cha = Con > Wis > Dex > Int
Signature Style: None (closest approach is the Monk’s Martial Arts class feature)
Options: Tavern Brawler feat

Mounted Combat (MC): a traditional fighting style of Paladins, this involves fighting in tandem with a mount. This is a fighting style by a technicality, because it has no actual support: the mount may or may not fight on its own terms, and only one weapon (the Lance) benefits from mounted combat at all. There’s also the Mounted Combatant feat, which provides some interesting benefits. The Paladin is unique in that it has a third way of providing support, by means of the Find Steed spell exclusive to them (and to Bards, by technicalities), which provides with a mount they can revive if necessary. Mounted Combat, in many ways, is something you can tag to another fighting style, particularly Sword & Board or, strangely enough, Fencing. As a curious comment (thank Person_Man for it), another way a Paladin can benefit from Mounted Combat is with a Moon Druid ally, since it can protect the ally while the latter uses Sentinel for you, bypasses your troubles with the Lance (the Druid attacks for you) and you can have two Concentration-duration spells cast on whomever needs them the most.

Ability Score Priorities: Str > Cha = Con > Wis > Dex > Int
Signature Style: None
Options: Duelist fighting style, Protection fighting style, Mounted Combatant feat.

Damage Redirection (DR): Not exactly a fighting style at all, it's more of a philosophy - take damage instead of your allies. 5e made it incredibly hard to achieve this, mostly because it removed access to Paladins to the Warding Bond feat, which is textbook Damage Redirection. With the Oath of the Crown subclass from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, this was rectified. That said, it's not exactly well-supported, other than casting Warding Bond and using the subclass feature to turn your reaction into taking damage for a nearby ally.

Ability Score Priorities: Str> Cha > Con >Wis > Dex = Int
[B]Signature Style: None
Options: None

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-24, 04:39 PM

Optimal Races

As a rule of thumb, when choosing a race fit for a Paladin, focus first on what you want to do with the build, then choose which race can fit this better. Generally, races that grant boosts to Strength, Constitution and Charisma are preferred, unless they grant a class feature that’s worthwhile.

Races got a pretty huge change between editions. The first thing you’ll most certainly notice is that no race imposes a penalty to ability scores; in fact, they grant a +2 to one ability score and a +1 to a certain other, generally by means of a subrace (unless it’s an uncommon race, in which case the +1 bonus is fixed). The second big change is the concept of “Sub-Races”: most races will allow you to make a choice between two distinct flavors of the same race, with their own mechanical aspects. Sub-races technically existed in 3.5: an Elf could easily be a High Elf (the default), a Wood Elf, a Wild Elf, a Gray Elf, an Aquatic Elf, or a Drow (each with their own benefits); a Dwarf could be a Hill Dwarf or a Mountain Dwarf (with no apparent changes), while a Halfling could be a Lightfoot or a Tallfellow (with no apparent changes, either). In 5th Edition, they are now distinct enough. This is a pretty strong change, considering that most races are comparable to Humans in most cases.

Common Races
Humans: the rule of thumb for just about every game based on the d20 System is simple: when in doubt, always go for Humans. In 5th Edition, the key trait of humans is that they gain a +1 on all ability scores, which can be marginally useful. If the variant Human that grants a free feat for about 3 ability score points is allowed, by all means go for it.

Dwarves: a fitting thematical choice, Dwarves got rid of their Charisma penalty (and good riddance!), while retaining most of their earlier edition benefits. Dwarves retain their movement penalty (though now reduced to 25 ft. , compared to the 20 ft. reduction of earlier editions), proficiency with four worthwhile weapons, and Dwarven Resilience, which provides advantage on poison saves and a very rare resistance to poison damage (which is incredibly good, given that poison damage is rare but hard to resist). You also gain a free tool proficiency, which is great (particularly since they relate to useful professions, such as blacksmith). Dwarves have two subraces:

Hill Dwarf: with a +1 to Wisdom and +1 hit point every round, they are decent choices for a Paladin, but not a must-have choice.
Mountain Dwarf: one of the few subraces that has another +2 bonus (this time to Strength), they are excellent choices for Paladins. On the other hand, their granted proficiency is entirely redundant, but the Strength bonus more than compensates.
DuergarSCAG: another great choice, because of the +1 to Strength and the 1/day use of Enlarge, which grants a nice set of benefits (particularly the extra 1d4 to damage). You also get free Invisibility. The drawback is the disadvantage on attack rolls on direct sunlight, so better get some cool glasses of some sort.

Elves: strange choice, but not entirely bad. Elves gain a +2 to Dexterity, which is great for Fencing or Archery builds, immunity to magic sleep, free proficiency with Perception skill (something Paladins lack) and their Trance ability which halves the duration of a Long Rest. They also recovered Darkvision (once known as Infravision, for all you nostalgic grognards). Elves have three subraces:

High Elf: while seemingly a bad choice (+1 to Intelligence, redundant weapon proficiencies), they’re one of the few classes that grant free access to cantrips (which are now at-will abilities). Granted, you still need good Intelligence to make good use of them, but you could easily get a spell that has no Intelligence requirement and exploit it (Prestidigitation is a great one!). That said, they’re not the most useful choice.
Wood Elf (Fen, Arc): a slightly better choice, they’re fairly good for Fencers and Archers. They gain an improvement to walking speed (+5 ft.) and the ability to hide even when lightly obscured, but no other clear benefit.
Drow: a somewhat “optional” choice because they’re rare and mostly evil (and non-existent in some worlds, such as Krynn), they are actually superb choices. With their +1 to Charisma, double-range Darkvision and free Charisma-based magic (you gain a free cantrip, a free 1st level and 2nd level spell), you can’t really go wrong. That said, they are one of the few races with a horrendous penalty, and that is Sunlight Sensitivity: Disadvantage can be quite nasty, and it affects attack rolls which can be devastating for you. If you can find a way to surpass Sunlight Sensitivity, though, they can be nasty Paladins. Remember that Paladins can now be Evil (though rare), so Drow Paladins aren’t necessarily an oxymoron.
Eladrin DMG: more of an example to create a new subrace, Eladrin return from 4e as a subrace for Elves rather than their own race. In practice, though, they’re High Elves who replace their free cantrip for a 1/short or long rest misty step spell. Kinda disappointing, though it’s obvious they weren’t made with Paladins in mind.

Halflings: the only Small race amongst the Common races, the Halfling has gained the most changes overall. For starters, they are no longer penalized on Strength, nor on their damage with weapons, dealing the same damage as a Medium-sized character. On the other hand, they no longer gain bonuses or penalties for being Small, so it balances out. Halflings have high Dexterity and a VERY powerful class feature, being capable of rerolling a 1 on almost any kind of roll (anything that demands a d20, mostly). Halflings have two subraces:

Lightfoot (Arc): the “default” subrace and the closest to a Kender in terms of traits, Lightfoot Halflings gain a +1 to Charisma and a pretty controversial ability to hide behind a creature of one size category larger than you; the controversy lies on whether you can hide after being seen, something that the Stealth rules don’t have clear but seem to discourage. Even then, the benefit of Dexterity and Charisma should make for decent Archer Paladins, who lose virtually nothing.
Stout: a hardier kind of Halfling, Stouts gain a bonus to Constitution and the resilience to poison from Dwarves, which is pretty nice combined with the Lucky trait.
GhostwiseSCAG: a shiftier kind of Halfling, though somewhat disappointing. Bonus to Wisdom (which is no longer that important), and small-distance telepathy, which is good for coordinating tactics but not much else.

Uncommon Races
Dragonborn: a refugee from 4th Edition, the Dragonborn was an attempt (in 3.5) to create a playable race related deeply to dragons. In this edition, they went with the idea of being descended directly from dragons, in a way being something akin to half-dragons and dragons in the same way Tieflings are to half-fiends and Fiends overall. Dragonborn have a +2 to Strength and a +1 to Charisma, making them excellent choices for the Paladin class: not only that, they have resistance to a certain energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire or poison) and a breath weapon which can be used as an area attack (something Paladins lack) and increases in potency with levels. A great choice, as all of its class features are useful choices.

Gnomes: after their stint as monsters (who could forget the “I’m a monster! Rawr!” stint in early 4e promotion?), Gnomes return as a playable race from the very beginning, eschewing their fey attunement for a strong mix of community and tinkering. Harkening to 2nd Edition, Gnomes grant a +2 to Intelligence, which is not that useful to a Paladin; advantage on all mental saves against spells, on the other hand, is rather useful (particularly when the Paladin has proficiency in two mental saves). Gnomes have two subraces, being the only uncommon race that does:

Forest Gnome: somewhat based on the 3rd Edition version (and the tradition), Forest Gnomes retain their skill with illusions by having the extremely useful Minor Illusion cantrip at-will, and the ability to speak with small beasts. Their bonus to Dexterity is useful for Archer or Fencer Paladins, but not that much.
Rock Gnome: drawing from Dragonlance’s Tinker gnomes, the rock gnome grants a bonus to Constitution and the ability to make small constructs that are mostly meant for very minor utility (distraction, fire-starter). They share a similar trait to the Dwarf, being one of the few classes that grant double proficiency bonus in specific applications of skills (which are already specific). All in all, very few utility from this subrace.
Deep GnomeEEPC/SCAG: one of the new subraces (and the only official one, aside the Eladrin on the DMG), the svirfneblin only gets a bonus to Dexterity (like forest gnomes), double-range darkvision and advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks in rocky terrain, which isn’t much (and a far cry from their 3.5 incarnation). They get their own unique feat, which adds at-will nondetection, two illusions and one debuff usable per long rest, which lifts them somewhat.

Half-Elves: no longer the laughingstock of the races, Half-Elves have grown a lot since their 3.5 incarnation, though they lost the extremely useful Dilettante racial trait. They share most traits with Elves, including darkvision, Advantage to charm spells and immunity to magical sleep; however, they have a fixed +2 to Charisma and the flexibility to choose the other ability scores to add a +1 (muchlike the variant human), not to mention free proficiency in two skills. Between the boost to Charisma and the free skills, Half-Elves make decent choices for a Paladin with a wide variety of choices.
Note: if you have the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, the following variants can be used to modify the Half-Elf, by replacing its Skill Versatility.

Half-Wood Elf: Replaces Skill Versatility with Elven Weapon Training, Fleet of Foot or Mask of the WIld. Of the three, the best is Fleet of Foot for the extra speed.
Half-High Elf: Replaces Skill Versatility with Elven Weapon Training or Cantrip. The SCAG has really, REALLY nice cantrips. You take one, no questions asked, and make sure it's Booming Blade. It's free damage + a rider effect that's awesome for Lockdown.
Half-Drow: Replaces Skill Versatility with Drow Magic. While getting the full extent of Drow Magic is quite strong, the skills end up being somewhat better in the long run
Half-Aquatic Elf: Replaces Skill Versatility with a swim speed of 30 ft. While nice, the Mariner fighting style from Unearthed Arcana offers the same, plus more.
Common: Replace Skill Versatility with Keen Senses, which is basically...a washed down, fixed version of Skill Versatility. What?

Half-Orcs: as the Half-Elf, the Half-Orc has grown quite a lot since 3.5; they lose their ridiculous penalties to Intelligence and Charisma, and gained a few tricks along the way. With bonuses to Strength and Constitution, they make a superb frontliner, and this is further emphasized with Relentless Endurance (which allows you to ignore a death-blow once per Long Rest) and Savage Attacks (which make critical hits deadlier than before). They also gain free proficiency in Intimidation, which helps with your choice of skills.

Tieflings: the other immigrant from 4th Edition, Tieflings fight with Drow for the “cool antihero race” archetype. They retain their 4e fluff, including their origin and focus in life, and some traits of 3.5. They have a strong bonus to Charisma, a mild bonus to Intelligence (not exactly that good for a Paladin), darkvision, fire resistance (good as it’s a common form of attack) and a set of innate spells including a super-useful cantrip (Thaumaturgy, the divine version of Prestidigitation), the Hellish Rebuke cantrip and the Darkness spell. Aside from the Darkness spell and the boost to Intelligence, Tieflings make oddly decent Paladins.
Note: if you have the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, you can replace some of your racial traits with the following:

Feral: Replace your ability score improvements for Dexterity +2 and Intelligence +1. Evidently, the two scores considered "dump stats" to a Paladin. Avoid, even as a Fencer.
Devil's Tongue: Replace your cantrip and innate spellcasting for mind-affecting spells. Of those, you get a VERY nice cantrip in Vicious Mockery, as it allows you to deal psychic damage and impose disadvantage (not the utility of Thaumaturgy, but it's better offensively). Charm Person and Enthrall are somewhat less useful, though note that they're more flexible in the long-term when dealing with social encounters. Overall, nice switch.
Hellfire: Replaces Hellish Rebuke with Burning Hands augmented to 2nd level. You're replacing a somewhat decent reactive spell for an offensive spell, for the same amount of uses. Bad trade.
Winged: Replace Infernal Legacy with a 30 ft. fly speed. What do you want - an awesome cantrip and bleh spells, or permanent flight? Yeah, I thought so. Alright, so Thaumaturgy is awesome, but flight is even more, right?

Other RacesDungeon Master’s GuideAasimar: First things first – as much as a Paladin fanboy that I am, I also like Aasimar. A lot. That said, I’ll seek to be impartial with this, and they’re not a MUST have race for Paladins (they’re also fluff-aborted, unlike the Tieflings – I half-expected them to devour the Deva fluff!). Anyways – a huge bonus to Charisma (tied with Half-Elves and Tieflings) and resistance to both radiant and necrotic damage is HUGE, alongside a free Light cantrip (though not as effective as the Tiefling’s Thaumaturgy) would make them a shoe-in choice, but this is tempered by a bonus to Wisdom (useful, but not as much as Strength or Constitution) and the other traits being so bland (Lesser Restoration and Daylight as 1/long rest spells). The best way to handle this is to compare them to Tieflings (fair, as they’re only a sample race AND they’re pretty much good-aligned Tiefling ripoffs), and as you can easily look from above, they’re no better or worse than them. I would say “choose them for the flavor”, but I’m not much of a fan of Diet Light so…

Elemental Evil Player’s CompanionAarakocra: The only race banned thus far from the Adventurer’s League, for good reason. Well, not so much for Paladins – Dexterity isn’t that useful unless you’re going for Finessable weapons and light armor (not quite Paladin-ish), and the other bonus is to Wisdom, so they’re not exactly awesome in that area. They get three languages (that’s nice; one of them is Auran), and their unarmed strikes deal 1d4 slashing damage which is quite good. So…why are they banned? Well, they’re the only race that has innate flight capabilities (Winged Tiefling and Avariel notwithstanding), without the need for spells or magic items. That would be huge, except…you can’t wear medium or heavy armor, which is one of the advantages of going Paladin in the first place. To be honest, the race screams “I’m not a Paladin!”, but if you play a very different kind of Paladin…it might work.
Genasi: Returning to their 3e roots (no funny names like Stormsoul, for example), the Genasi are to elementals what Aasimar are to celestials (not Tieflings, though, since they became their own race after the transition to 4th Edition). They’re VERY obviously Faerun-specific, but you can shoe-horn them in Athas (the Dark Sun campaign world). Anyways, all of them have good Constitution, which is an auspicious beginning, and are one of the few races that begins speaking the Primordial language, which is essentially Aquan, Auran, Ignan and Terran mixed in. They have four subraces, as anyone who played 3e and 4e could have telegraphed by a mile.

Air Genasi: the swiftest of the quartet, Air Genasi have a bonus to Dexterity, the ability to hold their breath indefinitely, and Levitate as a 1/long rest spell. Unless you plan to make a Paladin that’s reliant on Dexterity, skip.
Earth Genasi: the brutes of the quartet, Earth Genasi have a bonus to Strength (always good for the typical Paladin), the ability to walk unimpeded in terrain made of earth or stone (pretty much all kinds of terrain, other than within forests?) and 1/long rest Pass Without Trace. While the spell isn’t so great, the other abilities make for a really good Paladin, particularly since difficult terrain hampers your ability to move to the enemy and deliver divine deliverance (redundancy be darned!). Not a must-have, but a good choice.
Fire Genasi: the smart-alecks of the quartet, Fire Genasi have a bonus to Intelligence (a dump stat) and darkvision, which normally would be disappointing. On the other hand, you get a very decent resistance to Fire (a common type of attack), the Produce Flame cantrip (a combination Light/damage spell, though it’s fire damage) and Burning Hands after 3rd level (but as a 1st level spell, 1/long rest and never increasing), and having both your “innate” spells work off Constitution, which is very decent. In the end, it’s all about Constitution, the resistance and the useful cantrip.
Water Genasi: the serene members of the quartet, Water Genasi have a bonus to Wisdom (to pad up your Wisdom saves, but useless otherwise), a swimming speed and the ability to breathe underwater, resistance to acid, a pretty cool at-will cantrip (Shape Water, which is like Prestidigitation/Thaumaturgy but specific to water) and a so-so spell cast at 2nd level (though useful to destroy fogs or extinguish flames). While pretty average normally, on an aquatic campaign, they’re invaluable.

Goliath: Apparently a race with traction, ever since they appeared on Races of the Wild. They take some of the best traits of their 3e and 4e incarnations – they get a huge bonus to Strength and Constitution, natural proficiency in Athletics and natural adaptation to cold climates and high altitude, 4e’s ability to ignore damage through Stone’s Endurance (1d12 + Con reduced damage on a reaction) and 3e’s…Powerful Build. No, it’s not THAT kind of Powerful Build – what you get is only an increase to size in regards to carrying capacity, but you can’t use weapons meant for Large creatures anymore, or this would have been a must-have race. Still, for the typical Paladin, it’s a superb choice – stats on the right places, and the uncanny ability to shrug off damage 1/short rest, plus you don’t have to worry about spending one of your precious skill proficiencies on THE skill for any conscious character entering the front lines. Really – what more to ask?

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-24, 04:40 PM

BackgroundsA third tier of character development, Backgrounds grant characters access to additional skills, tool proficiencies, new languages and a useful roleplaying feature. The choice of Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds and Flaws allows you to distinguish your character from others, and also as a guide on how to roleplay it; it depends on you to play it as-is or change those concepts as you game, until you’re comfortable with it. Since the discussion of all Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds and Flaws would be too expensive, I’ll focus mostly on the mechanical benefits of each background.

Acolyte: encompassing all the lesser priests, laymen and people ordered into a faith, the Acolyte offers two redundant skill choices and two languages. The languages can be useful if you have Persuasion with you, and of the two skills, Insight is the most useful one. Their feature, Shelter of the Faithful, allow you to live in temples or shrines for free (quite useful as you could find presence of your faith almost anywhere) and free healing (though not free resurrections).

Charlatan: an ill-fitting choice, doubly so if you choose the Oath of Devotion. Deception can help you as it is a Charisma skill; Sleight of Hand is of dubious value. The tool proficiencies are useful to help you hide in plain sight, which alongside Deception means you can easily convince anyone you’re someone else. The background’s feature, False Identity, is a more limited version of a class feature from the Assassin (a Roguish Archetype from the Rogue); it is useful if you need to travel or work incognito, but otherwise it’ll see little use.

Criminal: not as bad as you’d think; you could be a redeeming criminal who uses his/her old ways for the benefit of the party. Deception can be used as a way to assist Persuasion (or replace it), and Stealth can be useful for ambushes (but is worthless if you wield heavy armor). The gaming set bonus is mostly for fluff, but if you have good Dexterity, proficiency with thieves’ tools means you can be the party trap-buster (though never as good as a Rogue; note that you can resist a failed trap-defusing attempt probably better than a Rogue, though). The background’s feature, Criminal Contact, is as useful as your imagination; it allows you to keep in touch with the underground world (not the Underdark!), which could have anything from trouble to magic items. Note that if you don’t like the connotations of crime, you can choose the Spy variant and refluff.

Entertainer: a good fit for an Oath of the Ancients Paladin, this background gives you so-so benefits, but a really awesome feature. Acrobatics is good if you have high Dexterity, but for the most part it’ll conflict with Athletics in some cases; Performance only works with non-instrumental performances, though you get free access to a musical instrument of your choice. The disguise kit is a nice touch, something you can take advantage of if trying to lay low or add some flair to your interpretation. The roleplaying feature, however, is really good: By Popular Demand relies on you performing a lot, but it can save your hide when the time comes to attempt Persuading them. Furthermore, you can always get to the local bar and stay the night for free as long as you perform, and with high Charisma, that’ll be no problem.

Gladiator: a combat-based version of the Entertainer, the Gladiator is somewhat less useful, but if you choose the background item “package”, you can get a third weapon (an unusual one, so you may get saddled with a bad choice; tridents and nets aren’t so bad, though). However, your performance venues are far more limited, making it a bad trade.

Folk Hero: rather than be a Commoner, why not be a Commoner turned Hero? Animal Handling can be a very useful skill as it can be used to convince animals and low-Int beasts, while Survival allows you to subsist just about everywhere and help with tracking. You can choose smith’s tools as your artisan tool if you need to work on your armor, and proficiency with all land-based vehicles means you can drive chariots and wagons with great skill, allowing your party to move faster. The background’s feature, Rustic Hospitality, blends extraordinarily well with the class; keep protecting the common folk, and you can benefit from free rest (albeit not comfortable) and help muddle your tracks, which can be really useful just about any time. Just don’t expect getting a commoner army, tho.

Guild Artisan: think of this as the “crafter” background. Insight and Persuasion are already at your skill list, but both are very useful. You can choose one language and one artisan’s tool, making it quite balanced. Their background feature, Guild Membership, requires a small fee to be paid every month, but it grants superb benefits such as access to patrons and hirelings, free lodging and food, and most importantly, a degree of political power (read: become part of the bourgeoisie).

Guild Merchant: rather than be the crafter, you can be the vendor. This variant allows more flexibility with your tool proficiency (you can be the party’s navigator or get two languages to use with your profession), and you get free transportation as well (a cart is pretty fair, compared to nothing). The background feature remains the same, which doesn’t really help you with selling stuff (something that would have fit like a million dollars).

Hermit: an interesting background, to say the very least. Medicine and Religion are already in your skill list, and they aren’t must-have choices for you to swoon upon. The Herbalism Kit, on the other hand, can be used to make all kinds of medicines, and if your DM allows, even magic Potions (the ones that cost 50 gp, you know). You also get a free language, which is no slouch. That said, their roleplaying feature, Discovery, is either the greatest railroading tool or a gamebreaking tool: you gain one piece of information whose weight is mostly determined by the DM and you. That means one of three things: the DM and you work something balanced, the DM screws you with its choice, or you screw the DM by carefully wording the revelation to appear just about every time in your adventure (“I found the ancient legendary book known as the Monster Manual! That means I can read the Monster Manual IRL to know what kind of enemy I face!”).

Noble: almost tailor-made for Paladins, the Noble has an interesting roleplaying feature you could easily exploit. History and Persuasion are skills you already have, but Persuasion is particularly useful to have. You get one free language (which is good), and proficiency with a single gaming set (which is somewhat bad, unless you swindle people out of money with it). The Noble background feature, Position of Privilege, is great as it combines to an extent part of the Folk Hero’s benefit (commoners could give you free lodging and food) while still remain on good graces with the upper echelons of society (which means being invited as a guest of honor, and therefore free lodging and food with Luxury standards). The feature also helps with Persuasion, as people look favorably towards you.

Knight: a lower-ranked version of a Noble, the Knight replaces the useful Position of Privilege with the even MORE useful Retainers feature. The Noble can choose the Retainers feature, but the Knight is the only one that gets a free hireling (of sorts; you get a squire, which you could use as one) with it. Note that you get three people to play with, which can be disruptive to gameplay, but on the other hand, you’re one of the few people who might provide another fighting hand.

Outlander: encompassing all kinds of people that live beyond civilization (tribal hunter-gatherers, for example), this background has some decent utilities. Athletics is a skill you already have, but a skill you’ll love; Survival is quite useful for tracking, though the roleplaying feature of this background makes one of its benefits somewhat moot. Proficiency with a musical instrument is not very useful (strange that you can’t get a Cartographer’s kit?), but a free language is never bad. The background’s roleplaying feature, Wanderer, could have benefit from proficiency in a Cartographer’s kit, making you the official cartographer (between the kit and excellent memory for geography, you could map a place with great reliability). Furthermore, you’ll never be deprived of food and water so as long as you’re on a suitable environment, and this also extends to your allies (and maybe a guest or two as well?)

Sage: not a very good choice. Both skill proficiencies are knowledge-based: you already get History in your skill list, and while quite good, you won’t get much from Arcana than a Knowledge Domain Cleric or Wizard will. The two languages are decent, but the package is not so great. The roleplaying feature, Researcher, is akin to the Lore class feature of the Loremaster or the Bardic Knowledge feature of the bard, except it only leads you where to get it; you don’t get the information.

Sailor: a surprisingly GOOD choice. You get Athletics for free (liberating your skill choices), and you also get the valuable Perception skill (if you haven’t gotten it from, say, the Elf race). You get tool proficiency with Navigator’s tools (meaning you’ll rarely get lost and you can follow maps with ease), and the background offers the ONLY way to gain proficiency with water-based vehicles, from small rafts to large galleons. You also get 50 ft. of silk rope for free if you choose the package. The roleplaying feature, Ship’s Passage, allows you free passage on certain ships, provided you have good relations with the crew; it is treated as a favor, so expect battles during the trip.

Pirate: the variant for the Sailor replaces Ship’s Passage for Bad Reputation, which allows you to get away with minor offenses. Being a class that thrives on having a good reputation, this is the antithesis of what you’re expected to do. It’s worse with Devotion Paladins, because they’re oath-bound to be honorable, and Bad Reputation relies on being dishonorable.

Soldier: another solid fit for the Paladin, the Soldier background has two good skills which you already have access to (Athletics and Intimidation), plus proficiency in land vehicles. Proficiency with a gaming set isn’t so great, unless you plan on gambling for money. The roleplaying feature, Military Rank, let’s you effectively “pull rank” on other warriors, though not your companions: you can get lodging and supplies from forts and other military installations where your rank is recognized.

Urchin: a weak choice, though it has an interesting roleplaying feature. Sleight of Hand can have its uses, but isn’t particularly worth your salt; Stealth is slightly more useful, but it depends on having high Dexterity (and thus, preferring Fencing or Archery as combat styles) and eschewing heavy armor. The disguise kit is a weird choice, but it can help you blend in; thieves’ tools are particularly useful, though other backgrounds also offer them. Their roleplaying feature, City Secrets, has a practical use, though: it allows you to move between cities twice as fast as your speed would allow, which is not exactly that great on a small town, but on a huge metropolis (think Sharn, Stormreach, Sigil or Waterdeep), which can have multiple adventures without ever leaving town, it can be invaluable.

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-24, 04:44 PM

Optimal Feats

If your DM allows replacing ability score improvements with feats, you gain a whole new set of options, but at the expense of numerical increases (to an extent).
Perhaps it may seem to you that realizing this would be redundant and pointless, but it bears repetition: feats are not considered part of the core gameplay, and some DMs might forbid their access. If that is the case with you, this entire section is pointless. If not…keep reading.
Feats are different from their original incarnations in 3.x (and also in 4th Edition). Originally, they provided for a way to distinguish characters, but were a given part of the game; you gained a feat at 1st level, and then every few levels afterwards. However, some feats (owing probably to early-installment weirdness) were weak, and others served as gateways to more useful or more powerful feats. Some feats granted only numerical bonuses on a system with unbounded accuracy, making those boosts meaningless compared to the cost of spending one of your few slots on it. In 5th, the cost is somewhat higher, as they conflict with your ability score improvements, and these are already few and far between (and better than before, in that you get a +2 increase rather than a +1, though not like in 4th where you got an increase in all stats after reaching a certain point in game). That said, there are less feats than before (in terms of choices and actual examples), but their benefits are far, far wider. As a rule of thumb, a feat in 5th Edition is worth two or three feats in 3.x, and are somewhat more noticeable. That doesn’t mean there are weak feats, but the overall effect is that feats are far more powerful.

The terms under parenthesis reference, whenever available, feats that belonged to the 3rd Edition of the game that offer similar qualities to the feats presented here. This is for the benefit of gamers of that edition.
Alert: This feat helps you to prevent being ambushed and always be on the lookout. Giving a HUGE static bonus to Initiative on a system with few bonuses means you’ll most likely go first (unless you can add your proficiency bonus or gain advantage on Dexterity checks). (Alertness, Improved Initiative)

Athlete: A practical feat that improves the Athletics skill applications. The ability to climb at full speed is great, and overall it helps you maximize your speed. You also get a boost to Strength or Dexterity, so the feat is considerably good despite not offering a combat bonus. (Athlete)

Actor: A feat better suited for performers (like the Bard). While it boosts Charisma, the other benefits aren’t that useful to you. (Deceptive)

Charger: A disappointing feat, if only because the Charge mechanic is not a default option. If you can choose it at 1st level, it can be very useful as you get only one attack, but once you get Extra Attack, the honeymoon ends badly. The benefits when you reach the correct amount of movement can be good (the attack bonus) or somewhat weak (the doubled Shove distance).

Crossbow Expert (Arc): A feat meant for users of crossbows, these allow you to effectively ignore longbows as ranged attacks. All three benefits are superb, but the ability to ignore the loading quality is greater, as it implies that you can make Extra Attacks with the crossbow, which has a larger distance and better damage ratio. It also helps for non-archers, since you can effectively dual-wield and fight in both melee and ranged. (Rapid Reload, Versatile Combatant [DotU])

Defensive Duelist (Fen): One of the few feats with prerequisites, but a disappointing one. Adding your proficiency bonus to your AC is formidable, but when it applies only for ONE attack, then it’s not so much. It also consumes your reaction, which could be used on Opportunity Attacks, spells or otherwise. (Combat Expertise)

Dual Wielder (TWF): A must have if you’re a Two-Weapon specialist. The AC bonus helps offset somewhat the loss of defensive qualities by wielding two weapons, but the increase in damage from removing the Light property requirement in the wielded weapons definitely helps. (Two-Weapon Defense, Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting [CW])

Dungeon Delver: A useful feat for, what else, dungeon delving. It’s strange that the feat doesn’t allow you to detect traps better, limiting you to secret doors only (a trait an Elf already has), though it quickens the search. That said, if the dungeon has lots of traps littered around the place, the ability to reduce the damage to a nuisance is welcome. This feat depends greatly on the amount of traps you’ll see in your lifetime, mostly.

Durable: a bland feat, for the most part. You can heal better on Short Rests, since your minimum amount of healing is based on your Constitution. Since that’s the only benefit, a direct increase to Constitution is arguably better in the long run, as it offers more.

Elemental Adept: a must have for characters with multiple damage-dealing spells, which means it doesn’t apply to you. You can use them for your spell-Smites, so that you can ignore resistance to damage when using one with the right energy type, but for the most part it won’t be enough to justify the losses.

Grappler (US): Another feat with a Strength requirement, but a useful one nonetheless. Advantage on attack rolls while grappling means you’ll want to keep grappling as much as possible, but the true benefit of this feat is the ability to affect creatures one size category larger than you; that way, you extend your effective grappling rate to Large creatures, or to Huge creatures if already Large.

Great Weapon Master (THF): If you attempt to wield a two-handed weapon, get this. Critical hits are rare, but if you can land them, you can get an additional attack and improve your damage even further. As well, if you have a huge bonus to attack rolls (or supernatural luck), you can deal large amounts of static damage by sacrificing a portion of your accuracy; combined with the Great Weapon Fighting style, that means you’re sure to deal easily between 15 to 20 points of damage per hit. (Power Attack, Cleave)

Healer: A quirky feat, but useful to extend your healing potential. The secondary benefit (healing by using a healer’s kit) should have been a core feature IMO, but it’s actually useful (particularly if you didn’t use it before a Short Rest, meaning you effectively increase the healing from the rest by using it).

Heavily Armored: Don’t get it. You’re already proficient with heavy armor, remember?

Heavy Armor Master: This, on the other hand, can be useful. It used to be powerful (in the playtest),but as it stands it still has some benefit; while you get less reduction, the effect stacks with damage resistance, thus helping you resist more damage. The amount reduced is too little, though.

Inspiring Leader: A feat you’ll rarely hear from, but if your table uses Short Rests frequently, it can be powerful. In essence, it allows you and your party to gain a buffer against the first attack (or spell!) that deals damage to you in combat. If Short Rests are limited, that means the effect is useful only once per day, whereas if more numerous, you can use it even out of combat. It actually applies to ANY form of hit point damage, to be precise. You’ll easily make the Charisma requirement, but it’s not that great compared to other feats.

Keen Mind: A fluffy feat, not of great interest to you. It boosts a dump stat for you (Intelligence), and its main benefits are somewhat lackluster for you.

Lightly Armored: See Heavily Armored.

Linguist: Fair feat if you’re interested in being the party face, but otherwise not as interesting. It boosts a dump stat for you (Intelligence), and for the most part it’s only useful to get more languages. The written ciphers bit can be useful on a war-based campaign, though. You can only choose this feat once.

Lucky: A must-have, if you can afford it. In effect, it grants you somewhere between a re-roll and Advantage, since it works exactly like Advantage (roll d20, choose the best of two), but applies after you make the roll (whereas Advantage is rolled at the moment). It can also be used to deny an enemy its superior attack roll (again, somewhat like Disadvantage). Given that it reacts in the same way as Advantage, it effectively works as Inspiration without the need for roleplaying.

Mage Slayer: A crucial feat if your campaign has one too many spellslingers. The key benefit is the advantage on saving throws against spells, since that is the way Spell Resistance works in this Edition. Imposing disadvantage in Concentration checks is also brutal, since it means you can easily undo buffing spells in enemies. You can also make an Opportunity Attack against a creature that casts a spell, increasing your damage potential and hindering the opponent (doubly so if they cast a spell with a duration of Concentration). All in all, a feat you should easily consider. (Mage Slayer [CArc])

Magic Initiate: A curious feat, of potential utility for you. You get 2 cantrips and one 1st level spell, from the main casting classes. This can help you pad your spellcasting potential by adding spells you could benefit from, and gain reliable ranged attacks. Choose spells with non-Concentration based durations or that complement your fighting style, whenever possible. As for cantrips, you’ll never go wrong with Prestidigitation/Thaumaturgy/Druidcraft and one attack cantrip, particularly if from a class that has Charisma-based spellcasting. It might conflict with other feats you might want to access, though. (Minor addition: if you can, get Guidance. It's a free +1d4 on any single ability check, which happens to include Athletics checks and Initiative. Cast it at the beginning of battle, and have somewhere between +1 to +4 to initiative every battle. It's almost as much of a game-breaker as Bless.)

Martial Adept: As Magic Initiate, but with the Battlemaster’s maneuvers. You’ll only have one Superiority Dice, so the feat will be more useful if you have several Short Rests. Note that the maneuver doesn’t consume an action, so it can be combined with a Smite for maximum effectiveness. Just about ANY build can benefit from this feat.

Medium Armor Master: A curious feat that works to make medium armor more useful. You can closely approach the AC of Full Plate without spending the money (or gaining the Disadvantage on Stealth checks). More useful the higher your Dexterity is (more than 16, in fact), but less useful the HIGHER your Dexterity is (more than 17, in fact). The narrow sweet spot is what really kills it.

Mobile (Fen): As the feat mentions, you become more mobile, gaining a direct (and sizeable) boost to speed and the ability to ignore Opportunity Attacks from a creature you attack, meaning you can ignore the Disengage function and always keep on the move.

Moderately Armored: See Heavily Armored.

Mounted Combatant (MC): The feat that enables Mounted Combat as a fighting style. The primary benefit is superb, as it gives you free Advantage on a wide variety of enemies (though not on the ones that really matter, that is). The others make your mount much more resilient. (Mounted Combat)

Observant: Like Alert, but for the Perception skill; this feat adds some additional properties to sense-based skills. The bonus to Intelligence or Wisdom are somewhat needless, as does the ability to read lips, but the passive bonus to passive scores (pardon the redundancy) can be useful, as improving these beyond proficiency bonus and ability scores can be notoriously hard. Even then, it’s not worth it for one benefit.

Polearm Master (THF, LD): A must-have if you’re wielding a weapon with reach. The additional attack can be useful if you have many damage modifiers (such as Imp. Divine Smite or Divine Favor), even if the raw damage is poor. The secondary ability allows an extra method of making Opportunity Attacks, but is best paired with Sentinel for its main benefit.

Resilient: If there’s a feat that should be chosen by default, Resilient is most likely that one. This is the ONLY way to gain additional saving throw proficiencies barring class features for Monk and Rogue. Paladins might want to replace one of their ability score increases for proficiency with Constitution saves, increasing their Constitution as well.

Ritual Caster: While the requirements for it can be somewhat hard to meet (one’s a dump stat and the other is a stat you won’t be favoring that much), this is one of the few ways to increase your spellcasting potential even further (besides your Sacred Oath and the Magic Initiate feat). You only gain access to rituals, but you don’t need to prepare them in your spell slots, which is beneficial. That said, ritual spells are few and mostly useful outside of combat, and chances are you’ll get one of the Big Four (Bard, Cleric, Druid or Wizard) in the party, so the feat is not that important.

Savage Attacker: A modestly useful feat. If you feel you rolled poorly on terms of damage (way below the average damage for the dice), you can use the benefit of this feat to compensate. If gained before 5th level, you can use it every round to gain a modicum of increase to damage.

Sentinel (LD): A crucial feat for any melee combatant seeking to tank effectively. All three benefits are useful for tanking purposes: disabling movement on Opportunity Attacks prevents the opponent from escaping your grasp (or approaching you, if mixing it with Polearm Master), and the enemy can’t Disengage from you which makes it impossible to escape your grasp (unless you have Disadvantage, but chances are you’ll prevent this one way or another). You can also make a retributive attack against someone that hits your ally, which may conflict with the benefit of the Protection fighting style. If you plan to be on the frontlines, make sure to consider this feat. (Stand Still [XPH])

Sharpshooter (Arc, Thr): A must-have for anyone who attacks at a distance with throwing weapons or longbows, and even with crossbows. Ignoring Disadvantage on long range means you effectively double your range with attacks, and ignoring all but full cover means the enemy can’t hide from you. The third benefit stacks way too nicely with the Archery Fighting Style benefit, but unfortunately you lack native access to it (though you can compensate in other ways; Close Quarters Shooter is one). If you plan to focus on ranged combat, consider it very carefully. (Far Shot, Improved Precise Shot, Power Attack/Power Throw [CWar]; also Deadly Aim [Pathfinder Campaign Setting])

Shield Master (SnB): A solid feat for Sword & Boarders, though it suffers somewhat with one of the benefits. Single-target Dexterity save-based attacks are few and far between, so you’ll rarely see the feat’s second benefit. That said, the third benefit blends VERY nicely with your Aura of Protection. The ability to shove with your shield is also very good, although you need to consider whether you’re allowed to do it before starting your attacks, or afterwards. This feat is better by 6th level and higher, as it allows your second attack to be done at Advantage (provided you succeed on the Shove attack to knock the target prone) reliably.

Skilled: The only way to get fast proficiency in skills or tools beyond multiclassing. Note that you can choose this feat only once.

Skulker: Another feat with a Dexterity requirement, and similar to Alert except for the Stealth skill. That said, Archers can get good use from it if you Hide in the first place, but mostly until you make your first successful attack. Otherwise, little benefit for you.

Spell Sniper: You lack attack spells that require a spell attack roll, so this feat is of little benefit, but at least you get a free damage-dealing cantrip (so as long as it requires an attack roll). If you plan in getting this feat, think of Eldritch Blast (uses Charisma and allows for multiple attacks per round, more than you’d normally get; note that you can’t add Imp. Divine Smite to the rays, though).

Tavern Brawler (US): The only way to make a reliable Unarmed build other than dipping Monk, this gives you proficiency with improvised weapons and improves the damage of your unarmed strikes. The increase in damage is poor (comparable to a dagger), which compared to your other weapons is quite pitiful. That said, the free ability to grapple after hitting with unarmed strikes or improvised weapons can be useful, particularly if combined with the Grappler feat.

Tough: If you need more hit points for some reason, go for it. However, compared to other feats, this is really a wash. It’s comparable to getting a +4 on Constitution, or getting a +2 in Constitution and raising your Hit Dice by 1, but without the other benefits. (Toughness -> Improved Toughness [CWar, LM])

War Caster: Strange as it may seem, you may want to consider getting this feat. The reason is as follows: you’re a front-liner, and chances are you’ll face opponents that’ll hit you without problem. When that happens, you’ll want to have proficiency with Constitution checks; as you haven’t, Advantage on Constitution saves for Concentration is the second best. Also, you can fight with weapon and shield (or a weapon in each hand, or a weapon held in two hands; in other words, anything but the Fencer and Unarmed fighting styles) and cast spells at the same time. Finally, you can use certain spells as Opportunity Attacks, though chances are you won’t get enough spells that might benefit from it.

Weapon Master: See Heavily Armored, except this time it applies to weapons.

Optimal Spells
Starting at 2nd level, a Paladin gets to cast a small number of divine spells, based on its Charisma and its class level. Paladins get a bunch of spells, but they aren’t as powerful as a dedicated spellcaster would. Most Paladin spells focus on expanding the character’s choice of Auras or serving as Smites with rider effects, with a smattering of spells from the Cleric spell list.

The following list will include all the spells on the Paladin’s list, but not the ones a Paladin can cast by means of its Sacred Oath choice. Paladins have no access to Ritual Casting except for a feat, so any mention of Ritual spells will be ignored.

If you recall the way Paladins cast in earlier editions (save for 4th, because of its chassis), you’ll recall that Paladins gained spellcasting ability late, and their spellcasting potential wasn’t as strong as before; furthermore, they had to prepare spells in true Vancian fashion. 5th Edition did a lot to boost Paladin (and Ranger) spellcasting, and thus you’ll notice quite a bit of changes.

The first change you’ll notice is that Paladins have up to 5th level spells, a huge change from earlier editions where they had access to 3rd level or 4th level spells at most. Paladins still lack access to Cantrips (or, as they were known in terms of divine magic, Orisons), but their spellcasting is slightly better now. The second thing you’ll notice is that they can cast magic right from 2nd level, fitting a ½ level spellcasting progression (that is why they gain new spells at 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th, which would correlate to 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th level in full spellcasting classes). The third thing you’ll notice is that their spellcasting stat is now Charisma, which is a huge benefit as they’re less MAD than before (though still a bit MAD because of their dependency on Strength and Constitution).

Paladin spellcasting is an odd hybrid of prepared and spontaneous spellcasting, which should be familiar to anyone who played a Spirit Shaman. A Paladin has to prepare a small set of spells each day from its list, but once it does, it can cast from them at all times so as long as they have the appropriate spell slot (or a spell slot of higher level than the spell). This influences greatly the choice of optimal spells, given that they can prepare less spells than their full spellcaster counterparts, but aren’t restricted to specific spells as the Bard, the Sorcerer, the Warlock or the Ranger.

Finally, recall that the Paladin’s spell slots can be used for Divine Smite, so the optimal spells are those that would be stronger or more useful than spending the slot on Smiting in the first place.

1st Level

Bless: An amazing buff for a good amount of allies. Concentration-based, but affects three creatures right from the get-go (higher spell levels merely increase the amount of allies affected). You can gain an average bonus of +2 or +3 every time you make an attack or save, which is a pretty strong bonus (note that this affects Constitution saves, so it makes Concentration saves easier). Note the “every time”; this, plus the level of the spell, makes it one of the best buffs you can grant an ally. A Cleric can probably do it better, but if you don’t, get it. Period.

Command: Fun spell, though other casters can add it more punch. You can order it to do five specific things, but you can issue other commands. The duration is severely limited (1 round) and it requires a Wisdom save, but for the most part is a decent spell. “Halt” can disable the opponent that fails the save for 1 turn, so if you’re under the Elder Champion boon, abuse this spell.

Compelled Duel: A sort of “Command” but with longer duration. If the target fails its save, it gains a series of disadvantages, so as long as you face it exclusively. If you can compel a boss to duel you, go for it, and have your allies serve as cheerleaders.

Cure Wounds: One of your few healing spells. In battle, it’s a bad idea unless you desperately need to cast it, and even then, Lay on Hands or Aura of Vitality heal for more. Outside…is just as bad. And it scales poorly, all the more in your case where you have few spell slots to spare.

Detect Evil and Good: In essence, your Divine Sense but lasting for a long time, at half the range. It’s Concentration-based, so don’t expect it to be better. Divine Sense is better in that regard because it doesn’t require you to spend your precious spell slots.

Detect Magic: A spell that helps you detect magic, but unfortunately other casters can do so as a ritual (and Wizards can cast it without even preparing it). Pass.

Detect Poison and Disease: See Detect Magic. Again, pass.

Divine Favor: A relatively decent spell to have early on. The extra radiant damage is actually good, though a smite does better damage overall. Later on, with other spells at tow, this spell loses some of its shine, and by third level Crusader’s Mantle replaces it entirely. It also affects only you, so you can’t use it on others. That said, between 5th level and 11th level, the spell shines brightly.

Heroism: A nifty spell, though half of its benefit is already provided by you. It has a duration of Concentration, which makes it a poor choice for you…except for its other benefit. You see, when you grant an ally temporary HP equal to your Charisma modifier every turn for 1 minute (and potentially to all allies, if you use a higher-level spell slot), you can really improve their survivability, redeeming this spell. It’s also 1st level, which means you have several chances to use it.

Protection from Evil and Good: A very nice spell, which provides a large set of benefits. Disadvantage on attack rolls imposed on six creature types (all of which are menaces) is huge, not to mention immunity to charm and possession (in addition to being frightened, although your aura provides that already). Lasts for a good time, though it’s a Concentration-based duration spell.

Purify Food and Drink: Other casters can do this as a ritual. Pass.

Searing Smite: Somewhat disappointing compared to your regular smite, but if aimed at the right target, it can be actually better. As with Divine Smite, the spell scales based on the level of the spell slot expended. Fire damage is often resisted, but the reduction is not as wild as before, so it actually has some worth.

Shield of Faith: Look at this, about time WotC added this to the Paladin’s arsenal! Not only that, it’s no longer touch-range, AND it has a decent range to boot. But wait, there’s more! It’s a bonus action to cast, so you can cast it and still act! And finally, it’s one of the few spells that adds a numeric bonus rather than Disadvantage, so it stacks with the former. That said, it’s Concentration-based, so it may conflict with other, better spells. However, for what it’s worth, it’s a superb spell to have prepared at all times.

Thunderous Smite: A pretty spell. The damage is actually pretty close to your Divine Smite, but as if you added a Shove effect alongside it. Considering the level of the spell, this is a must-have at all times, particularly if you need a breather (and even then, you can simply move and keep bashing away, with Advantage to boot!)

Wrathful Smite: Nifty spell. Though the damage is lower than you’d deal with Divine Smite, it does have a hard to resist damage type (Psychic). Furthermore, the Frightened condition is quite nasty, as it imposes Disadvantage as long as you can see it. Can be resisted with a Wisdom saving throw, though. Concentration-based, but note that the target can’t willingly approach you, and with Disadvantage on its attack rolls, chances are you’ll be capable of keeping it for the entire duration. All in all, it’s a very nice spell to have prepared.

2nd Level
Aid: One of the few spells without a duration of Concentration. The benefit is decent, though you need to get a high spell slot to make the effect slightly more worthwhile.

Branding Smite: Fairly decent, but not by much. The damage is less than a basic smite, but it’s one of the few smites that scales with level. On the other hand, the ability to negate invisibility is a great boon, and it lasts for a fairly good duration. Concentration-based, though.

Find Steed (MC): The only way to get a Special Mount. That said, the mount is not really spectacular, though if you speak with your DM, you might get other creatures to mount. It has a few benefits, such as the ability to share spells with you, the fact that it’s a celestial, fey or fiend instead of an animal (and all that implies), and is considered relatively intelligent (Int 6) so it can fight alongside you (and since it’s friendly and loyal to you, you fight as a single unit). If you intend to fight while mounted, this is a must-have; otherwise, keep a scroll or two handy (if you can get them; they’re probably of Legendary status) or prepare it before a journey. The fact that the steed remains indefinitely (or at least until you dismiss it) means that you only need to have this spell prepared when you’re ready to use it.

Lesser Restoration: Another spell that changed greatly between editions. Rather than healing ability score damage, it now removes one of four conditions. It requires an action and is low-level, and the conditions can be truly incapacitating, but nearly all of them can be removed by subsequent saving throws, making the effectiveness of this spell moot.

Locate Object: Strangely enough NOT a Ritual spell. That said, unless you’re specifically looking for something that you know is on the area, this spell is not really that useful. There’s several ways to block it, as well, so for the most part, it’s essentially a spell that works by DM fiat. Kinda feels like the devs were padding for spells (could have added a specific spell, you know…*coughcoughWardingBondcoughcough*)

Magic Weapon: An old stalwart, but this time has a casting time of 1 bonus action so you don’t need to have it previously cast. Has a Concentration-based duration, so it might conflict with other spells you cast. Fairly good when you get it, but Elemental Weapons beats it four levels later.

Protection from Poison: You may remember Neutralize Poison and Delay Poison from earlier editions; this is an immense change. In short, it removes one kind of poison upon being cast, and then provides the Resilience effect typical to Dwarves (and Stout Halflings) for 1 hour, making it one of the few spells without duration of Concentration. At the level you get it, it’s a bargain.

Zone of Truth: A valuable spell if you need to interrogate someone, though the target can still be evasive (but then again, that’s why you have Insight as a skill proficiency, no?) Most useful in roleplaying situations (mostly Social ones), but other casters (Bards and Clerics) also have the spell. Even then, it’s still fairly good to have when there’s some non-combat time.

3rd Level
Aura of Vitality: Interesting spell, to say the least. The healing is sorta small, but it requires only a bonus action. It can be used outside of combat, and you can recover an average of 70 hit points per casting spread between your party. Somewhat more efficient than other similar spells at 3rd level. It is also useful in-combat, but it’s Concentration-based so make sure you can resist the save reliably. (Reconsideration: when you think about it, it's the perfect desperation move; there's few things that require your bonus action, and of those that do, don't include your Divine Smite. That means you can heal your allies in-combat, and still contribute to battle meaningfully. It's certainly better than the other two aura spells.)

Blinding Smite: Deals one less die of damage than your smite, but imposes a chance of Blindness. It can be resisted with a Constitution saving throw and the effect can be worn off by making a save every turn, which makes this otherwise decent spell a bad choice. Concentration-based, to boot, unlike its counterpart spell; the damage is not enough to make it worthwhile.

Create Food and Water: Pass. Other casters could do better, and if you can get a scroll, get it.

Crusader’s Mantle: In short: the Divine Favor spell spread through an area, as if an aura. This is a fairly good boost to all your allies that rely on weapon attacks, and ranged weapon attacks benefit from it. Bonuses to damage rolls are scarce, making this a solid boost. Concentration-based, so it might conflict with spells of similar duration.

Daylight: One of the few spells without Concentration-based duration, but mostly useful for out-of-combat uses. Other spellcasters can make better use of it, though.

Dispel Magic: A far cry from its earlier incarnations, this is actually a really nice spell to have. This spell dispels all other spells of 3rd level and lower automatically, and the other spells are dealt with a simple dispel check against your key spellcasting ability score (Charisma). That said, you’re starting with a dispel check DC of 14, up to a DC of 19; with a Charisma of 18, that’s a 50-50 chance of success or failure. Other spellcasters can do better than you, but for the most part it’s good as a fail-safe.

Elemental Weapon: A superb spell. This spell improves your attack rolls and also adds damage, not to mention that it treats your weapon as if magical for its duration. In essence: Divine Favor married with Magic Weapon, and had this as a baby. Has a duration based on Concentration, but it lasts a whole hour, which is great. Also, if you’re on an area where you know several opponents have Vulnerability against a specific energy type, you can really exploit this. Finally, you can spend one of your precious 5th level spell slots to gain a greater bonus AND deal greater damage. Keep it on the ready, always.

Magic Circle: See Protection from Good and Evil, except it lacks a Concentration-based duration (it lasts for a fixed hour, or higher with higher spell slots) and also prevents entry from the target creatures. Has a 1 minute casting time and is fixed on a surface, reducing its application in combat.

Remove Curse: Another healing spell, except it works mostly on curses. Other casters can make better use of this, so don’t have this constantly prepared.

Revivify: A life-saver, or I should say (to be literal), a life-returner. The range of effectiveness is of one minute, so you can wait until the end of combat, or if you desperately need the services of your ally, It can be done immediately. It still consumes an action, but it’s probably the best action you can spend on (also, with Aura of Vitality, you can heal it to within 10 HP in a single go, and your other Auras will probably make it survive that round). Keep it always ready, even if a Cleric is also near you; double up on this important resource.

4th Level
Aura of Life: A solid buff, and can be cast only by speaking. The duration is fair enough (though it’s Concentration-based). Invaluable against undead, and a huge help when an ally is near death. Could be better, though.

Aura of Purity: An amazing buff that protects all allies (and yourself) from a myriad of status effects. It extends your Divine Health to everyone, grants resistance to poison damage, and grants Advantage on just about every other status effect other than Grappled, Restrained and Prone. Concentration-based, however.

Banishment: A pretty nice spell, judging by the change. No longer limited to extraplanar beings, this can serve as a way to make hard battles easier by removing certain creatures from the field to fight at your own pace. Charisma saves are few, so it’s actually quite effective, and if using a 5th level spell slot, you can remove two enemies from combat. Concentration-based, so prepare to feel the brunt of the other enemies hitting you mercilessly. Banishing Smite is better on that regard, even if its one level later.

Death Ward: A long-lasting spell without a duration of Concentration, but its effect is far, far different than before. It works more like the Death Pact spell of 3.5; saves you from one situation where you might be killed, and then it dissipates. It works on both hit point-based death and on instant death effects. While other spellcasters will have earlier access, you can help them a lot by having the spell prepared. More valuable if you have a scroll for it, but this would be a pretty rare scroll.

Locate Creature: See Locate Object. Also, WAY too high for you.

Staggering Smite: One of the weirdest Smite-based spells around. The damage is less than a Divine Smite using the spell slot, but the damage is very hard to resist (Psychic). Not only that, if the Wisdom save is failed, you disable the opponent on nearly everything it does, and can’t react against you. Problem is, the debuff lasts for 1 round, compared to the other Smite-based spells. Kinda disappointing in that regard, but nonetheless, a fairly good spell to have.

5th Level
Banishing Smite: One of your strongest smites. The damage is higher than a Divine Smite, is hard to resist (Force damage, after all) and auto-banishes an opponent, potentially removing it from combat. Concentration-based, so make sure you can resist the barrage of hits (alternatively; you draw aggro, so you’re doing your job right!)

Circle of Power: Incredibly good spell. In short, it works like Spell Resistance (advantage on saving throws against spells) mixed with Evasion on ALL ALLIES (which includes you!) within range, and it has the same range as your aura at 18th level. Superior protection for you and your allies. Concentration-based, but lasts a surprisingly good time. Also: only a Bard wasting one of its Magical Secrets can gain access to it, so it’s for the most part an exclusive for you.

Destructive Wave: The Paladin spell list has this as “Destructive Smite”, but they’re meant to be the same spell. That said: while it requires a Constitution saving throw, it is a superb spell that deals quite a bit of damage, and from two kinds to boot (thunder and radiant/necrotic), AND can knock your target prone. It’s also your only actual Area of Effect spell. Have it ready to fire when things get rough.

Dispel Evil and Good: A decent spell that protects you against various kinds of supernatural creatures, including undead. You can expend the spell to duplicate Break Enchantment or a more limited version of Banishment. Unfortunately, it’s a spell that has a Concentration-based duration, lasts for a really small amount of time, and takes your highest spell slot, so it competes brutally against other spells. Also, it targets only you, so its benefit is really reduced. A shame, as it’s actually a decent spell otherwise.

Geas: A pretty nasty spell to cast. It requires 1 minute of casting, so it’ll be relatively useless in battle unless you can stall combat, but if you do, you can have a target charmed for 30 days AND taking hefty damage if it doesn’t follow your command. You can also change your instructions, which is excellent. Mostly a roleplaying spell, but pretty useful to have when you do.

Raise Dead: Yes, it’s true: even D&D considers that a Paladin must revive the dead. Hooray for that? Well, it lasts for an hour, and has a 10-day duration, and the penalty is actually bearable. It’s not a spell that you plan to have always ready (particularly when there’s other spells that you’ll probably always want to have), but when the need arises, be glad that you can cast it. Always out of combat, of course.

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-24, 04:50 PM

Optimal Equipment

A big part of all adventurers, particularly combat-focused ones, is the equipment they possess; Paladins, naturally, are no exception. The section on Weapons and Armor will include both mundane and magical equipment. Weapons will detail the best choice for each combat style, while the Armor section will collapse Shields as well. Wondrous Items will have their own section, divided by body slot, except for Rings which will have their own section. Rods will also be analyzed separately.

If you’ve seen the Dungeon Master’s Guide, you’ll quickly notice that there’s no more costs for items. Instead, they are defined by rarity. Common items can be bought, and generally include potions and scrolls; Uncommon items and higher can’t be bought, unless the DM allows it, and in that case on a RP-basis (you need to spend time finding the buyer, and that buyer will give you a price for it, which will almost always be a rip-off). Wealth by Level doesn’t exist anymore, so any magic item you acquire is based on whether the DM allows you to have it or not. The guide assumes you’ll have a Magic-Mart ®, in order to evaluate the benefits of the item itself, but be forewarned – you may never see the item you desire, so focus on your build!
Weapons

Being a primarily combat-focused character, every Paladin must have a weapon. IMO, a Paladin should have at least four weapons: its primary weapon, two good secondary weapons that deal the type of damage the primary weapon doesn’t deal, and a decent ranged weapon. This may change based on the combat style, but for the most part a melee weapon and a ranged weapon are always a must.
So…where’s the Adamantine and the Mithral? Before the DMG arrived, the only special material was Alchemical Silver, which allowed you to bypass the resistance and immunity of certain creatures, for an added price. That is the ONLY material that exists now – Adamantine and Mithral are now “properties” rather than ways to improve items on their own, and they’re mostly for armor. You can’t have stacked items now (unless the DM homebrews one), so the properties will be part of the magic item descriptions now.

Simple Weapons

Club: Not very cheap, and the damage is par for the course regarding similar weapons. Pass.

Dagger (Fen, Thr): A reliable secondary weapon for just about anything, being one of the few weapons that has the Light, Finesse and Thrown properties. The damage is poor, though par for the course regarding similar weapons.

Dart (Thr): The only reason why you’d get this is because it’s insanely cheap. You can buy a set of 40 darts for the cost of a dagger. Or, if you find it appropriate, you can buy 10 darts for a quarter of the cost of one dagger. Otherwise, they’re identical to the dagger, except they can’t be used in melee.

Greatclub: One of the few native two-handed weapons of the Simple Weapons table for melee characters, and deals the highest damage between all Simple Weapons (save for the Light Crossbow). Doesn’t compare to Martial Weapons, though, except in that it’s really, REALLY cheap.

Handaxe (TWF, Thr): A great choice for any respectable Two-Weapon specialist, barring two other Martial Weapons. Being Light, you can equip one in each hand; you can throw them or use them in melee, and the damage is respectable. A truly flexible weapon, even as a secondary one.

Javelin (Thr): A great choice of weapon. This version of the Javelin behaves more like a Shortspear, in that you can fight in melee with it or throw it. It has the best throwing range of any other weapon, and the damage is respectable. Also, very cheap.

Light Hammer: Downgraded from Martial Weapons in this Edition, the Light Hammer is a respectable counterpart to the Handaxe, albeit cheaper and dealing less damage overall.

Mace: The humble mace got nerfed a bit, dealing less damage than a previous edition Heavy Mace but without the Light quality of the Light Mace. It still deals respectable damage, but other weapons are better.

Quarterstaff: A surprisingly good choice. The Quarterstaff can be wielded in one hand or two hands, and deals respectable damage while wielded in one hand, for a cheaper price than the Mace. As well, the Quarterstaff deals good damage if wielded in two hands, because of its Versatile property. The cost is excellent for a Simple Weapon, and it ALSO happens to benefit from the Polearm Master feat, so you can make a second damage with it!

Shortbow: Respectable range, respectable damage, but you have access to Longbows already so this weapon suffers for it. Only useful if you’re Small-sized.

Sickle: This weapon is bad and should feel ashamed for it. Unless you’re a Druid, don’t even look at it.

Sling: Cheap weapon, and has as much range as a Javelin while dealing the same damage as a Light Hammer. That said, it’s bludgeoning damage, which is somewhat rare, so it’s still useful at times.

Spear (Thr): Lovely weapon, only beaten barely by the Javelin (they actually are both great choices). While somewhat more expensive (you can buy 2 Javelins for one Spear), this one is actually better with Two-Handers because of its Versatile property. That said, it doesn’t benefit AT ALL from the Polearm Master feat, which is a true shame.

Martial Weapons
Battleaxe: A good default weapon, even more than the archetypal Longsword. It deals a respectable 1d8 slashing damage, but unlike other weapons, it has the Versatile property for when you need to go with two hands. Best one-handed slashing weapon, as well.

Blowgun: No idea why you’d get this. It has no special property at all. Pass (makes me wonder why it’s a Martial Weapon with such a pitiful damage ratio…)

Flail (SnB): A decent weapon that suffers from being outmatched by another. The Warhammer, for 5 more gp, adds the Versatile property. That said, its price and damage make it a good choice for Sword & Boarders, who’ll never worry about wielding a weapon in two hands (or a weapon in their off-hand, for that matter).

Glaive/Halberd (LD): A solid polearm, dealing good damage and with reach. Also benefits greatly from the Polearm Mastery feat. The Glaive and the Halberd are identical in all aspects, so they’re lumped in together.

Greataxe: A two-handed weapon that has always fought for superiority over the humble Greatsword, and this one is no exception. While cheaper, the Greatsword beats it in nearly all aspects. It only edges ahead when something like the Half-Orc’s racial feature kicks in, but otherwise, the Greatsword is a better weapon, bar none.

Greatsword (THF): One of the two most powerful weapons you can wield. The damage is superior to none, and works wonders when coupled with Great Weapon Fighting. Best slashing weapon, as well. The second most expensive weapon, tying with the Heavy Crossbow and the Longbow.

Hand Crossbow (Arc, TWF): Surprisingly enough, a very decent weapon. It’s mostly like a Javelin, except far more expensive and having the Loading property. You can only attack with it once, unlike the Javelin, but you can dual-wield it. With Crossbow Mastery, you can fire a veritable barrage of shots from it, all of them benefitting from your Imp. Divine Smite and your other weapons.

Heavy Crossbow (Arc): Upgrading to a Martial Weapon in this edition, the Heavy Crossbow deals a large amount of damage, but is offset by the Loading property (and being prohibitively heavy; it can’t be wielded by a Small character at all). If you have the Crossbow Mastery feat, this weapon becomes a deadly damage-dealing machine of destruction; otherwise, it becomes a poor choice when compared to the humble Longbow. Also, has less range than the Longbow, for some reason.

Lance (MC): Another weapon that got a buff between editions, the Lance is the best weapon for a Mounted Combatant, since it allows you to wield a shield with it and have Reach with a one-handed weapon. That said, you gain Disadvantage when fighting within 5 ft., which lessens its worth. Surprisingly cheap, actually.

Longbow (Arc): A weapon that can’t be beat in terms of efficiency, other than the Heavy Crossbow (and only with a feat). Great damage, maximum possible range of effectiveness, good price… Even if you’re a Sword & Boarder or a Fencer, or your Dexterity is on the rut, think about getting one whenever you need to fight at a range.

Longsword: A classic, but this time, it’s somewhat less worthwhile than other choices. The Battleaxe beats it almost every time, save for maybe weight.

Maul: Between the heavyweight contenders, this is probably the best weapon you’ll be capable of wielding. It has the SAME damage rating as a Greatsword, but at a fifth of its cost, and it deals Bludgeoning damage as well, blowing just about EVERY other Bludgeoning weapon away. Quite heavy, too, weighing around 10 lbs. (beaten only by the Pike and the Heavy Crossbow, and tying with the poor Greatclub).

Morningstar: A mighty weapon that fell hard, just like its namesake. Since it lost its double damage feature, and since being upgraded into a Martial Weapon, the Morningstar suffers from being overpriced, heavier and overall less attractive than the War Pick, which beats it in nearly EVERY point. There’s no reason why to even CONSIDER getting one, sadly enough.

Net (Thr): Less of a weapon and more of a disabling object, the Net has a pitifully small range and is easy to destroy. That said, restraining the target can be quite useful. This is the only way to restrain a target aside from spellcasting or class features, BTW.

Pike (LD): If the Javelin is equivalent to a Shortspear, the Pike is the Longspear turned Martial Weapon. The Pike deals a very interesting amount of damage, beaten only by the Lance, but without the special disadvantage of the latter. Cheap, but also VERY heavy (as in, the heaviest melee weapon around). Best melee Piercing damage overall.

Rapier (Fen): One of the best weapons for the discerning Fencer, even if quite expensive. The Rapier has the Finesse property, making it a must have for Dex-using Paladins.

Scimitar (Fen, TWF): A very interesting weapon for many reasons. It’s one of the two only Light melee weapons in the Martial Weapons list, one of the few slashing Light weapons (aside from the Handaxe), and ALSO happens to have the Finesse property; in fact, it’s one of the few Slashing weapons with Finesse. While other weapons have similar properties, this is the only one that reunites all three. The damage is low (comparable to your average Simple Weapon) but the benefits are far, far greater.

Shortsword (TWF): A cheap Light weapon with the Finesse property, and better than the Dagger except for being unable to throw.

Trident (Thr: Not the most attractive choice: like the Spear (which is a SIMPLE Weapon) but 4 gp more expensive. It has no special traits whatsoever; not even benefit from Polearm Master. If you really need to have a weapon with these properties, might as well go for the humble Spear.

War Pick: A surprisingly good weapon, being a cheap weapon that deals Piercing damage, and less heavy. Strictly better than a Morningstar, and if you don’t care for Dexterity, than the Rapier as well. Sadly, it has no other distinctive properties.

Warhammer: A decent bludgeoning weapon for your one-handed needs. In many ways, it behaves like a Flail, but with the Versatile property for added punch. Also, 5 gp more expensive.

Whip (Fen): Originally an “Exotic” Weapon, the Whip is now available to anyone with Martial Weapon proficiency. The damage is somewhat low (comparable to Simple Weapons),but has the benefits of Finesse (for those who prefer Dexterity to Strength, like the Fencer), and most specifically Reach in a one-handed weapon. Excellent choice for Fencers, in order to exploit Duellist with suitable reach.

Weapon Special Qualities

You might see this a lot on magic items: requires attunement. This is a new trait when using magic items – a magic item that requires attunement doesn’t grant its powers unless you spend a short rest attuning to it, though a special trait can reduce this to 1 minute. What “attunement” does is restrict the selection of magic items, so you no longer suffer from the “Christmas Tree” effect. This also makes ANY item that doesn’t require attunement far more valuable, because that means you can wear it without sacrificing one of your valuable attunement slots. You get up to 3 attunement slots, so be careful of which items to attune to – generally, the items you want the most are the ones that require attunement in the first place.

+1, +2 or +3 Weapon: Yeah, it might be a joke to do this, but it’s a fact – this might be the closest thing to a magic weapon you’ll ever see. Bounded accuracy means that these items will be very useful, even the +1 (but obviously, you want a +3 item). Also – no item over +3, folks.
Arrow of Slaying: Ammunition-specific property. While it no longer kills the target, it deals a pretty decent amount of damage even on a miss. However, it’s a 1/use effect, and it’s a very rare item, which kills its otherwise nice trait, plus it’s specific to one kind of creature. Oh, well.
Berserker Axe: Axe-specific property, requires attunement. A +1 axe that grants 1 hp/level is great. It’s cursed, though, and the curse should be familiar to 3.5 players who had the (mis)fortune of playing a Frenzied Berserker – that is, you go on a rampage and kill everything. Even your allies. Oh, and since it’s cursed, you don’t want to get rid of it, and you get disadvantage on attack rolls OTHER than this, unless no foe is within 60 ft. (so you can use a longbow to start, then switch when the enemy gets close). One of the few axe-native properties, tho.
Dagger of Venom: Dagger-specific property. A +1 dagger that allows you to add poison (DC 15 Constitution save, 2d10 poison damage and poisoned effect for 1 minute) as an action once per day (yep, no long rest shenanigans on this one!). Relatively useful, but most of the enemies you really want the dagger to work with will probably resist the effect, and the poison is consumed once you manage to hit. Plus, it’s a dagger. At least a Paladin can seriously consider using poison now (maybe not one following an Oath of Devotion, but surely one that follows the Oath of Vengeance).
Dancing Sword: Sword-specific property, requires attunement. Other than the dancing effect, this does nothing more. That said, it allows you to wield another weapon and use your bonus action to make another attack, though only up to four times before it returns. Somewhat useful, since it uses your bonuses.
Defender: Sword-specific property, requires attunement. A +3 weapon that lets you shift part of the bonus from attack/damage to AC. In other words, a defending weapon…shouldn’t it be obvious? That said – it IS a +3 weapon, and when you hit reliably but need to protect yourself otherwise, it has a decent property. It’s also a stacking AC bonus, which is VERY rare in this edition.
Dragon Slayer: Sword-specific property (yes, you’ll see MANY sword-specific properties!). +1 weapon that adds 3d6 damage to any enemy of the dragon type. While dragons aren’t THAT numerous, they ARE the most annoying, so a weapon like this is gold for these occasions…and relatively useful for when you don’t.
Dwarven Thrower: Warhammer-specific, requires attunement by a dwarf. While very rare, it is a sweet +3 weapon that has the thrown property (and a decent distance), and keeps its extra damage when you throw it, so it’s a very nice weapon for Dwarven Paladins. It also keeps the extra damage against giants. Note, though, that the extra damage ONLY works when thrown, but it automatically returns to your hand, so you can make your Extra Attack with it. Mmm…sweet 2d8+3+Str mod damage…
Flame Tongue: Sword-specific property, requires attunement. While it doesn’t have a bonus to attack and damage, you can activate it to deal an extra 2d6 fire damage, which isn’t that great but not so bad either. It’s basically a double-power flaming property, in case you’re interested, though with a super-lighting feature.
Frost Brand: Sword-specific property, requires attunement. Like the Flame Tongue, this weapon has no bonus, but it has a set of nice properties. The extra cold damage is always welcome (it’s less resisted than fire, for starters), and you get resistance to fire damage, which is a sweet trait. You can also use it to extinguish non-magical flames, but only 1/hour, so it’s not something you can rely with (that said, you can use it to extinguish an out of control fire.
Giant Slayer: Axe- or sword-specific property. +1 weapon, and not only deals extra damage to giants, but also potentially makes them fall prone. That said, it’s a Strength saving throw, and…giants are the exemplars of Strength, so expect never to succeed on this (DC 15 is easy to succeed for even the typical Hill Giant). That said, it requires no attunement, and it’s pretty flexible in that regard.
Hammer of Thunderbolts: Maul-specific. It’s legendary, so celebrate if you get it. The +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls requires no attunement, but the other traits do (and you need both a gauntlets of ogre power and any of the belts of giant strength to do so, though it seems that you don’t have to attune to them to gain the benefit). That said, the benefits are insanely good –you get a +4 to Strength and the ability to exceed 20, but not 30 (might conflict with the belt of giant strength you’re wearing, though), and you can potentially kill any giant on a nat 20 critical hit (DC 17 Constitution, so note that). The item is ALSO charged, and nets a nifty area stun effect (same DC as the killing effect) plus the ability to throw it. All in all, it’s a fairly good collection of traits – if you don’t have to attune to the gauntlets and the belt, it’s really good.
Holy Avenger: Sword-specific property, requires attunement (by a paladin, obviously). The king of Paladin weapons, and for good reason - +3 weapon, and you deal extra radiant damage to any fiend or undead, which are pretty numerous. That said, it also reclaimed a form of its old “circle of power” effect, granting a permanent aura while drawn that grants spell resistance (i.e. advantage on saving throws against spells), which increases with your own auras. If you use a sword, there’s NO excuse not to wield one, particularly since it can be a shortsword, rapier or greatsword now (yay!)
Javelin of Lightning: Javelin-specific property. It’s pretty easy to find (being uncommon) and requires no attunement. The best part, though, is how it works now: in 3.5, a javelin of lightning was a consumable item, but not now – now, it loses its property until the next dawn (so it’s usable only 1/day). The lightning bolt effect is somewhat weak (DC 13 Dexterity save or take 4d6 lightning damage), but at least you still do full lightning damage to the target on a successful ranged attack. Afterwards…at least it can bypass resistances from non-magical weapons, but it doesn’t return to you. Since javelins are now both melee and ranged (taking a cue from the now-lost shortspear), they’re pretty good choices.
Luck Blade: Sword-specific property, requires attunement. +1 weapon that ALSO grants a +1 to saving throws, so it’s great overall. 1/day, you can reroll one attack roll, ability check or saving throw, which is ALSO great. However, if the weapon has Wishes, then you’re set- as before, the item can only have between 1 to 3 wishes overall, so spend them wisely.
Mace of Disruption: Mace-specific, requires attunement. Has no enhancement bonus, but lets you deal extra damage to a pretty common type of enemy, that being undead. Not only that, if the enemy reaches a threshold, it ALSO forces a saving throw to destroy the undead creature (with every hit!), with a frightened effect on a successful save. If you face undead, this is a MUST have (other than a Holy Avenger, of course!), but it’s good even then.
Mace of Smiting: Mace-specific. +1 bonus, but increases to +3 when fighting constructs. While constructs are not that common, they can be annoying (particularly Golems). The item works like a mace of disruption but only on a nat. 20 critical hit, where it deals an extra amount of fixed damage rather than a set of dice worth of it. You deal extra damage to any other creature on a natural 20, though, so it’s good as a secondary weapon.
Mace of Terror: Mace-specific, requires attunement (hey, maces are almost as common as swords in this regard!). Has no enhancement bonus, but you can use it between 1 to 3 times per day to cause a frighten effect similar to the Oathbreaker’s Channel Divinity effect. Pretty nice, though many enemies become immune to the frighten effect. Superb for Oathbreakers.
Nine Lives’ Stealer: Sword-specific weapon, requires attunement. A decent +2 weapon, but its true benefit is the ability to kill any creature under 100 hp if you deal a critical hit and the target fails its Constitution save. That would have made it super-awesome, but unfortunately the weapon has limited charges, and once they’re gone, the property is lost. Considering you’ll see this very rarely, I would have expected them to recharge daily (at dusk, maybe?) Kinda disappointing, though it still remains as a +2 weapon (but, if what you wanted is a +2 weapon, you can…you know, get a +2 weapon from somewhere else?)
Oathbow (Arc): Longbow-specific property, requires attunement. Another item without an enhancement bonus, but you don’t need it – advantage on attack rolls, the ability to ignore all but total cover and no disadvantage from long range means you’ll pretty much hit from anywhere, and the extra piercing damage is just lovely. While Paladins are not ranged specialists, you might want to keep the weapon handy. Archers, of course, will adore this weapon, even if its property is usable only daily (it’s like using Smite on range!)
Scimitar of Speed (Fen, TWF): Scimitar-specific, requires attunement. A +2 weapon that allows an extra attack as a bonus action – not too shabby. In fact, not shabby at all. As a fencer, you’ll definitely want this; as a Two-Weapon Paladin, this is…pretty much what you do already, but better, so it’s an insult to your combat style.
Staff of Striking: Quarterstaff-specific, requires attunement. One of the two staves you can attune to (others are specific to full spellcasters), and counts as a +3 weapon that lets you deal extra force damage by spending charges. Just make sure to not abuse of the property, or else you’ll end up with a 5% chance of making the item useless. If you have the Polearm Master feat, then get this item. No exceptions.
Staff of Thunder and Lightning: Quarterstaff-specific, requires attunement. The other staff you can attune to. Counts as a +2 weapon, and 1/day it can either add extra lightning damage, impose a chance to stun, duplicate a strong lightning bolt effect, make an AoE thunder damage/deafen effect, or combine both as a separate property. Not too shabby.
Sunblade (Fen): Longsword-specific, requires attunement. Another must-have weapon, particularly if you’re a fan of longswords. For starters, it counts as a Finesse weapon, so it’s great for Fencers (better damage overall, and you can switch to two hands for 1d10 + Dex damage). Then, it’s a +2 weapon, but ALL the damage is radiant damage, so you don’t have to worry about most resistances or immunities (other than, you know, radiant…), plus you get extra damage against undead. There’s little excuse to NOT have this if you’re a Fencer, unless…well, you get a Holy Avenger that happens to be a rapier, scimitar or shortsword.
Sword of Answering: Longsword-specific, requires attunement based on the alignment. There’s a 1 in 8 chance that the weapon is useless to you, but if your alignment matches, then you’re set…though it’s legendary, so you’re most likely to NEVER see it. It’s a +3 weapon, which is already good, but you can also use it to make a counter-attack as a reaction, which is awesome because it’s an attack that doesn’t consume your action (it does consume your opportunity attacks, but if you’re marking…) It’s also done at advantage, which is pretty nice.
Sword of Life-Stealing: Sword-specific, requires attunement. You deal extra damage on a nat 20 critical hit, and you absorb that as temp. HP. Not too shabby, but it could be…less rare, you know. At least, require no attunement.
Sword of Sharpness (THF): Sword-specific (must deal slashing damage), requires attunement. Dealing 12 + Str damage on a greatsword is GLORIOUS. That’s enough…oh wait, there’s MORE? Yeah – on a nat. 20 roll, you deal extra damage, AND the chance to lop off some of the target’s limbs, but only if you roll the elusive “double 20”. Good luck!
Sword of Vengeance: Sword-specific, requires attunement. A +1 weapon, but it’s cursed. The curse? Well, you can’t drop it, you take disadvantage on all attack rolls, and if you get hit (and fail the Wisdom save, which can be possible before you get Aura of Protection), you MUST attack the creature that hit you until you kill it. You can banish the spirit that possesses the weapon, but…you only get a +1 weapon. Why bother, then?
Sword of Wounding: Sword-specific, requires attunement. It’s worse against you than against the enemy, but at least you can prevent it from healing. The really good benefit is the ability to deal 1d4 necrotic damage as a non-action, though every time you do it, you force a Constitution saving throw to negate ALL the wounds from this source (well, the necrotic damage you deal, of course). Try to have a way to impose Disadvantage on Constitution saving throws, and the damage will quickly scale up; at the very best, you can make it lose 1 turn (by making a Medicine check, of course).
Trident of Fish Command (Thr): Trident-specific, requires attunement. While it says “fish”, it’s not limited to them – as long as the creature is a beast with an innate swimming speed (which doesn’t necessarily means that it has to be aquatic), you can spend a charge and attempt to dominate it, with a fairly decent save. Decent, but not overwhelmingly so.
Vicious Weapon: On a nat. 20 roll, you deal 7 damage. Yes. You noticed it right – it has no attunement, not specific to any weapon…just plain extra damage on a nat. 20 roll. Simple, but not efficient, because by the time you could roll a natural 20, you’d deal that damage almost three times! If you can get advantage on your attack rolls at all times, it obviously becomes better.
Vorpal Sword: Sword-specific (must deal slashing damage), requires attunement. +3 weapon that ignores ALL kinds of resistance to slashing damage, so that alone makes it good. On a nat. 20, though, it’s an instant kill…unless the enemy is immune to slashing damage, immune to death by beheading, has legendary actions or is just too darned big (why, you’re explaining the toughest monsters on the Monster Manual!), in which case…you deal extra slashing damage. Other than enemies just plain immune to slashing damage, this is leagues better than the expensive load of dung of its 3.5 counterpart.
Weapon of Warning: Requires attunement. Gain advantage on initiative rolls, you and allies in 18th-level aura range can’t be surprised unless magically incapacitated, and you’re magically awakened if combat begins and you are naturally asleep. A no-nonsense item, useful as a secondary weapon if you’re not already overloaded by items requiring attunement.

Specific Weapons

Blackrazor: Greatsword, requires attunement from non-lawful aligned creature, sentient. +3 weapon with two pretty decent properties. One is that you completely annihilate any enemy you slay, and the other is that you can’t be charmed or frightened, lets you be aware of any living creatures, and the weapon itself (remember, it’s sentient) can cast Haste on your behalf, which is awesome. Just…don’t fight undead, and consume at least one soul a day (remember, it’s Chaotic, not Evil, so it doesn’t force you to discern).
Moonblade: Longsword, requires attunement from an elf or half-elf of Neutral Good alignment, sentient. Ever played Baldur’s Gate? If you did, you probably met Xan, and his…tendencies. You probably also saw his awesome weapon. This is one of such – a customizable item that grows better based on how many owners it had. Thus, you’ll never know what powers it might have – it might be a +2 or +3 weapon, it may be great for Fencers, it might be thrown, it might deal extra damage… The weapon can have up to 7 such traits, aside from the +1 benefit and being intelligent which are innate. Obviously a source of DM fiat, but if the weapon ends up being a +3 vorpal defender with 19-20 critical threat range and dealing 1d6 extra slashing damage on a hit, you might just have a weapon that’s far, far better than a Holy Avenger. Just saying.
Wave (Thr): Trident, requires attunement by a creature that worships a god of the sea, sentient. Another of the White Plume legendary weapons (much like Blackrazor and Whelm), it’s pretty good – a +3 weapon that also works as a trident of fish command and a weapon of warning, a cap of water breathing and a cube of force, so that’s 5 items in one! Oh yeah…and a critical hit can take anyone from full HP to half, or from half HP to death, as long as it’s not immune or resistant to necrotic damage. Really, this is one AWESOME weapon!
Whelm: Warhammer, requires attunement by a dwarf, sentient. Another of the White Plume weapons, and you get the idea that sentient weapons are MEANT to be powerful. So yeah – a +3 weapon, but you get disadvantage after your first attack on many things, which is a MAJOR disappointment. That said, you can use it as a thrown weapon like a dwarven thrower, a 1/day area stun effect against enemies on the ground, auto-awareness of secret/concealed doors and 1/day use of Detect Evil and Good or Locate Object. Its effectiveness relies on fighting any moment OTHER than daytime, this is a fairly good weapon. However, the DM may be out to get you, so if your adventures are on daytime, you’re screwed.

Armor
Since they’re combat-focused characters, every Paladin must have one suit or armor. Some Paladins may choose to wield a shield early on, and for Sword & Boarders, this is their primary focus. The following are the options for each weight category (Light, Medium, Heavy).

Light Armor
Padded: The cheapest armor around. Offers the same protection as Leather, but with disadvantage in Stealth. Pass.

Leather: Cheap armor, easily accessible. Offers the same protection as Padded. Pass.

Studded Leather: If you’re looking for the best protection around while having Dexterity over 15, this is your choice. No less, no more.

Medium Armor
Hide: The second cheapest armor, beaten only by Padded armor. The protection is kinda low, comparable to Studded Leather. Pass.

Chain Shirt: Originally lighter, the Chain Shirt offers cheap protection against most everything thrown against you, although far less expensive. Good AC/cost ratio.

Scale Mail: Having the same cost as the Chain Shirt, the Scale Mail offers one point of AC worth of better protection, but with Disadvantage on Stealth checks. If you’re wearing Medium Armor, you’re probably not looking for Stealth, so its a strictly better choice. Pointless if you have no Dexterity, however. Also, quite heavy.

Breastplate: Having the same protection capabilities as Scale Mail, the Breastplate is more expensive, but lighter and imposes no Disadvantage on Stealth. Somewhat strange, but there you have it.

Half-Plate: Although expensive, if you have Dexterity 14 or higher, this is the best protection you can get other than Full Plate. It imposes Disadvantage on Stealth checks, so if you care about that, the Breastplate is far better.

Heavy Armor
Ring Mail: While not as cheap as Hide armor or Padded Armor, it is still the third cheapest armor you can get. Add to it that you don’t need Dexterity to use it (and no Strength requirement either), and you get a pretty useful set of armor until you can afford something better.

Chain Mail: This armor is to Heavy Armor what Chain Shirt is to Medium Armor. Good AC/cost ratio, though you need some decent Strength to wield it.

Splint: This suit of armor offers some of the best protection you can afford, being less expensive than a Breastplate while offering better protection. You need a hefty amount of Strength to wear it, though.

Plate: Best protection, ever. It offers even MORE protection than Half-Plate or Studded Leather with the right amount of Dexterity (though not as much as Mage Armor or Barkskin with the right amount of Dex; then again, it can’t be dispelled, no?)

Shield
Shield (SnB, Fen): There’s only one, so make good use of it. The AC from the Shield stacks with everything else, and the protection is fairly good. Sword & Boarders OBVIOUSLY need it, whereas Fencers can strangely enough afford to get it, particularly since their signature Fighting Style doesn’t preclude the use of one, nor does it restrict Dexterity at all.
Armor and Shield Special Qualities

+1, +2 or +3 Armor: Another “not a joke”, but it’s true – usually, the best form of protection is just having a +1 armor, and probably the one you’ll access the most. Better armor is rarer than better weapons, though.
+1, +2 or +3 Shield (SnB): Since shields add to your AC, a +1 shield may be enough to make you pretty much invincible. That said, if you’re a Sword & Boarder, this is an invaluable addition to your arsenal, other than a proper magic shield WITH an additional enhancement other than a +1, +2 or +3. Well, save for some exceptions.
Adamantine Armor: Any medium or heavy armor except hide. While you’re not exactly immune to critical hits, you don’t get the extra damage from a critical hit. A far cry from its earlier incarnation (where it reduced damage), but with all the ways to get resistances and immunities, it’s not bad.
Animated Shield (SnB, THF, TWF): Requires attunement. Any character that relies on using a weapon on both hands (or each hand) will appreciate that the item lasts for 1 minute, can be activated as a bonus action while granting the benefit. Sword & Boarders, though, excel at using a shield, so most likely they’ll ignore the effect, as it only lets them use a Versatile weapon in both hands while keeping the shield bonus to AC.
Armor of Invulnerability: Plate-specific property, requires attunement. While you don’t get an enhancement bonus to AC, you do get the ability to halve non-magical damage, and on a pinch, become completely immune to it. The item is gained pretty late, though, so it’s not going to be that effective at all times; being plate armor, though, it’s still useful.
Armor of Resistance: Requires attunement. It can run the gamut – Fire is pretty common, while Force is very rare but also annoying when it DOES happen. Necrotic and Radiant are relatively common. Of all, perhaps the best is Psychic, since it’s relatively common AND it’s annoying.
Armor of Vulnerability: Plate-specific property, requires attunement. Essentially, it’s a third of the armor of invulnerability, but cursed to give you vulnerability to the other two. It can have its uses, but since vulnerability is NASTY, you don’t want to be hit that hard.
Arrow-Catching Shield (SnB, DR): Requires attunement. You gain a +2 to AC against all ranged attacks, and you can spend your reaction to make any ranged attack made against a target within 5 ft. of you hit you instead. This is damage redirection at its finest. The benefit is great, but there’s a little catch – there’s another shield that does this better. This isn’t bad, of course, but nowhere near as good as that one.
Demon Armor: Plate-specific, requires attunement. While it has a +1 bonus to AC and lets your unarmed strikes be lethal magic weapons (no, really – 1d8 and count as +1 weapons), the curse can be…annoying. At least it’s not specific to evil creatures only, but demons can be pretty nasty, and having disadvantage on their attack rolls and on saving throws against them can be annoying. Other than that…it’s a pretty cool suit of armor.
Dragon Scale Mail: Scale-specific, requires attunement. +1 to AC, advantage against dragon’s special attacks, and resistance to the dragon’s element, plus the ability to discern where’s the closest dragon. VERY nice, if you choose to wear scale and not plate (huge difference in AC, on a system where it matters). Also mixes well with a dragon slayer weapon.
Dwarven Plate: Plate-specific. Grants a +2 to AC and you can use your reaction to reduce any distance you’re forcefully moved. Particularly good if the enemy attempts to shove you. Pretty simple, no-nonsense armor that will take you quite far, particularly since it requires no attunement.
Efreeti Chain: Chainmail, requires attunement. A hefty +3 bonus to AC, plus immunity to fire damage works wonders.
Elven Chain: Chain shirt. This item is really for mages and bards who want to have the defense of a +1 chain shirt without proficiency, not for someone who already has it and is most likely in need of heavier armor.
Glamoured Studded Leather: Studded leather. +1 bonus to AC is nice, but this is more for Rogues and Bards who want to have good defense without having attention pointed to them, not for someone who most likely wants better armor.
Mariner’s Armor: Gain a swim speed equal to your land speed, and you start to float if unconscious. The benefit of this armor is that it requires no attunement and works for any kind of armor. On underwater adventures, it is invaluable, as long as you get a way to breathe water.
Mithral Armor: Any medium or heavy armor except hide. The armor no longer has a Strength requirement, and imposes no penalty on Dexterity (Stealth) checks, and if a certain kind of medium armor (most notably, chain shirt or breastplate), it can be worn under normal clothes. Decent for heavy armor, but a pale reminder of its old glory.
Plate Armor of Etherealness: Plate armor, requires attunement. 1/day, you can become ethereal for 10 minutes, which means all the benefits of incorporeality, without concentration. This is really good. It doesn’t allow you to spread the uses, like other items, though.
Sentinel Shield (SnB): Gain advantage on initiative rolls and Wisdom (Perception) checks. Requires no attunement, so keep it on your bag when you need it.
Shield of Missile Attraction (SnB, DR): Requires attunement. You have resistance from ALL ranged weapon attacks, but its curse makes ANY attack done against a target within 10 ft. of you also hit you, period. In short – a souped-up arrow catching shield. It’s the sole reason why I didn’t gave the arrow-catching shield a higher rating, and one of the few cursed items I’m actually excited for. Since it works even if you don’t have it equipped, it’s an excellent form of damage redirection, and if it hits, you end up with a hefty reduction in its damage as long as you hold it. To be honest – the curse is on the Ranger, since it can’t use its specialty any longer against enemies you face.
Spellguard Shield (SnB): Requires attunement. Gains spell resistance (advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects), AND any spell attack has disadvantage against you, which is better than most similar items of its kind. That said – keep it around for as long as you lack the Holy Avenger, and then ditch it otherwise.

Assorted Equipment
Acid: When you need to deal Acid damage, reliably. Almost as good, if not better, than the Acid Splash cantrip for a few levels, but usable with everyone.

Alchemist’s Fire: While the damage is poor, it’s Fire damage and it lasts for a while. At best, it can disable an opponent for 1 turn by forcing it to use an action.

Ball Bearings: Though the saving throw is low, you can use this item to make enemies go slower OR knock them prone. Use them if you feel they’re weak in terms of Dexterity.

Caltrops: A decent trap, this deals pitiful damage but reduce the target’s speed. Use it on a chokepoint for greater effectiveness.

Component Pouch: For most spells with material components, although you can also use a Holy Symbol for these purposes.

Crowbar: If you lack an ally with Thieves’ Tools (and proficiency with them), you can use this to open any lock, chest or stuck door you find by giving you valuable Advantage on the check.

Healer’s Kit: If you have the Healer feat, this is crucial to provide out-of-combat healing. If not, it’s still useful to heal someone without requiring a Medicine check.

Hooded Lantern: An effective way to produce light, barring a Light cantrip cast on an item. The range is decent, the duration is pretty fair, and you can dim the light as necessary.

Holy Symbol (Emblem): You’ll need this to cast most of your spells. Emblems are better than Amulets or Reliquaries, because you can place them in your Shield and proudly emblazon it. Since you require to have your Holy Symbol visible to make proper use of it, this is the easiest way. Furthermore, it weighs nothing, and it costs the same as all the other Holy Symbols.

Holy Water: If you’re facing a lot of Fiends or Undead, this is a decent way to deal Radiant damage to them at a range. The range is decent (20 ft.), so you can treat this as a “cantrip”.

Lamp: Effective source of light: decent range, cheap, and has good duration.

Oil: An item with a multitude of uses. You can use it to magnify fire damage, or set it as a “trap” that affects creatures within a small area for a longer duration. If you have an ally that casts said spells, go ahead and make his day with this.

Poison: Paladins are no longer bound by oath to refrain from using poison, so exploit this. This is a moderate boost to damage, adding a reasonable 1d4 points of damage unless the target succeeds on a pretty simple Constitution save. It lasts for 1 minute, and it says nothing about being used after one attack, so it’s evidently better on melee weapons.

Potion of Healing: Yes, in case you haven’t noticed, potions are now easily accessible. They’re 50 gp a vial (about a third cheaper than in 3.5) and provide suitable healing. Given that Wands are a rare commodity now, stock on a bunch of this and keep them safe.

Tools
Artisan’s Tools: This encompasses all kinds of tools that you might require to craft an item. Of these, the most useful are Alchemist’s supplies (to create Acid and Alchemist’s Fire, mostly) and Leatherworker’s or Smith’s Tools (to repair armor and weapons). Cartographer’s Tools may be useful if you’re creating a map in-game.

Disguise Kit: Useful if you want to keep a low profile, but not for much.

Forgery Kit: The remnant of the old Forgery skill, this allows you to create forgeries of physical documents. If creative enough, you could probably create letters of credit for purchasing supplies.

Gaming Set: You have dice and playing cards, plus two references to D&D Lore (Dragonchess, a Chess variant, and Three Dragon Ante, a physical playing card set). The best application you can get from them relies on gambling, though the DM might bust you on that one.

Herbalism Kit: Interestingly useful tool, this allows you to create Antitoxin and Potions of Healing. If you can get proficiency with it, go ahead and do so.

Musical Instrument: For when you need to play an instrument well. There’s no parameters to earning money with this tool, so it’s mostly for fluff.

Navigator’s Tools: You can’t use Survival on the sea, but the Navigator’s tools let you do so. You may argue that this is applicable on flying contraptions as well, such as Skyships or Lyrandar Airships.

Poisoner’s Kit: If you want to create poisons, you’ll need this. Note that the only poison you can create thus far is a basic poison; the DMG may have more details on the matter.

Thieves’ Tools: If you have good Dexterity and proficiency, go for it. They replace Disable Device and Open Lock, and can help your party’s Rogue if necessary (you can use the Help action to provide it with Advantage).

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-24, 04:51 PM

Wondrous Items

Amulet of Health: Requires attunement. If your Constitution is lacking, you can get this to raise it to 19. Pretty simple and effective.
Bag of Holding: Hold a load of items easily, though note that if it’s pierced or torn, you lose everything inside. Be forewarned.
Belt of Dwarvenkind: Requires attunement. If you’re a Dwarf, you won’t get much benefit, but you do get an increase to Constitution (up to a maximum of 20, tho) and advantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks with dwarves, not to mention a 50% chance to grow a luscious pair of glorious Dwarven test- beard (if you can grow it – too bad, Elves!). If you don’t…you get ALL of that, plus darkvision, free Dwarvish language, advantage on saving throws against poison and resistance to poison damage. So yeah – be a Dwarf without being one!
Belt of Giant Strength: Requires attunement. You turn your Strength into one of those amounts. All are better than what you’ll get eventually, so might as well get one.
Boots of Speed: Requires attunement. For a total of 10 non-consecutive minutes, you can double your walking speed and impose disadvantage on the attack roll of any opportunity attack. Fairly good, though a far cry from its original incarnation.
Boots of Striding and Springing: Requires attunement. Sets your walking speed to a minimum of 30 ft., and lets you leap three times the normal distance. More useful if you’re of a Small race, since it doesn’t work if you’re wearing heavy armor (a reason why you’d wear them).
Bracers of Archery (Arc): Requires attunement. You gain (a redundant) proficiency with the longbow and shortbow, as well as a +2 bonus on damage rolls with them. You obviously want them for the damage bonus, particularly if your attacks rely on them. Kind of a shame they don’t apply to crossbows…
Bracers of Defense: Requires attunement. Even if they added to your AC, the fact that you need to attune to them makes them already a bad idea. A bit more solid if you’re MC’ing into Barbarian or Monk, which have Unarmored Defense and thus can afford it.
Brooch of Shielding: Requires attunement. Magic missile might be an annoying cantrip, but attuning to an item just to gain immunity to it? Better attune to a ring of resistance set to force damage and forget about it.
Cap of Water Breathing: Lets you breathe underwater. The best part is that it doesn’t require attunement, so keep one at all moments.
Cape of the Mountebank: Allows you to use Dimension Door 1/day. The best part is that it doesn’t require attunement, so keep it nearby for when you need to make a quick escape.
Circlet of Blasting: 1/day Scorching Ray with an attack bonus of +5. Being uncommon, it means you have access to a pretty useful 2nd level spell early on, but as you progress levels, it’ll be less useful (mostly because of fire resistance/immunity).
Cloak of Arachnida: Requires attunement. You get a handful of benefits, including resistance to poison damage, a climb speed, the ability to move on vertical surfaces and hang on ceilings without problems, immunity to webs and the ability to use Web 1/day. A pretty interesting set of traits, which exemplifies what kind of items should require attunement.
Cloak of Displacement: Requires attunement. Attacks against you have disadvantage until you take damage, where it gets suppressed until the next turn. If you can remain in complete movement, you’re pretty much invincible – with high AC, that’s pretty much a given. Note that the property is disabled if you take damage, so you’re not entirely invincible. One of the better defensive items.
Cloak of Invisibilty: Requires attunement. You can become invisible for up to 2 hours, in 1-minute increments. Useful if you need to hide.
Cloak of Protection: Requires attunement. A simple +1 to AC and saves is always welcome.
Cloak of the Bat: Requires attunement. Be Batman, except replace Frightful Presence for the ability to turn into a bat. I mean – advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks and the ability to fly as long as you’re within dim light or darkness? Awesome! The ability to turn into a bat, not so much, and it only works 1/day.
Cloak of the Manta Ray: Lets you breathe underwater and gain a swim speed of 60 ft. Better than the cap of water breathing in every way, as it doesn’t require attunement either.
Driftglobe: Emanates light or 1/day daylight effect, can be commanded to float. Uncommon, so you’re likely to see one, and great way to have light in all places.
Figurines of Wondrous Power: A collection of famous items that allow you to turn them into magic creatures. Of those, the Bronze Griffon (flying mount and decent fighting creature for up to 6 hours), Ebony Fly (flying mount, recharges relatively fast), Ivory Goat of Terror (long recharge time, but gives you two magic weapons for as long as it’s active and also a free fear aura effect) and Serpentine Owl (flying mount, allows telepathic communication) are the ones you might like.
Gauntlets of Ogre Power: Requires attunement. Unless you’re aiming to use a hammer of thunderbolts, ignore. Most likely, you’ll get Str 20 by the time you get one, and any belt of giant strength overpowers it.
Gloves of Missile Snaring (SnB, Fen): Requires attunement. If you don’t wield a shield, this allows you to reduce the damage from one weapon attack as long as you have a free hand, but the amount of damage you can reduce depends greatly on your Dexterity modifier.
Helm of Brilliance: Requires attunement. As long as you don’t roll a nat. 1 on a saving throw against a fire spell that deals damage (goodness, how specific!), this is a pretty awesome item. Resistance to fire (always useful!), a small “aura” that deals radiant damage to undead, a load of spells, and the ability to add fire damage to your attacks (easily resisted, but you don’t have to keep it active at all times) are very good effects. A long cry from its 3.5 incarnation, which was…identical, but more volatile (so to speak).
Heward’s Handy Haversack: As the bag of holding, but holds less. On the other hand, it always lets you have the right item on hand.
Horn of Blasting: Decent thunder damage on a cone, with half damage on a successful save. It has a 1 in 5 chance of blowing up, so be careful (it’s fire damage, so if you’re wearing anything other than a helm of brilliance that grants advantage on the save, you’re set).
Horn of Valhalla: One of three items that allows you to summon a bunch of berserkers that serve you willingly, but can’t be used until one week has passed. Unlike in 3.5, these guys can, with enough time, beat just about everything, so the item always has some use (even if only as a way to escape).
Horseshoes of a Zephyr (MC): If you have a mount, this allows you to draw more utility from them.
Horseshoes of Speed (MC): If you have a mount, this allows you to draw more speed from them. Fun fact – on chase scenes, this item has no benefit, since you’re allowed up to 1 hour of increased speed before going at the speed of a 30 ft. creature (no, really!)
Ioun Stone: Requires attunement. One of the greatest items you can have, though you can’t have too many of them at once. ALL of them are good (probably save Strength, because you can get better items for it). Special attention goes to the ioun stone of Reserve, for its ability to reserve up to 3 levels worth of spells – good for when you need a 3rd level spell without wanting to expend it.
Keoghtom’s Ointment: Unlike in 3.5, where you could only have one of the benefits, this version of the ointment grants all three – that is, healing HP damage, removing all poisons and all diseases. You only have a few uses, though; luckily it is an uncommon item, so you might find it lying around.
Lantern of Revealing: Invisible creatures are annoying. Have a way to hold a lantern, and as long as they’re within 30 ft. from you, you have nothing to worry about them.
Mantle of Spell Resistance: Requires attunement. There’s various ways to get this benefit, such as the Holy Avenger and the spellguard shield, so this is less useful than you’d think.
Manual of Bodily Health/Gainful Exercise/Quickness in Action: If you get one of these, congratulations – you get the ONLY official way (other than the Barbarian’s capstone) to officially increase your physical ability scores over the norm. Be mindful of them in your travels, and make sure to share with your allies those you don’t use (in hopes they do the same to you).
Necklace of Adaptation: Requires attunement. A combination of breathing underwater, in a vacuum, and on any place where air is harmful. Decent protection, but not something you should strive for.
Necklace of Prayer Beads: Requires attunement by certain divine spellcasters (that includes you, but NOT a Ranger). 1/day, you can cast spells contained in the prayer beads as a bonus action – this includes bonus action Bless (the best bonus you’ll ever grant), Cure Wounds (so-so healing via touch, but as a bonus action it becomes better), Branding Smite (already a bonus action, but it means a free smite for you, using your save DC!) and Planar Ally (yes, a bonus action way to get a strong ally). Note that you can have more than one bead of the same kind, so it can be good or bad. Also, for all of you 3.5 veterans – notice the karma bead isn’t there anymore?
Oil of Sharpness: One-use item (works different from a potion, though). Essentially works as a Magic Weapon spell, except requiring no concentration and granting max bonus to attack and damage rolls with any weapon. Very rare, so keep them safe.
Oil of Slipperyness: One-use item (works different from a potion, though). A long-lasting Freedom of Movement or Grease effect, depending on how it’s used. It’s of Uncommon rarity, so you might see it often.
Periapt of Health: You’re already immune to disease. Avoid like the plague (pun intended!)
Periapt of Proof against Poison: Immunity to poison (both the condition and the damage). Did I mention that it requires no attunement?
Periapt of Wound Closure: Requires attunement. Death saving throws are rolled at the start of your next turn. This stabilizes you, if you’re dying, at the start of your next turn. Make the math: as long as you lose no more HP, you cannot die. Furthermore, it’s also useful if you make lots of uses of short rests, because then you can double the healing from your Hit Dice.
Quaal’s Feather Tokens: One-use items that have a set of decent benefits. Swan Boat gives you a large boat for an entire day, Tree allows you to spring a 60-ft. tall tree immediately (which can be used as a vertical ram, an elevator, for cover, etc.) Whip provides a magical force whip that deals decent damage up to mid levels as a bonus action.
Robe of Eyes: Requires attunement. You get a lot of benefits related to sight, such as advantage on Perception checks, superior darkvision and the ability to see invisible and ethereal creatures, but you can’t avert your eyes and you can be easily blinded. Still – it is pretty useful, particularly for the HUGE range of See Invisibility effect done permanently.
Robe of Scintillating Colors: Requires attunement. While the benefits are pretty good (impose disadvantage on all attack rolls against you, plus a stun effect with decent save DC), it only lasts for one turn and you only get somewhere between 1-3 charges per day. It would have been better if it was a bonus action or a reaction, but it consumes an action, so you’re pretty much wasting 1 turn to get a minor benefit. Reminds me of 4e items. Bleh.
Saddle of the Cavalier (MC): Cannot be dismounted against your will, and attack rolls against mount have disadvantage. If you fight while mounted, this is a MUST–have item, particularly since it doesn’t require attunement.
Scarab of Protection: Requires attunement. You gain “spell resistance” (advantage on saving throws against spells, but nothing else), and you can ignore up to 12 failed saves against necromancy spells or effects from undead, but once they’re all gone, the scarab is destroyed. You get a better benefit from other items (that also require attunement), and even while it has a lot of charges, its “legendary” rarity makes it insanely hard to get. Too rare for a meager benefit.
Scroll of Protection: Yes, so this is a scroll, but its effects are pretty different. You see, this spell works…somewhat like a Magic Circle spell, except specific to one type of creature. Such creature cannot enter the area unless it succeeds on a Charisma save (one of the rarest saves around, actually),and protects for a good amount of time. It’s a personal effect, though, and anyone can use it, so make sure to give it to anyone who really needs it.
Slippers of Spider Climbing: Cloak of arachnida does this better.
Stone of Good Luck: Requires attunement. The bad news? Well, it requires attunement. The good ones? +1 to ability checks, which includes initiative checks. It’s pretty obvious why it requires attunement, and being uncommon, you’ll see it soon enough.
Talisman of Pure Good/Ultimate Evil: Requires attunement by good-aligned/evil aligned creature. You want it for the +2 bonus on spell attack rolls (if you use them, that is) rather than for the insta-destroy effect, even if it’s a good one.
Tome of Clear Thought/Leadership and Influence/Understanding: As with the manuals above, but for mental stats. Boosting Intelligence or Wisdom isn’t as important as Charisma, tho.
Winged Boots: Requires attunement. You gain the ability to fly for 4 hours, in 1-minute increments. Other than overland flight, this is a very useful item to have.
Wings of Flying: Requires attunement. You fly up to 1 hour at a speed of 60 ft. The problem is that you have to use the flight duration ALL AT ONCE, and you have to wait somewhere between 1 hour and 12 hours for the effect to recharge. Not so great, all in all, compared to the winged boots (plus, the boots are uncommon, these are rare. WTF, Wizards?)

Potions

As a student of Chemical Engineering, I never had the joy of enjoying (redundancy intended) mixing potions to see their effect. They were gone from 3e, and didn’t return up until now. Thus, for those who never experienced the effect – you can only drink one potion safely, until its duration expires. If you drink more than one (or mix them in one bottle), you can get strange effects, which can be beneficial or harmful. As an example – you can have one or all of the potions lose their effect, turn the potions into a poison, create a bomb of sorts, double the effects and duration of one potion or halve the duration and effects of all, or make one effect permanent. You should be wary of this last one, because it can be both harmful and beneficial – a potion of healing turned permanent might not heal you, but instead increase your max HP amount.

As you may have noticed with spells, some now have a duration of “Concentration”, which, as explained on the spells section, it’s essentially a way to hinder the power of casters by making a large amount of spells require sustainment in order to work. Potions blur these, but not constantly. Assume that, unless explicitly said, potions don't require you to concentrate on the effect for it to work.

Alchemy Jug: Alright, so this isn’t really a poison, but it works. 1/day, you can make the jug produce one kind of liquid, which can be as inoffensive as fresh water (to us carbon-based beings, anyways) to something as dangerous as a vial of poison or a flask of acid. Or, a bunch of condiments, or even booze such as beer and wine. A very useful item, since it can provide a free flask of acid, a free vial of poison, or free booze and water when needed.
Elixir of Health: A pretty simple potion that heals the blinded, deafened, diseased, paralyzed and poisoned conditions, much like a Restoration spell. Rare, though, so keep relying on your spells (or Cleansing Touch).
Oil of Etherealness: While it doesn’t work like a typical potion, it does affect only a creature (and not an item), so it appears here. Etherealness for 1 hour is pretty useful as a defensive measure, being a very nasty way to impose disadvantage on attack rolls.
Philter of Love: Anyone who imbibes this is charmed for 1 hour. The charmed condition is no longer as powerful as it was before, but on the other hand, it makes your Charisma ability checks far, far more potent than before, and that is usually enough.
Potion of Animal Friendship: As the spell Animal Friendship for 1 hour. Look at the Philter of Love, now look at this. Same thing.
Potion of Clairvoyance: As the spell Clairvoyance. Requires concentration. The effect is limited, but it’s good as a spying asset of sorts, as long as the area is familiar or you place it somewhere obvious but unfamiliar. The spell itself doesn’t upgrade with higher spell slots (and isn’t part of your list, either), so the potion retains utility until your friendly Wizard gets to Scry on people.
Potion of Climbing: Gain climbing speed equal to walking speed, advantage on Strength (Athletics) checks to climb for 1 hour. As a common (hence, cheap) potion with no concentration requirement, it’s useful at all times, or at least until you get a reliable way to fly.
Potion of Diminution: As the “reduce” effect of the Enlarge/Reduce spell for 1d4 hours. While it requires no concentration, you’d prefer the opposite benefit. If you really needed to be Small-sized for some reason, might as well get someone to cast the spell on you, no?
Potion of Fire Breath: For up to 3 uses or 1 hour, gain ability to breathe fire. It’s uncommon, requires concentration, and allows you to deal damage as the breath weapon of an 11th level Dragonborn with red/gold dragon ancestry – even Dragonborn might want to think about it. Fire, however, is easily resisted.
Potion of Flying: Gain flying speed equal to walking speed for 1 hour, can hover. Very rare, but if you have it, it’s very useful in case you’re in a dungeon. However, there’s other ways to get flight speeds, and some are more permanent than others.
Potion of Gaseous Form: As the Gaseous Form spell for 1 hour. Requires no concentration, which is pretty good, though you can drop the effect earlier. If you really need to escape, this is a superb potion, as while you can’t attack or cast spells, you get decent resistances and advantage on physical saving throws, as well as a way of (slowly) flying.
Potion of Giant Strength (SnB, Fen, THF, MC, Arc): Increases your Strength to that of the specific giant. These potions range from uncommon (Hill) to legendary (Storm), and all of them increase your scores beyond 20, so they’re really good. While the effect lasts for only 1 hour, you don’t require attunement to gain the benefit, so it’s always useful on a pinch. You might only get to find (and probably purchase in bulk) potions of Hill Giant strength, though, which stop being useful as soon as you get Str 20. Nonetheless, they’re must-haves for any character using Strength as their way to deal damage.
Potion of Growth: As the “enlarge” version of the Enlarge/Reduce spell for 1d4 hours. Now this is more like it – advantage on Strength checks, Strength saving throws, and your weapons deal extra damage…any weapon, not just those that rely on Strength, so it’s free damage. Oh, and it requires no concentration, so it’s even better!
Potion of Healing: Heals wounds based on rarity. The potion of healing is on the Player’s Handbook, BTW, and was present before – you can get them at 50 gp a vial. The rest are more expensive, but heal slightly more: a potion of supreme healing heals about 45 hp on average, which is a far cry from the 4d8+7 (25) points healed by the strongest potion in 3.5. Keep them around, as there’s no more wand of cure light wounds, and while there’s a staff of healing that restores charges daily, chances are you’ll find potions more accessible. Plus – you can’t use the staff of healing, so there…
Potion of Heroism: 10 temp. HP, plus the effect of Bless for 1 hour. The temporary hit points will go early on, but the true benefit is the no-concentration Bless effect: +1d4 to any d20 roll you make is IMMENSE on this kind of system with bounded accuracy. If curious: go read the description for the Guidance spell, and now read that of the Bless spell. You get a pretty hefty bonus to all attack rolls and saving throws for up to 1 hour.
Potion of Invisibility: Invisibility for 1hour or until you attack/cast a spell. For some reason, it’s very rare. The ring is actually better, but chances are you’ll never see one. That said…you don’t need invisibility as the Rogue or Ranger would.
Potion of Invulnerability: Resistance to all damage for 1 minute. That’s pretty solid. It’s rare, though, so save it for the BBEG.
Potion of Longevity: Have your physical age reduced. Well…that’s odd, since there’s no mechanical advantages to aging, so it’s purely a roleplaying item. It’s also very rare, and Haste no longer ages you…so it’s purely a roleplaying item.
Potion of Mind Reading: As the Detect Thoughts spell. Unlike other potions, this one DOES require concentration, so it won’t last for long…and its save DC is pretty low. Oh yeah, and the spell can end if the target passes an Intelligence check against yours, which means the effect also ends.
Potion of Poison: Cursed item that poisons the drinker. Of course, if you get its true nature, it’s conspicuously hidden as a potion of healing, so you can use it for subtle assassination. Remember: the Paladin no longer loses its powers when using poison in any way, except if it follows the Oath of Devotion (and even then!), so you’re not prevented from using it. In fact, it can be a clever way to deal with evil for an Oath of Vengeance Paladin.
Potion of Resistance: Resistance to 1 type of damage for 1 hour. This works with all 10 kinds of energy damage, making it pretty useful. You have no control over its type, but it’s uncommon, so you’ll see most of them. Any one is useful, as long as it isn’t redundant – that makes a potion of poison resistance somewhat useless compared to the rest.
Potion of Speed: As the Haste spell for 1 minute. It requires no concentration, making this potion incredibly valuable. Note that the extra attack gained via the Haste spell doesn’t consume your bonus action, so you can really exploit it.
Potion of Vitality: Removes exhaustion, disease or poison, and allows you to regain max HP with your Hit Dice when resting. The primary benefit is already good; the secondary benefit not as much, but you get a lot of mileage out of it, since if you haven’t spent all your Hit Dice (or, say, less than a quarter of your Hit Dice), you can heal completely with a short rest afterwards. Not essential, but nice to have nonetheless.
Potion of Water Breathing: Allows breathing underwater for 1 hour. If it had a swim speed, it would be better. The only reason why it’s not worse is because the wondrous item that grants this permanently is rarer, and it helps you on a pinch. If your DM is stingy with selling potions or you’re mostly on land, this potion will be less useful.

Rings

Ring of Animal Influence: Allows using Animal Friendship, Fear or Speak with Animals by expending charges. The Fear spell only works on beasts, though. Useful if you need to handle beasts, but for the most part, not that impressive.
Ring of Djinni Summoning: Allows you to summon a djinni for 1 hour. Djinn are pretty decent elemental creatures, but you’ll seek to use it for more menial uses…something like what you’d command an unseen servant for, except the djinni has better stats. If the djinni dies, though, the item becomes worthless.
Ring of Elemental Command: Grants specific benefits, based on the element. Requires attunement, and all are legendary, so consider yourself lucky to have one. All rings allow you to use Dominate Monster on the elemental to which the ring is attuned to, and the ability to speak one of the elemental languages as well.

Ring of Air Elemental Command: Permanent Feather Fall effect, and if you slay an air elemental, you also get resistance to lightning damage, permanent flying speed (and ability to hover) and the ability to cast Chain Lightning, Gust of Wind or Wind Wall. Arguably the best of the bunch, if only because of the permanent flight effect and the fact that lightning damage can be pretty bothersome.
Ring of Earth Elemental Command: Able to walk on difficult terrain, and if you slay an earth elemental, you also get resistance to acid damage, the ability to walk through solid earth or rock as difficult terrain, and the ability to cast Stone Shape, Stoneskin or Wall of Stone. While you might only be interested in the Stoneskin spell, the ring is nonetheless pretty solid.
Ring of Fire Elemental Command: Resistance to fire damage, and if you slay a fire elemental, you instead gain immunity to fire damage and the ability to cast Burning Hands, Fireball and Wall of Fire. I’d say it’s the weakest of the rings, but immunity to fire (a pretty common element used by enemies) is completely worthwhile. The spells are nothing to celebrate at, tho.
Ring of Water Elemental Command: Able to walk through water, and if you slay a water elemental, you get the ability to breathe underwater, a swim speed = your walking speed, and the ability to cast Create or Destroy Water, Control Water, Ice Storm or Wall of Ice. Arguably the weakest of the rings (even more than the ring of fire elemental command) since it provides no resistance, and you can get both the ability to breathe underwater and a swim speed without attunement.

Ring of Evasion: 1-3 times per day, turn a failed Dexterity save into a successful one. Pretty useful, though a far cry from the 3.5 version. Still, not bad, now that spells and AoE effects can be pretty devastating.
Ring of Feather Falling: As the Feather Fall spell but permanent. Requires attunement, though, and it’s rare enough that you’d prefer a different way to gain the benefit. Not like you’re going to fall a lot anyways.
Ring of Free Action: As the Freedom of Movement spell, but permanent and requires no concentration. Immunity to paralysis and the restrained condition is excellent, and you’re not devoid of movement. Note that the Oath of Devotion gets Freedom of Movement as an Oath spell, so it’s less useful for them.
Ring of Invisibility: Turn invisible as an action, lasts until attacking, casting a spell, or spending a bonus action to dismiss the effect. You might not need to use it a lot, so give it to your friendly Rogue or Ranger (or Bard!) ASAP. Requires attunement AND is insanely hard to find, though.
Ring of Jumping: Allows you to cast the Jump spell at-will, but only on yourself. Requires attunement (boo!). It’s uncommon and the benefit is pretty nice, though.
Ring of Mind Shielding: Immunity to most divination effects, but if you die, it traps your soul. The four kinds of immunities are not that impressive, and the effect that you get if you die barely helps for purposes of Raise Dead and other spells that can revive you. Requires attunement, as well, which sorta ruins it.
Ring of Protection: +1 to AC and saving throws, but requires attunement and is rare. No different than the cloak of protection in any case, except it’s on a ring. If you find a useful cloak, then the ring might be worthwhile.
Ring of Regeneration: Regain HP every 10 minutes and regrow body parts. The amount of HP you regenerate is decent, and better than other kinds of regeneration.
Ring of Resistance: Resistance to one damage type. Requires attunement. A good complement to an armor of resistance.
Ring of Shooting Stars: Expend charges to duplicate Faerie Fire, create ball lightning or shooting stars; can cast Dancing Lights and Light at-will. The at-will cantrips are pretty nice, and the effects are actually pretty good (and the effects regenerate, making the ring pretty useful). Very rare, though, and requires attunement.
Ring of Spell Storing: Allows you to store up to 5 levels worth of spells. Requires attunement, though it’s not so rare actually. This allows you to save a spell you consider important, provided you have some downtime. Very useful for you.
Ring of Spell Turning: Gain advantage on saving throws against spells that target only you; reflect spell of 7th level or lower on a nat 20 saving throw. Requires attunement, and is insanely rare, so you might never get to see it…but if you do, it’s a pretty awesome item that nonetheless gets upstaged by other spells and class features (see: Oath of Ancients). Even then, it’s worthwhile to have, though maybe another character may benefit more.
Ring of Swimming: Gain swim speed of 40 ft. One of the few rings that requires no attunement, and you get a faster swimming speed than most similar items that grant swim speeds.
Ring of Telekinesis: Allows using Telekinesis spell at-will. Requires attunement and is very rare, but otherwise pretty useful. The effect is limited to objects, and only those that aren’t worn or carried, but works automatically otherwise.
Ring of the Ram: Up to 3/day, expend charges to attack 1 creature (+7 bonus, 2d10/charge damage, push 5 ft.) or break an object within 60 ft. Unlike in 3.5, the ring of the ram reloads each day and remains useful for longer. Requires attunement, though.
Ring of Three Wishes: Get 3 wishes. Simple and effective. Requires no attunement, but loses its power once discharged. Use wisely.
Ring of Warmth: Resistance to cold damage, unharmed by temperatures of -50 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s uncommon and requires attunement, but otherwise it’s a nice alternative to a ring of cold resistance.
Ring of Water Walking: Allows walking on any liquid surface. Another ring that requires NO attunement, so it’s pretty good to have stowed on hand for when you need it.
Ring of X-Ray Vision: Allows to see through solid matter for 1 minute. Requires attunement, and unless you succeed on a Constitution save, you gain one level of exhaustion (which is BAD, since 6 levels of exhaustion equal death) if used subsequently before taking a long rest. A quirky item, great for when you absolutely need to check what’s behind the door.

Rods

Rod of Absorption: As a reaction, absorb a spell targeting you (up to 50 levels worth of spells). The effect itself is already good, but as a spellcaster, you can expend the stored energy to cast your own spells. Note, though, that you can’t recharge the item once it absorbs up to its limit, so use sparingly. Requires attunement.
Rod of Alertness: Advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks, able to cast four detection spells, or make a protective aura 1/day that provides a protective aura for 10 minutes. ALL of the properties are extremely useful – the detection spells allow you to sense invisible creatures, magical objects and auras, a wide variety of creatures, as well as diseases and poisons, for a wide variety of options (note, though, just as the spells), but there’s no limit to their use. The only limited ability grants the benefit of a Cloak or Ring of Protection, but in a wide area and stacking with the bonus, which is valuable on a system with bounded accuracy. Requires attunement, though.
Rod of Lordly Might: As +3 mace, but with a variety of properties. The one. The only. The legendary (no, really; that’s its rarity!) Rod of Lordly Might. Arguably one of the most useful tools at your disposal, since it has the equivalent of three different one-handed weapons, one of them being a flametongue (the other being a battleaxe and a spear, thus hitting all three physical damage types). It also keeps the pole version, the battering ram and the ability to detect magnetic north and depth. As well, you get three 1/day powers, including the ability to paralyze or drain the life of a struck creature, or frighten all enemies within range, which are no slouches. The only real problem is that it requires attunement, but you’d require attunement for the flametongue alone, so it’s a bargain for all you get. The closest thing you’ll get to an artifact without being one.
Rod of Resurrection: Spend charges to heal or resurrect. Requires attunement and is legendary, but it’s one of the few items where it explicitly says that attunement is restricted to certain divine classes, which include the Paladin. Using the item to resurrect incurs, much like with wands, a 5% chance that the item is lost (or destroyed?), but if used to Heal, you can use it 4 times/day without penalty.
Rod of Rulership: 1/day, creatures within a wide range are charmed for 8 hours. The effect is closer to a dominate effect than a charm effect, since they regard you as a trusted leader, but other than that, it’s relatively easy to break. Also, requires attunement.
Rod of Security: Allows transport to a safe demiplane with variable duration. Your party can spend time in relative comfort for about 40-50 days. The effect lets you recover HP really fast, and you’re always provided with water and food, so it’s good for a protracted stay. The only rod that doesn’t require attunement, though it takes 10 days to recharge (not even a week! A tenday!)
Tentacle Rod: Use to deal damage and grapple opponents. The restrictions are fiercer than actually grappling the opponent, but you need to bind it with all three tentacles. Requires attunement. Almost a challenge for the rod of lordly might, if you know what I mean. If you know what I mean.

Wands

One of the big problems of wands were that they were expendable. Once created, you had about 50 uses (2nd Edition had about 20?), and then the effect ended. 3.5 changed this with the eternal wand, and 4e switched it around with permanent uses (and made them implements, too). 5e takes a hybrid approach – you get less uses, but they recharge daily; however, spend all charges, and you have a chance of destroying the wand. All wands are pretty rare, and a good deal require attunement, but they’re not specific to any spellcaster, so you can make use of all of them.

Wand of Binding: Allows using Hold Monster and Hold Person, or assist in escaping binds and grapples. The save DCs for both spells are relatively high, so all three effects are quite useful. The assisted escape is merely advantage, but with your saves, that is almost dead certainty.
Wand of Enemy Detection: Detects nearest hostile creature for up to 1 minute. You only know its direction, not exactly where it is, but it’s still useful nonetheless. That said, it’s as rare as other wands and requires attunement, so it’s not the best of wands.
Wand of Fear: Allows using Command specifically to make enemies flee, or create a cone of fear. The cone spends more charges, and has a decent saving throw DC. Both effects are useful early on, but start losing their shine as you gain more levels.
Wand of Fireballs: Allows using Fireball, with the level of the spell based on how many charges you expend. You need to expend all charges to use Fireball at full strength, but you risk destroying the wand in the process. Used tactically, you can make it last for quite some time – however, by the time you reach level 15, you’ll probably make all the use of it that you would. By that moment, either give it to an ally, or make it blow by always using it at full strength.
Wand of Lightning Bolts: Allows using Lightning Bolt, with the level of the spell based on how many charges you expend. Same as with the wand of fireballs, except you get a better spell in exchange.
Wand of Magic Detection: Allows using Detect Magic. Unlike other wands, this one is never destroyed, and doesn’t require attunement. That said, the rod of lordly might offers the same benefit and never discharges, so it’s useful early on. Has less charges than other wands, as well.
Wand of Magic Missiles: Allows using Magic Missile, with the level of the spell based on how many charges you expend. One of the few spells anyone, not just you, can use (it doesn’t require attunement, actually), but not very powerful.
Wand of Paralysis: Paralyze a target by expending charges. This wand requires an attack roll (with your spell attack bonus, BTW), so it’s insanely powerful, and lasts for long. It requires a saving throw each round, but since it doesn’t specify which, the best assumption is that it uses your own saving throw, which is also pretty nice if your Charisma is as high as it should. Very useful item.
Wand of Polymorph: Allows using Polymorph. Take note – Polymorph works quite differently, essentially letting you play any beast (and only beasts!) by replacing the target’s traits for the creature’s ones. Early on, it can be useful, but later on you’ll find yourself devoid of good beasts to use (other than dinosaurs, maybe). Note that it replaces EVERYTHING: even Extra Attack, the ability to cast spells or use class features, amongst others. You can use it against unwilling targets, but it ends up giving them a bunch of HP and a new form (albeit it can be a weaker form), reverting once killed. It can be used tactically – have a weak opponent, then keep the enemy transformed for a while (you need to concentrate on the effect, BTW) while you down the others, and then focus fire on it to hope the damage overflow causes damage to the original target.
Wand of Secrets: Allows detecting secret doors or traps. Like the wand of magic detection, it has few charges, but requires no attunement. Super-useful when you don’t have someone trained at Perception or Investigate.
Wand of the War Mage: +1, +2 or +3 to spell attack rolls, and ignore half cover when making a spell attack. You lack spells that require spell attack rolls, though.
Wand of Web: Allows using Web. Remember that Web is a Strength saving throw, so use it on weak enemies to keep them bound for a long time. The saving throw is pretty high, as well. Just…don’t waste it on strong (or huge) enemies, and you’ll be fine.
Wand of Wonder: Allows using a variety of effects. This is essentially the Rod of Wonder but as a wand instead. You can get positive or negative effects, but since you determine the target before the effect is done, you never have control over it.

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-24, 04:52 PM

Conclusion

After such an extensive analysis of the class, its class features and subclasses, all races, feats and spells released so far, what else is left to say? Perhaps it’s a moment to address the changes between editions.

If compared to earlier editions, the Paladin has improved considerably. Its spellcasting has improved, it has combat skill comparable to that of the Fighter, and it has respectable survivability. Its Sacred Oath options provide for distinction in builds beyond the “mounted knight/ubercharger”, and the class gains new features almost every level, rather than mere improvements to existing abilities after a certain point (roughly 6th to 9th level). When compared to martial characters, the Paladin is comparable to the Fighter (if not superior, based on the choice of Martial Archetype vs. Sacred Oath), though the Barbarian has a slight edge in terms of survivability due to its class features providing a great deal of reductions. The Paladin specializes on neutralization of status effects through immunities and bonuses to Saving Throws coupled with a variety of ways to grant bonuses or Advantage to such via spells; in contrast, the Barbarian can resist virtually all kinds of physical damage and extend that benefit to allies. When compared to full spellcasters, the Paladin remains behind the full spellcasters of the game, lacking the flexibility of higher-level spell slots and the flexibility of spells in general. The theme of the Paladin has expanded to “support allies or deal burst damage with riders”, and most of its spell list reflects that; however, they lack access to some solid buffs or thematic fits, and suffer from the lack of proficiency in Constitution saves and cantrips to mitigate this (in terms of preventing damage and thus the constant roll of Constitution saves). Despite the early onset of the rules, it’s pretty obvious that some of the problem spells of earlier editions passed almost unscathed, and some still retain their old durations; some, like Gate, are somewhat more controlled, but others like Polymorph, Shapechange and Animate Dead can be a menace. Furthermore, with the loss of Base Attack Bonus and the unification of Proficiency Rules, the gulf between martial characters and spellcasters is somewhat minimal, which exacerbates the problem: the difference between martial characters is Extra Attack and a few boosts to damage, which can be compensated with some choices. The greatest example is the War Domain Cleric compared to the Paladin; the War Cleric has the same proficiencies as the Paladin in terms of weapons and armor, shares some of the Paladin’s spells, has a simulation of the Extra Attack feature and the same effect as Improved Divine Smite through its Divine Strike feature, but has 9th level spells and resistance to physical damage whereas the Paladin has 5th level spellcasting and no such resistance. Even if equating the resistances and giving the Paladin advantage on that regard, 9th level spells are very powerful. This is ONLY dealing with the Cleric’s spellcasting and its domain feature. A College of War Bard has actual Extra Attack, almost the same proficiencies as the Paladin save for Heavy Armor, and the ability to blend spellcasting and swordplay (or sharpshooting) seamlessly, whereas the Paladin can only do so with bonus action spells or through a specific class feature; that said, they also have 9th level spells, Expertise and the ability to apply their proficiency bonus to a bunch of ability checks, including Shove, Grapple, Initiative and spells that require making ability checks (like Dispel Magic), albeit not to saving throws lacking proficiency. Both classes can stumble upon the Paladin’s turf (physical combat) reliably, but the Paladin lacks things to stumble upon the other territory (high-level spellcasting) to compensate.

Even then, the Paladin still has merit, though its merit is passive rather than active. Between the Auras and the passive nature of some spells, the Paladin aids the party just by being there, something other classes can’t really boast of. Furthermore, the Smite-based spells provide a good amount of lockdown, something only the Fighter and the Monk can truly boast about (and the Fighter only through the Battlemaster Martial Archetype). They suffer a lot from the loss of proficiency with Constitution saving throws and some spells that should have been exclusive to them (Warding Bond, for example), but they have a good amount of staying power without much thought.

As a final bit of food for thought, Person_Man made a comment while asking for suggestions about the guide (thanks also to CyberThread for his assistance on color-coding; both were in agreement even if separately). While different, his point is interesting to hear: “Paladin in particular reads like a class that's very cool and balanced at low-mid levels, but is increasingly not worth it beyond level 6 or 7. In particular, the Paladin's spellcasting progression just sucks compared to every other spellcasters, and their high level class abilities, many of which are limited by Rests, are not nearly as impressive as those granted by spells. Also, Divine Smite depends on spell slots, and not your Paladin class level. Mearls confirmed this in a tweet. So Paladin 2/Bard or Sorcerer gets a lot more slots to draw upon then a strait Paladin. Similarly, Paladin/Warlock gets slots that can be refreshed by a Short Rest, instead of a Long Rest. (Though their usefulness is obviously dependent on how often your DM lets you take Short Rests). And while the Paladin capstone is cool (and probably a Blue ability), its pretty weak compared to Wish or Simulacrum or auto-Divine Intervention.”

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-24, 04:53 PM

(...and one for just plain Paranoia)

nmott

2014-09-24, 05:58 PM

Yorrin

2014-09-24, 09:26 PM

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-24, 09:36 PM

I just want to note that Half-Elves get +2 to Charisma and +1 to two other stats. I don't know if the reference to one stat in your synopsis was a typo or an omission, but I figured I'd point it out regardless. Besides that, I think this is a great look at the Paladin class, and it's entertaining too. (My own Paladin, a Half-Elf who's going to take Oath of the Ancients and act as a more damage-focused, heal-y Ranger, wouldn't fall under most of what you're suggesting but he's not really the typical Paladin so I suppose I can't complain about that!)

Omission, really. I made the reference to variant Human, which has a similar setup (but with completely free choice in ability scores), but other things have escaped my analysis (such as, for example, that Sorcerers also have proficiency in Constitution saves, something I figured when I had written the guide already).

That said: there is "support" of sorts for an Archer or TWF Paladin, if you look at the feats, and the spells have the right amount of bonus damage (Elemental Weapons, Divine Favor/Crusader's Mark; Imp. Divine Smite applies to all attacks you make) and spike damage (all Smites have no range restriction), so it's not entirely bad. My suggestions aim to be less inclined towards one side or the other, but it's hard to make a Paladin beyond a THF weapon, weapon & shield or fencing because the Fighting Style provides yet another benefit.

Strill

2014-09-24, 11:58 PM

Great Weapon Fighting: an interesting ability, if not awesome. You reroll all 1s and 2s on a damage die, but it doesn’t mean that it’s only ONE die. Rules Lawyers will support the idea that it’s EVERY damage die that falls into 1 or 2, though only if rerolled once (thus, two straight 1s or 2s, or a 1 followed by a 2 or viceversa won’t help, but everything else does). That also means…Sneak Attack damage dice, damage dice from spells, damage dice from Smites… Notice just how good it is?It's good, but you're overestimating it. It, together with a greatsword, comes out to a +10% to +15% overall damage boost over Dueling fighting style + longsword, which puts it on par with any of the other fighting styles.

Also it specifically says that when you reroll a die you have to keep the new result.

Improved Divine Smite: Jumpin’ Jehosaphat on a Pogo Stick; is there a way to make this any better? The Cleric has a way to add 1d8 to its attacks, but no Extra Attacks unless it multiclasses; the Fighter has lots of attacks but requires spending a not-exactly renewable resource (Superiority Dice) to gain the extra 1d8 (or higher) on its attacks, and only if they take a specific Martial Archetype (the Battlemaster). The Paladin has both the damage AND the Extra Attack, but it also applies to any other attack. Two-Weapon Fighting? All attacks get the extra damage. Opportunity Attacks? All the attacks gain the extra damage. Compared to the Cleric’s Divine Strike, this works with every attack, not just one. It’s also right when you cross the half-mark threshold, so it’s pretty good. AND it stacks with Divine Smite.You're selling Clerics short. Clerics get their 1d8 (or 2d8) damage per TURN, not per ROUND. That means they can get it twice per round if they make an opportunity attack, or a fighter uses Commanding Shout on them.

The same applies to the Rogue's Sneak Attack as well.

Haste
You seriously don't think haste is amazing on a Paladin? Are you nuts?

Defensive Duelist (Fen): One of the few feats with prerequisites, but a disappointing one. Adding your proficiency bonus to your AC is formidable, but when it applies only for ONE attack, then it’s not so much. It also consumes your reaction, which could be used on Opportunity Attacks, spells or otherwise. (Combat Expertise)You get the AC bonus AFTER you've already been hit, thus negating the attack. Whenever you activate it, you negate an attack that would've otherwise hit you. This feat is incredibly good.

That said, the mount is not really spectacularYou are nuts. The mount is not only permanent, but unlike any other mount, it's both intelligent, and under your control. In the mount rules, it says that normal mounts can't be commanded to attack, and intelligent mounts can't be controlled. Your mount is both intelligent AND under your control, so you're basically getting free attacks every turn. The Warhorse's attack is the same damage as a greatsword, the Warhorse has 18 strength, and if it traveled 10 feet towards its target before attacking it gets a free knockdown, and the chance for a second attack! This thing is leaps and bounds ahead of a Ranger's animal companion, and you get it for FREE!

Tiren

2014-09-25, 12:25 AM

Totema

2014-09-25, 12:46 AM

Another little thing you missed: If you get certain skill proficiencies from a background that you already have, you get to pick new ones instead. From any of the skills.

Daishain

2014-09-25, 07:22 AM

Might I ask how the longsword is definitively beaten out by the battleaxe? LS costs 5 gp more and weights 1 lb less, but aside from that the statistics are identical.

Person_Man

2014-09-25, 09:15 AM

Bravo on this well thought out guide. You obviously put a ton of work into it, and its appreciated.

GWJ_DanyBoy

2014-09-25, 09:44 AM

Great guide! I haven't finished yet, but I plan to. Personally, I'm very excited to play a paladin.

Yenek

2014-09-25, 11:40 AM

I'd like to point out that SnB allows you to cast all of your spells, as you can provide S/M components with you shield hand if you put your symbol on it.
Just a little thing THF lacks.

And could you list all applicable mounts? It would be nice.

edge2054

2014-09-25, 11:58 AM

I have nothing to add really but thanks for putting together such a thorough guide. When I get around to making a paladin I'll definitely be giving this a good read :)

Theodoxus

2014-09-25, 01:56 PM

Might I ask how the longsword is definitively beaten out by the battleaxe? LS costs 5 gp more and weights 1 lb less, but aside from that the statistics are identical.

Yeah, I was particularly struck by this thought as well.

In general, because the weapons are internally consistent with themselves, there is a lot less wiggle room for what is better - you can simply figure out what damage type, attribute type, versatility and handedness and build whatever you want.

Snails

2014-09-25, 02:16 PM

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-25, 03:27 PM

Great looking guide! After having looked the whole thing over I notice that you're greatly favoring Str builds over Dex builds, when things aren't nearly as clear-cut as that. Dex can be used for a wide variety of builds (SnB with Rapier, TWF with shortswords (or rapiers with the feat), Duelist- as you've already pointed out, and Ranged). It also is used for Dex saves and Initiative both of which are important (as opposed to Str, which is only useful for athletics based checks aside from str-based weapons). Considering both ability scores equally viable should be a starting place for any serious Paladin (or Fighter). This in turn greatly improves the rating of Dex races like Elves and Halflings.

Chalk it up to how the Fighting Styles appear before the Approaches to the Paladin. This would be a moment in which I'd use the combat style abbreviations and color-code differently. Indeed, the Fencer and the Archer make far better use of Dexterity than Strength. The TWF Paladin swings equally in both ways: the Handaxe and the Shortsword are both very nice weapons for them, and once you get Dual Wielder, you could easily get two Battleaxes and deal quite a bit of damage with Strength alone; Two-Weapon Fighting is unique now in that it no longer favors Dexterity over Strength.

That said, a Sword & Boarder and a Two-Hander will favor Strength over Dexterity, since they're most likely to wear Heavy Armor. The TWF Paladin, no longer bound to high Dexterity scores, can apply Strength or Dexterity equally.

Indeed, Dexterity saves are one of the three most common saves (Strength is the fourth most common, as spells like Web and Entangle require them), and winning Initiative is key to winning the battle, but that doesn't mean Strength is unimportant. Indeed, I may have over-favored Strength, but when re-adjusting, chances are that you'll need to have both Strength AND Dexterity at Black, since Encumbrance (which is still there, even if only briefly mentioned), Strength saves and Strength checks for special melee attacks like Shove and Grapple are just as important, but some of them won't really apply to the classes that favor Dexterity after all. I'll probably adjust the scoring based on the fighting style, though if you look at each Fighting Style in detail, you'll notice Dexterity will go over Strength in the classes I mentioned.

It's good, but you're overestimating it. It, together with a greatsword, comes out to a +10% to +15% overall damage boost over Dueling fighting style + longsword, which puts it on par with any of the other fighting styles.

Also it specifically says that when you reroll a die you have to keep the new result.

It depends on what you define as "damage dice". The first time I dealt with it, I went with the strict definition of the reroll: you can do only one reroll (it happened because one of my players did that question, and he's a HUGE fan of Two-Handers, and there was a slight rules debate on that). Subsequent readings and forum consensus made me think otherwise: the damage dice is not limited to the weapon's damage dice, but also all added damage. In this case, if your weapon damage dice (i.e. the 2d6 from a Greatsword or Maul) and your Imp. Divine Smite damage all range between 1 and 2, you'd reroll all three, thus improving the average damage from all styles. That makes GWF more powerful than it seems, at least when dealing with dynamic damage; the average roll is slightly higher than usual, but it ends up better if you have multiple damage dice.

You're selling Clerics short. Clerics get their 1d8 (or 2d8) damage per TURN, not per ROUND. That means they can get it twice per round if they make an opportunity attack, or a fighter uses Commanding Shout on them.

The same applies to the Rogue's Sneak Attack as well.

Yet, the Paladin's wording on nearly all added damage (Divine Smite, Imp. Divine Smite, the Divine Favor/Crusader's Mark and Elemental Weapons spells) is less ambiguous: if a DM rules that "turn" only applies to your turn, then those two classes suffer. Trust me, I'm aware that the consensus is that "turn" doesn't apply to your specific turn and thus the damage can apply in those other cases; it is the ambiguity that makes me sell the Paladin slightly higher. Also: note that the War Cleric (which fits most of the traits that would make it a challenge to the Paladin) and the Rogue lack Fighting Styles beyond multiclassing, which can be an advantage to the martial classes (also, the Rogue lacks Extra Attack and the War Cleric can do additional attacks a limted amount of times per day only).

You seriously don't think haste is amazing on a Paladin? Are you nuts?

Yes, I don't think it's amazing, because it's not what Haste originally was. There's a reason for it, and it's not that far-fetched.

First, it requires an action to cast: that is, you can't cast it and benefit from it in the same turn (or at least, not in the same way as you'd like it). Thus, you need to spend your first turn limiting your attack potential for it.

Second, it's Concentration-duration. It WILL conflict with many other spells, such as Crusader's Mantle, Elemental Weapons and Hunter's Mark (which you also get). You need to get loads of damage-dealing on each of your attacks to make the extra attack worthwhile; note that this is the most efficient use of your extra action, because you'll rarely Disengage or Hide, and you'll rarely Dash. The Paladin has very good Concentration-duration spells which compete directly with it.

Third, its actual duration. Its 1-minute duration means you can't cast it before battle (though it lasts somewhat longer than before, where it was 1 round/CL). Thus, you HAVE to cast it once battle commences.

Think of what you said, and think of this corollary/counterpoint: Haste is AMAZING on a Paladin...when cast on him/her by someone else. Your party Wizard (or Bard) will have only ONE Concentration slot, so you're competing for his attention. If you can justify that attention by ensuring that extra action, the AC and the bonus to Dexterity saves is better on you than on the party's Rogue, Cleric or Fighter (or Barbarian, or Monk, or Ranger), and that is better than disabling a target or buffing itself, then chances are you'll get it. In the same way, if Hasting yourself is better than providing +1d4 damage to all allies in range (or +1d4 bonus to attack rolls and ability checks on three or more allies), 2d6 points of healing as a bonus action, or a plethora of boons, then by all means do so. I'm sure it'd be better if you can save that slot by having someone else cast the spell on you, then cast that spell you desire.

It's still Black, if only because it's still a very good spell. It just conflicts with other spells. That said, if there's further discussion about the benefits of the spell, I might raise it to Blue (but never to Light Blue; the original versions of Haste were better, drawback or not).

You get the AC bonus AFTER you've already been hit, thus negating the attack. Whenever you activate it, you negate an attack that would've otherwise hit you. This feat is incredibly good.

Feats in this game are pretty scarce, and they compete with ability score improvements. There's also bounded accuracy. Other feats grant you up to three benefits, while this one (and Charger) grant only one, which is why they're normally so low. Also, it requires wielding a Finesse weapon AND having Dex 13, meaning you have to be a Fencer to gain the most benefit.

Going by these parameters, it'd be normally Red for everyone, since Sword & Boarders will rarely have good Dex (if they choose to wear Heavy Armor), Archers can't wield a Finesse weapon while attacking on range, and the rest involve deliberately choosing to use Light Armor and have high Dexterity (TWF now equally favors Strength or Dexterity). And, of course, Two-Handers lack a two-handed Finesse weapon (and no Finesse weapon is also Versatile). Only the Fencer gains real benefit.

On the Fencer, you might get more punch out of it, but you have another thing that competes for your reaction: Opportunity Attacks. The Fencer can also use the Sentinel feat reliably, which has two ways to consume your Reaction as well (which is why it's Blue overall). Sentinel alone is a very strong feat that competes with Defensive Duelist directly; with 5 "slots" to fill with Feats (6 if you count variant Human), you have to carefully consider which is better.

Now, let's say you're not interested in tanking (which is the focus of Sentinel after all), and that you want to have something to neglect the blow (that is, you're interested in the "parry" mechanic of Defensive Duelist). The Reaction only protects you from ONE attack, not from all subsequent attacks. If an enemy attacks you once (because it chooses to), then the feat is nearly 100% efficient in negating that attack, since you can choose when to apply it to effectively negate the attack. However, what if the opponent has Multiattack? A good deal of monsters of all Challenges have Multiattack, meaning that, at best, you'll block one of the many attacks they'll make on you. At best, you'll block 1 of 2 attacks; at worst, you'll be playing roulette to negate the worst of six to seven attacks at once (Marilith, Hydra; it might change in the actual MM, but for the most part, they're the kings of attacks). Once it's used, you consume your ONLY Reaction for the round, meaning you're vulnerable to other attacks AND you can't take advantage of Reactions for something else (like Commander's Strike or Opportunity Attacks). In that regard, it ends up being Black for the Fencer: good choice, but not as good when you see it overall.

You are nuts. The mount is not only permanent, but unlike any other mount, it's both intelligent, and under your control. In the mount rules, it says that normal mounts can't be commanded to attack, and intelligent mounts can't be controlled. Your mount is both intelligent AND under your control, so you're basically getting free attacks every turn. The Warhorse's attack is the same damage as a greatsword, the Warhorse has 18 strength, and if it traveled 10 feet towards its target before attacking it gets a free knockdown, and the chance for a second attack! This thing is leaps and bounds ahead of a Ranger's animal companion, and you get it for FREE!

Note the example you give of a mount: the Warhorse. The weight of the spell is focused on your choice of mount.

That said: you have few spell slots all around: only 4 spell slots of 2nd level tops, which means 4 daily uses of Find Steed per day. You spend 1 to get the Mount, but once it's done, it's permanent: that'd make it useful. You mention the perks of the spell: the mount is intelligent, it's loyal (therefore it will follow your commands). The trouble of the spell is that it doesn't really improve its survivability: the Warhorse still has 3d10+3 hit points, still has an AC of 11 (unless you buy barding), and has no bonuses on saves, so it'll remain with the same weaknesses to Charisma saves (and Intelligence saves will still be low, even though the loss will be mitigated by having Int 6). Therefore, if the Warhorse is dead, you need to cast Find Steed again to revive it.

Now, consider the second point: the Paladin has a limited amount of spells it can prepare each day. Thus, Find Steed is competing with every other spell in the Paladin's list. This requires setting up priorities: what spell from the (1/2 Paladin level + Cha mod) "slots" I have to sacrifice for Find Steed? With full Charisma, that's 15 slots for the Paladin, which has 45 spells total (not counting the 10 free ones you get from your Sacred Oath). Of those, 4 are Light Blue (you'd be nuts not to have them), and 8 which are Blue (that is, you should seriously consider getting them). That leaves three spells from all the Black choices, one of which is Find Steed. If you don't have full Charisma (it can happen) that's one or two less slots. If you aren't Paladin 20, that means one or two less slots. A Paladin 16 with Cha 18 will have exactly 12 spells to prepare each day; that means it'll compete with the best spells the Paladin has to offer. Are you willing to sacrifice a spell that could be far better to have your Mount survive each battle?

There's one more thing. Find Steed competes with Divine Smite as well. All spells do. Find Steed has to be far, far better than Divine Smite or the Blue spells to earn a slot permanently. Else, you can cast the spell on downtime (if it exists) and then prepare better spells. See why I set it up as Blue? The color-coding on the spells implies which of them should be part of your daily repertoire, not just the actual worth of the spell. Perhaps I went a bit too far when I mentioned that the mount wasn't that valuable (not a hyperbole, since the mount gains some boons but not the survivability of 3.5's mount), but it doesn't merit having the spell prepared at all times...

...unless you're focusing on Mounted Combat. If you have the Mounted Combatant feat and you wield a Lance, chances are you want a strong and efficient mount every time. In that regard, Find Steed becomes Blue. I could debate that Find Steed becomes Light Blue because a Mounted Combatant is nothing without its Mount, but YMMV. Otherwise, Mounted Combat becomes secondary to your primary style of combat.

One more thing: I presume that most dungeons won't have size enough for your Mount. Unless you're small (in which case, you're not using a Warhorse), you won't be able to take your mount with you. In this case, you'd have to leave your mount behind (or dismiss it), meaning you'd have a slot you can't use, and you can't take full advantage of your mount.

In short: unless you focus on being on a mount at all times, the spell is not a must-have on your list, as it would be the 1st level Smites (scaling damage and nasty condition riders) or Destructive Wave (AoE Smite).

Vow of enmity last for one minute or until the target drops to 0. So that is 10 rounds of having advantage. VoE is for sure a light blue ability in my book. this also makes Soul of Vengeance better and at LEAST a blue ability.

It works against one opponent, however, and only once per Short Rest. To make it Light Blue, it'd have to be an at-will ability, usable as a bonus action, and that can be used against more than one opponent. There's easier ways to gain Advantage (Shove, Mounted Combatant and being on a mount) than this. Once the opponent dies, you don't have a way to shift that Advantage to someone else (like you can do with Hunter's Mark). Sacred Weapon lasts for the same time, the bonus might start small (Cha modifier), but if you get full Charisma, it's almost the equivalent of Advantage on Passive Checks, and it applies to anyone you attack, PLUS it has additional benefits. If it can't truly compare to Sacred Weapon, which is a Blue ability, how do you expect it to be Light Blue?

Soul of Vengeance would have been Blue if it wasn't tied to Vow of Enmity, but in this case, it does. You only have ONE use of Channel Divinity per Short Rest; if you use it on Abjure Enemy (for some reason), Soul of Vengeance won't activate. Thus, it implies that you MUST choose Vow of Enmity every time (and, to be fair, it is the better of the duo), but then it only applies to ONE enemy. If you don't make a Short Rest every now and then, chances are it's only ONE enemy per day. You might have noticed that there's some serious debate regarding Short Rests, which makes any ability that depends on Short Rests a wild card.

On a boss, though? BBEG, Dragon, big meaty monster...sure, these abilities can climb up to Blue. However, it doesn't mean they're actually things you should consider using every battle.

Another little thing you missed: If you get certain skill proficiencies from a background that you already have, you get to pick new ones instead. From any of the skills.

Yeah, that one I missed. It's a bit weird, though: you could deliberately choose class skill proficiencies that are identical to your chosen background and net other skills of your choice. That said, if you do some previous planning, there'll rarely be overlap between Backgrounds and skill proficiencies from class (or even Race). I'd go with applying that bit when Racial proficiencies and Background-granted proficiencies overlap: very few skills really merit choice after all.

Might I ask how the longsword is definitively beaten out by the battleaxe? LS costs 5 gp more and weights 1 lb less, but aside from that the statistics are identical.

That is exactly the reason: the cost. The longsword may be lighter, but if you use Strength (which you need for both weapons), chances are the weight difference will be negligible. Early on, the difference between GP will matter a lot, which is why I went for Battleaxe over Longsword.

I'd like to point out that SnB allows you to cast all of your spells, as you can provide S/M components with you shield hand if you put your symbol on it.
Just a little thing THF lacks.

And could you list all applicable mounts? It would be nice.

That is still on the debate table, since it specifically allows you to ignore Material Components (a huge reason why I made the Emblem version of Holy Symbol Light Blue; you'll almost always have it with you), but not any other components (such as Somatic ones). Even then, it's reasonable to think that you could quickly make a Somatic component while taking advantage of your enemy's parry, or just setting the weapon down and casting the spell, then returning to fighting stance afterwards.

As for the mounts...mentioning Mounted Combat is an afterthought at most, since there's not really that much support. While discussing with collaborators on checking up the guide (specifically, CyberThread and Person_Man), P_M told me that there were some things that went a bit away from the scope of the Paladin guide; while I mentioned that they would be opinions and whatnot, after reading your request, it made sense to mention part of his answer: it would be better as part of its own (mini-)guide. Mounts can be used by any class, after all, and Mounted Combatant isn't restricted to specific classes; it just happens that the Paladin (and to an extent the Ranger, and the Bard if you REALLY stretch it) are the best at it because they interact with mounts in a way other classes can't. However, beyond these interactions, mounts will be the same no matter between each other no matter who mounts them. To make this clearer: the Paladin's mount will be better than a Fighter's mount if they're the same kind of mount, but not better than the Barbarian's mount if they're the same kind. In that regard, the difference between mounts isn't something that's really on the scope of a Paladin guide, but on a guide of its own.

But if you need it: Moon Druid > other mounts.

Person_Man

2014-09-25, 03:42 PM

Might be worth noting that Disadvantage for fighting an adjacent opponent with a Lance is a minor annoyance if you are gaining Advantage from the Mounted Combat feat. Plus, if you are using Find Steed, your mount can help you kill an adjacent foe.

You can also just drop your lance and draw another weapon as a free action. Attack whomever you want to attack. Then at the start of your next turn, you can draw another lance (or ranged weapon, or whatever) if you need to. 5E is super flexible that way.

Similarly, every player that is Proficient with shields should walk around carrying one, just in case they stumble upon or get ambushed by enemies, so that their AC is two points higher the first round of combat before they act and they lose Initiative. Then on their turn, they can drop the shield and draw whatever weapon they prefer.

Mearls has also tweeted somewhere that its reasonable for a DM to rule that a player can sheath one weapon and draw another with a single free action, because the intent of the rule is to not punish players for switching weapons as needed.

The caveat to this strategy is that once magic items exist and start getting integrated into most (many? some?) games, most players will probably stick with a single weapon and (if its one handed) a shield, without swapping them around.

Tiren

2014-09-25, 05:54 PM

I think your still underestimating VoE. Shove and mounted combat advantage is more situational for granting advantage then VoE (being outside for mount, size difference for shove etc.). Again, it last for 10 rounds and requires no concentration. If you want to go nova on the boss you just have to declare it. Now add this to THF and take the -5 attack for 10 extra damage, your going to do more damage then just adding CHA. Plus it does double your chance to crit sort of. Now the ability to take a short rest does depend on your DM, but most games that I've played in I'd say I get at least one short rest for the day. Now with the other power tied with VoE it's like 1/3 of the sentinel feat. This also makes you a great tank because it makes the boss focus on the paladin or he will regret it.

Strill

2014-09-25, 09:53 PM

Note the example you give of a mount: the Warhorse. The weight of the spell is focused on your choice of mount.

That said: you have few spell slots all around: only 4 spell slots of 2nd level tops, which means 4 daily uses of Find Steed per day. You spend 1 to get the Mount, but once it's done, it's permanent: that'd make it useful. You mention the perks of the spell: the mount is intelligent, it's loyal (therefore it will follow your commands). The trouble of the spell is that it doesn't really improve its survivability: the Warhorse still has 3d10+3 hit points, still has an AC of 11 (unless you buy barding), and has no bonuses on saves, so it'll remain with the same weaknesses to Charisma saves (and Intelligence saves will still be low, even though the loss will be mitigated by having Int 6). Therefore, if the Warhorse is dead, you need to cast Find Steed again to revive it.

Now, consider the second point: the Paladin has a limited amount of spells it can prepare each day. Thus, Find Steed is competing with every other spell in the Paladin's list. This requires setting up priorities: what spell from the (1/2 Paladin level + Cha mod) "slots" I have to sacrifice for Find Steed? With full Charisma, that's 15 slots for the Paladin, which has 45 spells total (not counting the 10 free ones you get from your Sacred Oath). Of those, 4 are Light Blue (you'd be nuts not to have them), and 8 which are Blue (that is, you should seriously consider getting them). That leaves three spells from all the Black choices, one of which is Find Steed. If you don't have full Charisma (it can happen) that's one or two less slots. If you aren't Paladin 20, that means one or two less slots. A Paladin 16 with Cha 18 will have exactly 12 spells to prepare each day; that means it'll compete with the best spells the Paladin has to offer. Are you willing to sacrifice a spell that could be far better to have your Mount survive each battle?

There's one more thing. Find Steed competes with Divine Smite as well. All spells do. Find Steed has to be far, far better than Divine Smite or the Blue spells to earn a slot permanently. Else, you can cast the spell on downtime (if it exists) and then prepare better spells. See why I set it up as Blue? The color-coding on the spells implies which of them should be part of your daily repertoire, not just the actual worth of the spell. Perhaps I went a bit too far when I mentioned that the mount wasn't that valuable (not a hyperbole, since the mount gains some boons but not the survivability of 3.5's mount), but it doesn't merit having the spell prepared at all times...

...unless you're focusing on Mounted Combat. If you have the Mounted Combatant feat and you wield a Lance, chances are you want a strong and efficient mount every time. In that regard, Find Steed becomes Blue. I could debate that Find Steed becomes Light Blue because a Mounted Combatant is nothing without its Mount, but YMMV. Otherwise, Mounted Combat becomes secondary to your primary style of combat.

One more thing: I presume that most dungeons won't have size enough for your Mount. Unless you're small (in which case, you're not using a Warhorse), you won't be able to take your mount with you. In this case, you'd have to leave your mount behind (or dismiss it), meaning you'd have a slot you can't use, and you can't take full advantage of your mount.

In short: unless you focus on being on a mount at all times, the spell is not a must-have on your list, as it would be the 1st level Smites (scaling damage and nasty condition riders) or Destructive Wave (AoE Smite).

I don't understand. Are you saying that you expect the mount to die every day and need to be resummoned? It gets your CHA bonus to all its saves, and once you get plate armor there's not much else to spend gold on other than barding for your horse.

Also Intelligence saves are almost nonexistent.

toapat

2014-09-25, 10:03 PM

I'd like to point out that SnB allows you to cast all of your spells, as you can provide S/M components with you shield hand if you put your symbol on it.

No, you cant. The Holy Symbol Material component exception only applies to A: Held (and Reliquaries are terrible and occupy a known Item slot, vs Amulets that might although the variant Charsheets suggest theres only 6 itemslots (Head, Body, Forearms, Gloves, belt, and Boots)) holy symbols. You arent holding the Holy symbol with a shield attached to it, You are holding a Shield, which definitely is not mentioned in the Material component rules or states that it leaves the hand free. Claiming that the shield is now the holy symbol is not even or ever implied anywhere, and B: Only Applies to spells with Material Components, which is fewer then those that have Somatic components which are obstructed by equipment. In other words, Warcaster is virtually manditory So basically it should be Half red/half lightblue because Awesomesuck

As for arguing the mount, We need the DMG for the rest of the paladin rules since both Oathbreaker (which honestly sounds more like Rhonin to Samurai then Blackguard to paladin), possibly an actual blackguard, and the guidelines for Find steed will be in there.

Unfortunately, Divine smite and Improved Divine smite say Melee weapons only. (at least in my PHB). so the paladin isnt exactly inherently competent at ranged combat

Strill

2014-09-26, 12:27 AM

Claiming that the shield is now the holy symbol is not even or ever implied anywhere

"A cleric or paladin can use a holy symbol as a spellcasting focus, as described in chapter 10. To use the symbol in this way, the caster must hold it in hand, wear it visibly, or bear it on a shield."

-Player's Handbook, page 151

Only Applies to spells with Material Components

"A spellcaster must have a hand free to access [material] components, but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components."

-Player's Handbook, page 203

If a spell requires both material and somatic components, a holy symbol shield works. If it requires just somatic components, it doesn't and you need war caster. I know it's bizarre and weird, but that's what the book says and it's been confirmed by the devs.

toapat

2014-09-26, 03:28 AM

a shield."

a hand free

Except you are fabricating a correlation when there is none. I can bear a load in a backpack but its not something im holding. You are claiming that Bearing a holy Symbol on a shield means that the shield is no longer a shield, its a holy symbol, Which doesnt provide AC so then you spontaneously die because that AC doesnt exist and you have been bull****ting the DM, Or you arent holding the holy symbol and so you cant use it for the Material component exception clause, and Die again because any spell you cast in combat with a Somatic component failed. Dropping equipment is still a free action but its also an action to pick it back up, even if Mearls thought it should be a non-action.

And the material Component exception clause doesnt apply to any spell which doesnt have material components.

And this still Ignores the fact that you cant Claim that you meet the condition of having a Hand free while wielding a shield because Shields dont say anywhere in the clause that your hand can or cannot be used for purposes other then maneuvering the shield, Thus it must be assumed that your hand is NOT FREE for use in other tasks. Considering that the shield has the attributes of the large shield, it can be assumed it is intended as such and not as a buckler to slightly smaller then Captain america sized shield* which would be strapped completely to the forearm. Otherwise I can wield an infinite number of weapons because you are saying Weapon slot equipment doesnt occupy a hand and thus i can hold and wield 4 greatswords and fight with them.

*The 30" Diameter it normally has, not like how in the movies the shield grows and shrinks as the needs of blocking dictate

Strill

2014-09-26, 04:10 AM

Except you are fabricating a correlation when there is none. I can bear a load in a backpack but its not something im holding. You are claiming that Bearing a holy Symbol on a shield means that the shield is no longer a shield, its a holy symbol, Which doesnt provide ACNothing says that any given piece of equipment cannot also be a spell focus. For example, Wizards can use their spell focus staff as a quarterstaff.

Or you arent holding the holy symbol and so you cant use it for the Material component exception clause,Nothing says you have to hold it. It specifically says you can simply "wear it visibly".

And the material Component exception clause doesnt apply to any spell which doesnt have material components.Correct. If the spell has both material and somatic components, you can satisfy them both. If it has only somatic components, you cannot.

And this still Ignores the fact that you cant Claim that you meet the condition of having a Hand free while wielding a shield because Shields dont say anywhere in the clause that your hand can or cannot be used for purposes other then maneuvering the shield, Thus it must be assumed that your hand is NOT FREE for use in other tasks. Considering that the shield has the attributes of the large shield, it can be assumed it is intended as such and not as a buckler to slightly smaller then Captain america sized shield* which would be strapped completely to the forearm. Otherwise I can wield an infinite number of weapons because you are saying Weapon slot equipment doesnt occupy a hand and thus i can hold and wield 4 greatswords and fight with them.

The following is a quote from one of the game's lead developers.

"can a Cleric or Paladin cast spells requiring somatic components when wielding weapon + shield emblazoned with holy symbol?"

JEREMY CRAWFORD: I'd say yes if the holy symbol is being used as the material component of the spell, so yes if "S, M," but no if only "S."

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1900-D-D-5th-Edition-Sage-Advice-from-Designers-Mearls-Crawford#.VCUtdvldXkU

Theodoxus

2014-09-26, 04:57 AM

That's backwards (not stating you're wrong, just the concept is backwards).

You can (somehow) wiggle your fingers while holding a weapon and shield as long as the spell also requires a material component, but you can't wiggle your fingers while holding a weapon and shield as long as the spell doesn't require a material component? How exactly does that make any sense?

Having your holy symbol blazoned upon your shield eliminates the material component of the spell. Sure, fine and dandy. But you still need to wiggle your fingers for a somatic component - which would require the warcaster feat. No way am I ever allowing any somatic requirement to be handwaved (pun intended) with that backdoor power boost.

Aldurin

2014-09-26, 04:59 AM

Great guide, I can now finally understand how a paladin is supposed to work (I was always stuck in the not-a-fighter-but-not-a-cleric problem with figuring out the role for this class.)

As for the Bear With Me's, unfortunately we probably have to accept that WotC will never come out with content that doesn't have flaws. We can hope that those bears are far less if we assume WotC is actually trying right now, and not like shipping half of a pdf as errata and cutting off a vital fix mid-sentence. It probably falls down to how fix-intensive the 5e homebrewing scene becomes to get an idea of how well it comes together.

I am glad that you're smacking against the bottom of the 5e deep end with the rest of us, Oskar, since having more people with a good eye for balance playing with and homebrewing for this edition will hopefully push it closer to being the best D&D experience we can get.

Strill

2014-09-26, 05:07 AM

toapat

2014-09-26, 05:38 AM

The following is a quote from one of the game's lead developers.

"can a Cleric or Paladin cast spells requiring somatic components when wielding weapon + shield emblazoned with holy symbol?"

JEREMY CRAWFORD: I'd say yes if the holy symbol is being used as the material component of the spell, so yes if "S, M," but no if only "S."

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1900-D-D-5th-Edition-Sage-Advice-from-Designers-Mearls-Crawford#.VCUtdvldXkU

Im calling bull**** on that because i realized when i was reading the casting rules as they are printed that paladins and clerics cant actually cast while engaged in martial prowess. And again, You cant even claim that the "intended" (which it certain to hell wasnt) reading is that shields allow somatic because the rules for using a shield's heraldry as holy symbol and the rules for shields themselves dont account for any method of "yes". Only that Reliquaries (which apparently are embossed holy texts into a steel cylinder if the weight to implied volume is followed) dont obstruct somatic components while manipulated, because amulets are Worn and emblems are born on a shield. Shields, which represent a shield with 5+ sqft of surface and would be strapped to the forearm and then gripped for stabilization, not held like a buckler.

Theodoxus

2014-09-26, 06:52 AM

You can already just sheathe your weapon and cast. All you give up is your opportunity attack.

The reason things are the way they are is so that, for example, an Eldritch Knight using a focus and sword can cast. They can already do it if they use a component pouch, so why limit them with the focus?

Because spells have a somatic component? There's a feat the allows for it - I'm not going to remove the need for a feat for the sake of allowing some gish wanna-be to cast a spell in the middle of combat because 'a cleric can'.

Strill

2014-09-26, 07:47 AM

Because spells have a somatic component? There's a feat the allows for it - I'm not going to remove the need for a feat for the sake of allowing some gish wanna-be to cast a spell in the middle of combat because 'a cleric can'.

You misunderstood me. An Eldritch Knight who uses a sword and a free hand, can use their component pouch to cast spells with no penalty. But if they instead carried a focus in the offhand, they wouldn't be able to cast somatic spells. It seems backwards to penalize them for carrying a focus when it's purely aesthetic.

Daishain

2014-09-26, 09:22 AM

You misunderstood me. An Eldritch Knight who uses a sword and a free hand, can use their component pouch to cast spells with no penalty. But if they instead carried a focus in the offhand, they wouldn't be able to cast somatic spells. It seems backwards to penalize them for carrying a focus when it's purely aesthetic.
Hmm, come to think of it, there doesn't seem to be any reason that an arcane focus can't be built into a shield like the divine emblems. Or for that matter into a weapon for the melee types out there. In fact, they seem to suggest that a quarterstaff can act as a focus if specially built for that purpose, why not a halberd?

Theodoxus

2014-09-26, 10:59 AM

You misunderstood me. An Eldritch Knight who uses a sword and a free hand, can use their component pouch to cast spells with no penalty. But if they instead carried a focus in the offhand, they wouldn't be able to cast somatic spells. It seems backwards to penalize them for carrying a focus when it's purely aesthetic.

But the free hand is allowing the use of that hand to make the somatic symbols (gang signs, essentially).

Material components (shield emblem, component pouch or arcane focus) is completely different from somatic components. I think you're conflating the two.

Gnomes2169

2014-09-26, 11:12 AM

Just a quick reminder that divine smite may only be used on melee weapon attacks, so the archery style is particularly bad as far as paladin-ing goes. Other than that, seems like a decent synopsis for newer players (though I don't know why protection is valued so much for fighting styles... It eats your reaction, and imposes disadvantage on a single attack from a single enemy, in an edition that tries to swarm you, use enemies with multiple attacks, or both).

Theodoxus

2014-09-26, 11:36 AM

(though I don't know why protection is valued so much for fighting styles... It eats your reaction, and imposes disadvantage on a single attack from a single enemy, in an edition that tries to swarm you, use enemies with multiple attacks, or both).

In and of itself, I tend to agree (and hence why I grabbed Defensive at 1st level instead on my fighter) However, as part of a greater 'tank' build, it plays nicely with other features; imposing your shield is a decent option when your squishy buddy wants to get away, but not lose his attack to a disengage - for instance.

Tiren

2014-09-26, 11:44 AM

Agreed that Protection is overrated. The sentinel feat itself does a better job.
Don't get me wrong, this guide has a lot to offer, but theres a few things that i would disagree with. and i think most of my disagreement just comes from the title itself "...from the eyes of a 3.5 player". In some ways 3.5 players were spoiled with crazy amounts of magic items and multiple spells going at once. here are some examples from this guide:

Intimidation skill i believe is undervalued. It works off one of your key abilities. oskar says he doesn't like it because it doesn't have the demoralize component as 3.5 did. But i find more use for this then insight (depending on the adventure) and insight is a Wis stat.

I think Paladin Saving throws are judged way to harshly. Sure, charisma is pretty rare (i believe second most unused save, int being the rarest) but your cha mod gets added to all saves at level 6 which helps with MAD scores. also wisdom is a great one and it protects against some of the most grim effects and its roughly tied with con for second most common save i believe. some of the biggest criticisms on the save throw was due to paladins not having con saves (which like stated, no one has except eldritch knight anyways, so whats the commotion?) and the loss of fort saves. but in that sense Paladins should have great str and con saves anyways not including their cha mod that gets added...

These are just a few examples on what i think is judged to harshly or not rated accurately due to the fact its being compared to an older system. I have other quarrels with the guide that again i don't want to seem like I'm bashing it.

Keko

2014-09-26, 12:12 PM

First, great job. I really like the roleplaying section also :smallamused: .

I agree that paladins should have Con save, I can't explain myself why they changed it, though sorcerers are casters with Con save proficiency. Still I wouldn't rate Paladin's save proficiency red as Wis prof is great anyway for everyone especially at low levels before aura of protection jumps in and wis is a dump stat, but this is your guide so your opinion.

Then, regarding 2h weapons you can theorically apply Great Weapon Fighting style to sneak attack but actually you can't: the style requires 2handed or versatile weapons used with 2hands while sneak attack requires a ranged or a finesse melee weapon.
If a 2handed/versatile finesse weapons existed you could do it, but no such weapon exists yet (this may be an Elven Courtblade :smallsmile: ?). Still it applies to any damage die as I read it so smite, energy weapon spell, divine favor...

Divine sense is a bit underestimated also, I think. While blocked by total cover (it would have been great to detect enemies behind the doors in dungeon crawls) it still let you sense invisible, hidden or disguised enemies, I suppose also a demon possessing someone and other utility/investigation stuff. While not great deserves black ranking imho.

Spells and smite only black?

On the other side I'm not too sold on undying sentinel, it may eat up one more attack from the enemy but is many enemies as far as I remember have multiple attacks so the probability of denying the last one (and thus survive another round) is pretty low, even before taking into account multiple enemies. Also leaving you at 1hp leaves you much more susceptible to instant death, deserving a careful valutation wether to use it or not. While not bad is not that great imho.

And I would rate 2 weapon fighting as red as it also eats up your bonus action that can be used to cast many useful spells, it lacks the style and dex for the style feat if you want it. It may be still viable but you're playing in hard mode

Also I agree with Gnomes2169 about protection style: it's good at low level but scales poorly IMHO: if it gave disadvantage on all attack from one source it would have been worth blue ranking, I would rate it black.

I think also that warcaster feat is much more valuable than many other feats listed as black.

Last, why barkskin is light blue? I'm actually a bit unsure on how it works and still I don't see it that amazingly good..

Gnomes2169

2014-09-26, 12:26 PM

In and of itself, I tend to agree (and hence why I grabbed Defensive at 1st level instead on my fighter) However, as part of a greater 'tank' build, it plays nicely with other features; imposing your shield is a decent option when your squishy buddy wants to get away, but not lose his attack to a disengage - for instance.

Hmm, I guess it works for that situation... But I still can't see it as anything but a hold out until you get the Sentinel feat. Because I can't see anything Protection does that Sentinel doesn't do better. Enemy tries moving past you to get at your squishy buddy? Enemy gets stanbed and stopped. Enemy wants to break away from you to get the squishy buddy? Enemy gets stabbed, and stopped. Enemy wants to stab your buddy? Enemy gets stabbed. Not stopped, unfortunately, but definitely stabbed. And the biggest disadvantage is, if you take protection at level 1 or 2 (depending on your class), then your stabs from sentinel will not be as effective as if you chose a more effective fighting style like Dueling or Great Weapon Fighting (but then we aren't sword+boarding here, are we?)

Over all, I'd say that taking protection in a game where you are only playing level 1-3 is an... Okay choice, since you aren't likely to get all the necessary feats for tanking with S&B. But any other campaign where you can take better tanking options (shield mastery, sentinel) make the fighting style obsolete and a waste of class resources.

In a game where your DM said no to feats (the jerk), then I guess that it's technically your only tanking option... Unless you're a paladin, a Bear Totem Barbarian, or a Battlemaster/ Eldrich Knight fighter, who are likely going to be doing the tanking role anyway, and have features/ spells to do so. So even then, I'm still calling suspicion on the usefulness of this fighting style.

Person_Man

2014-09-26, 12:36 PM

A few additional thoughts:

Divine Smite does not require an Action or Bonus Action or Reaction or Concentration to use. You simply expend a spell slot. Therefore, you can combine Divine Smite with spells such as Thunderous Smite or Wrathful Smite or Branding Smite etc. Although "going nova" like this can't be done very often because of your limited spell resources, it can result in very high damage output when you need it most against a boss enemy.
The bonus damage provided by Divine Smite and all the Smite spells are dice, and thus are doubled on a critical hit. This makes Assassin Rogue 3/Paladin X a tempting multi-class option, because the Assassinate ability grants Advantage and Critical Hit(s) against surprised enemies who haven't acted yet. (Though its important to note that you can only Sneak Attack with a finesse or ranged weapon, and that Divine Smite can only be done with a melee weapon).
True Strike (Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard Cantrip) is also noteworthy, because it only has a Somatic component and grants Advantage your next attack. So you can use it on yourself (or more likely, have an ally cast it on you) just before combat starts without breaking Stealth.
Divine Smite is powered by spell slots. So a Paladin 2/Valor Bard 18 will have a lot more spell slots then a Paladin 20, and can still get Extra Attack and can still cherry pick a few of the Paladin's best spells. If your DM is fond of allowing lots of Short Rests, Paladin/Pact of Blade Warlock is also worth considering.
Branding Smite spell is unique in that, unlike every other Smite spell, it can be cast out of higher level spell slots for additional damage. The other higher level Smite spells are still typically better, because they have superior status effects. But its worth noting for a Paladin/Bard who wants to use a very high level slot to add a lot of damage to a single important attack roll, or a Paladin/Warlock who always casts spells out of their highest level (up to 5th level) when using Pact Magic.
If you have mediocre Str and Dex, you can pick up the Shillelagh Cantrip to deal 1d8 + spellcasting attribute for to-hit/damage instead. Its a Bonus Action to cast, and doesn't require Concentration.
Its worth noting that a Rogue or mostly Rogue multi-class build will typically deal comparable damage to a Paladin even when he does Smite (which the Paladin can only do a pretty limited number of times per day), and Evasion + Uncanny Dodge make the Rogue comparably tanky in many situations, plus the Rogue is more mobile, Dex/Con dependent (superior to Str/Con/Cha dependent), and has much better Skills. So from my perspective, the real reason to play a Paladin is that Aura of Protection and Aura of Warding are Auras (and thus can make your allies a lot more tanky), and the Paladins spells and class abilities grant him a number of potent status effects (though not as many or as often as a pure caster).
My favorite Paladin build right now is an Oath of the Ancients Paladin with the Mounted Combat and riding a Moon Druid ally with the Sentinel Feat.

Tiren

2014-09-26, 01:00 PM

so true Person_man, smite a great ! especially on crits ;).

I forgot about divine sense and cover Keko, thanks for pointing that out.

Something about spell casting i want to rant on...

First, the spell list from oath of devotion is mostly on the paladin list anyways, with vengeance having the most spells off the paladin spell list which gives vengeance paladins a pump. And with that said, i want to go back to the haste spell... +2 ac, increased movement, an extra attack and dex saves are all great things to have. Sure it last a minute (10 rounds or as you said, 9 since your first round is casting) but whats not to love? sure its concentration but the spell itself is helping to on that. plus you don't have to bug the wizards for it.

And last thing about spells in general. I like the new concentration rules on spells. sure paladins have to deal with it more so then other casters, but it tones down the powers of pure casters from being tier 1 (as that debate is still going on) and helps balance out casters over all.

Strill

2014-09-26, 04:24 PM

But the free hand is allowing the use of that hand to make the somatic symbols (gang signs, essentially).

Material components (shield emblem, component pouch or arcane focus) is completely different from somatic components. I think you're conflating the two.

It specifically says that you can perform both material and somatic components with the same hand.

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-26, 04:55 PM

I don't understand. Are you saying that you expect the mount to die every day and need to be resummoned? It gets your CHA bonus to all its saves, and once you get plate armor there's not much else to spend gold on other than barding for your horse.

Also Intelligence saves are almost nonexistent.

By 5th level or higher? Pretty much.

Consider a simple thing: the average damage of a Fireball (8d6 damage, average 28). If the mount fails its save (Dexterity), more than half of the times it'll reach 0 hp and become incapacitated, knocking the Paladin off. Unless you spend your time healing the mount, chances are it'll die because of death saves (or worse). If it makes the save, on average it'll be at 5 hp, which is pretty close to death. By that level, you still don't apply Charisma to saves (because of Aura of Protection), so it'll rely on its own saving throws.

Coincidentally, that's the level where you first get the spell. And that's on a warhorse; the rest might not be better to wear. The mount gets no HP increase, making them rely on their same HP, whereas the damage scales up. Thus, unless you have the spell prepared at all moments, chances are the steed might end up unavailable at all moments.

No, you cant. The Holy Symbol Material component exception only applies to A: Held (and Reliquaries are terrible and occupy a known Item slot, vs Amulets that might although the variant Charsheets suggest theres only 6 itemslots (Head, Body, Forearms, Gloves, belt, and Boots)) holy symbols. You arent holding the Holy symbol with a shield attached to it, You are holding a Shield, which definitely is not mentioned in the Material component rules or states that it leaves the hand free. Claiming that the shield is now the holy symbol is not even or ever implied anywhere, and B: Only Applies to spells with Material Components, which is fewer then those that have Somatic components which are obstructed by equipment. In other words, Warcaster is virtually manditory So basically it should be Half red/half lightblue because Awesomesuck

I'd prefer if the Holy Symbol discussion remains out of the thread, since it'll consume a lot of the space, but for the sake of it: I don't incline towards any particular interpretation, and for what's worth, in my table Somatic Components are denied if you actually bind, in one way or another, a caster's hands or feet or make him/her physically unable to move. Reason being because it's unfair for weapon-wielders to have their spellcasting denied because of it. That said, this has no weight on the proper interpretation of the rule, so for the most part I remain ambivalent.

As for War Caster; mandatory or not, any spellcaster will like the Advantage to Con saves for purposes of Constitution. However, there are other very good feats, and judging on how your table interprets War Caster, chances are Resilient will work better for you.

Unfortunately, Divine smite and Improved Divine smite say Melee weapons only. (at least in my PHB). so the paladin isnt exactly inherently competent at ranged combat

Just a quick reminder that divine smite may only be used on melee weapon attacks, so the archery style is particularly bad as far as paladin-ing goes.

Hmm...I could swear every time I saw "Smite" I saw "weapon attack". With the double check, indeed, it limits it to melee attacks. Kinda sucks, since its competitor made it fit that their mark worked with ranged weapons, whereas the Paladin has to rely on melee weapons. That really involves having to downgrade Archery to Red, which is a shame.

Other than that, seems like a decent synopsis for newer players (though I don't know why protection is valued so much for fighting styles... It eats your reaction, and imposes disadvantage on a single attack from a single enemy, in an edition that tries to swarm you, use enemies with multiple attacks, or both).

I decried why Protection shouldn't be Light Blue because of the same features, but read it from the other side: if you have an enemy that's about to kill your opponent, or someone who has Sneak Attack and Advantage (but no ally on a side), it reduces the chances of landing a potentially dangerous hit. Landing that Protection will be difficult on certain monsters, but when it has to land, it's definitely a life-saver, probably more than what Sentinel could do.

Don't get me wrong, this guide has a lot to offer, but theres a few things that i would disagree with. and i think most of my disagreement just comes from the title itself "...from the eyes of a 3.5 player". In some ways 3.5 players were spoiled with crazy amounts of magic items and multiple spells going at once. here are some examples from this guide:

That's no problem. If the guide can be refined via disagreements, then by all means disagree as much as you'd like (so as long as I have a moment to debate why or why not said concern is valid). That said, I wouldn't say that 3.5 players are "spoiled"; as with 5th, and with ALL editions, it all really depends on the DM. Personally, I try to stick to the rules as presented in 3.5, and while magic stacking is a thing, there are times where my players end up with no treasure whatsoever, if only because all the monsters I throw at them hold no treasure. Sometimes, though, I can compensate. There may be DMs who shower their players with magic items, while some might end up being pretty stingy with them. Also: not all magic items were good for a character, and some ended up being vendor chow (for the real items you want to have), and depending on how they're sold, getting a new and improved magic item might end up taking some time.

Intimidation skill i believe is undervalued. It works off one of your key abilities. oskar says he doesn't like it because it doesn't have the demoralize component as 3.5 did. But i find more use for this then insight (depending on the adventure) and insight is a Wis stat.

This would be a thing, were it not because it competes with Persuasion. There's a few reasons why Persuasion is, IMO, more effective than Intimidation overall, but it balks down to this: when someone tries to convince you, you believe you'll be convinced better through tact or through threats? Most likely, people will prefer tact to threats, and this hints at the benefit of Persuasion over Intimidation, which is a reason why I set Persuasion higher. The demoralizing component of the previous Intimidate skill in 3.5 was a nifty addition, because it granted all martial characters (regardless of their class features) a way to debuff the opponent, making Intimidate attractive (also, even if both required Charisma, most martial characters had Intimidate as a class skill). Shift through editions, and you mgiht keep the mentality, which might surprise you when you see Intimidation as a Paladin potential skill proficiency. Mentioning this factor will help people realize that, for the most part, Intimidation and Persuasion are identical in terms of results; they just do it by different means. And, when the time comes, Persuasion will be a preferable method of convincing than Intimidate. You can choose Intimidation if your build makes better use of it (for example, an Oath of Vengeance has a thematic need for Intimidation), but for the most part, Persuasion is better thematically and practically.

Insight, on the other hand, works a lot like Sense Motive, and even as a Wis skill (which means you should get it because you're probably gonna dump Wis, meaning you would like to add your proficiency bonus even more), I feel it's a must have. It's not just a lie detector (in the sense that it detects the intention of a lie, but not the actual truth behind it), but it can be used for other things. Perhaps the description is not that ample, but you could add "charm/compulsion detector" (can't Insight be used to detect when someone's acting a bit off, but still hiding it?), "hunch-maker", and even could have a combat application (the description of Insight in 5e specifically mentions that the skill can be used to predict the character's next move, therefore allowing its use to know when an opponent is about to strike or hold back, so you can plan your next move afterwards; this could be an application of passive Insight). Thus, I wouldn't treat is as lower than Intimidation, particularly since it doesn't have a skill that makes it redundant (similar to how Perception and Intimidation make each other redundant at times).

I think Paladin Saving throws are judged way to harshly. Sure, charisma is pretty rare (i believe second most unused save, int being the rarest) but your cha mod gets added to all saves at level 6 which helps with MAD scores. also wisdom is a great one and it protects against some of the most grim effects and its roughly tied with con for second most common save i believe. some of the biggest criticisms on the save throw was due to paladins not having con saves (which like stated, no one has except eldritch knight anyways, so whats the commotion?) and the loss of fort saves. but in that sense Paladins should have great str and con saves anyways not including their cha mod that gets added...

I mentioned it later on the thread, but Sorcerers get Con saves, which makes this a bit more infuriating. Sorcerers, who have no reason to add Wisdom just as Paladins, get good Constitution saves (which they most likely have, as even the PHB recognizes everyone should have high Constitution), but have poor Wisdom, meaning they are particularly vulnerable to mental assaults of all kinds. Coming from 3.5 (or even from 4th Edition/Pathfinder), that's senseless; the common trend is that martial characters are good at resisting physical assault while spellcasters are good at resisting mental assault, and you have two classes that break the mold, but only one has a mitigating factor.

There's also the little factor that an unconscious Paladin has its aura turned off. The last thing you want is your Paladin falling unconscious, and there's a greater chance of falling unconscious from Constitution saves than from Dexterity or Wisdom saves.

These are just a few examples on what i think is judged to harshly or not rated accurately due to the fact its being compared to an older system. I have other quarrels with the guide that again i don't want to seem like I'm bashing it.

It might seem like comparing it to the older system, but in reality it's more like pointing out the differences to make the transition easier. Had I ignored that little fact, you'd have found another reason why to complain from the guide (and I don't say this in a despondent way; the complains are valid, as well as those of the others), but you took that as the reason. I was pretty clear that the guide would end up being subjective, if only because there's several biases going around.

That said, I mentioned that I really like the system, and that's no lie. If I judged harshly, it's not because I don't like the system, or that I have to be particularly harsh to reduce the bias; it's because I like the system but I don't like some of the changes, even though overall the changes are on a positive bent. I repeat it again; even if the Paladin sounds like being beaten harshly, the way Aura of Protection was handled can pretty much redeem the entire class. In fact, the addition of Auras makes the entire class distinct to the Fighter or the Cleric, and introduces a concept of play that, while somewhat controversial, grants distinction to the class; passive play. Whereas the Fighter has to activate spells or maneuvers or simply stand in front and fight to do something, and the Cleric has to cast spells to do something, the Paladin collaborates with the party by virtue of standing there in one spot, thus making all of its actions additions to its value in the party. If I judge the Paladin too harshly, it's because it's my favorite class overall, and because I'd love to see it better than in earlier editions. Having skipped 4th, that (and Pathfinder) are my only references, so naturally I'll use them when comparing.

First, great job. I really like the roleplaying section also :smallamused: .

I agree that paladins should have Con save, I can't explain myself why they changed it, though sorcerers are casters with Con save proficiency. Still I wouldn't rate Paladin's save proficiency red as Wis prof is great anyway for everyone especially at low levels before aura of protection jumps in and wis is a dump stat, but this is your guide so your opinion.

The reason I rate it red is because of the change. The playtest document had the Paladin holding Constitution saves, which would have made it at least blue (not light blue, because that'd be reserved only for classes that have two "good" saves, those being Dex/Con/Wis; the Rogue and the Monk fall in these because of latter class features). In that regard, the change makes it bad, so I went straight for red. Technically, I could set it on Black, but that would mean every class aside from Rogue and Monk would also fall in Black, because of the "1 good, 1 bad" approach to saves. Also, because I find Wisdom to be the least used of the three saves, particularly as Dexterity is more useful because of the boost in spell damage and Constitution as it has most of the conditions pinned down. Wisdom, indeed, does cover for a weak spot in the Paladin, but then it would have had to cover for another weak spot (Intelligence) to make it even; Charisma is quite probably the Paladin's strongest save (Proficiency + double Charisma bonus), and it's probably the 5th most used save (out of 6), making their strongest save a wash.

Then, regarding 2h weapons you can theorically apply Great Weapon Fighting style to sneak attack but actually you can't: the style requires 2handed or versatile weapons used with 2hands while sneak attack requires a ranged or a finesse melee weapon.
If a 2handed/versatile finesse weapons existed you could do it, but no such weapon exists yet (this may be an Elven Courtblade :smallsmile: ?). Still it applies to any damage die as I read it so smite, energy weapon spell, divine favor...

Yeah, I had a slip and forgot that SA only applies to Ranged or Finesse weapons, but if that hurdle is leapt, it shows why GWF is so good. The way I originally applied it was that it rerolled only ONE damage die (which would have made it pathetically weak), but it seems to apply to all dice which makes it turn-around and become actually good. Sneak Attack is essentially the largest amount of damage you can apply in one round, but it still applies to every other damage dice you add, which makes it useful.

Divine sense is a bit underestimated also, I think. While blocked by total cover (it would have been great to detect enemies behind the doors in dungeon crawls) it still let you sense invisible, hidden or disguised enemies, I suppose also a demon possessing someone and other utility/investigation stuff. While not great deserves black ranking imho.

What makes it Red is that the target types are more limited (three creature types, contrasting with Detect Good and Evil with 5 types) and its limited uses. Had it been at-will OR working exactly as Detect Good and Evil, it would have been black. That, or if the uses recharged through short rests; the uses recharge after a Long Rest, making it less desirable. At most, that's 6 uses per day, and what's worse, you can't concentrate on the effect (and it's an Action).

In short: limited creature types, limited uses per day, lasts for 1 round only, consumes an Action...that's four cons to its potential pros (detecting invisible, hidden or disguised enemies counts as one; consuming no spell slots is another). Detect Evil and Good happens to be a Red spell, so something that's worse in a way than the spell can't be Black.

Spells and smite only black?

Smite is black because of the requirement (consumes your spell slots, making it compete with your actual spells and thus limiting the benefit of the feat). Spells aren't Black, per se; that wasn't meant to evaluate spellcasting in general, as spells have to be evaluated separately (one by one, as per the spellcasting section). That is, to an extent, the limitation of a three-color (+one distinction) system, particularly one that uses Black as the "average" choice.

On the other side I'm not too sold on undying sentinel, it may eat up one more attack from the enemy but is many enemies as far as I remember have multiple attacks so the probability of denying the last one (and thus survive another round) is pretty low, even before taking into account multiple enemies. Also leaving you at 1hp leaves you much more susceptible to instant death, deserving a careful valutation wether to use it or not. While not bad is not that great imho.

The way the Paladin is built, most likely the hit that will drop you will be the last attack. In that regard, it's very useful to have. Indeed, Multiattack is actually pretty common (it appears on Challenge 1/4 enemies, IIRC), but you should have enough HP and AC to counteract most of the damage. Furthermore, it consumes no action whatsoever. Finally, it delays the counter of Death Saves; if the opponent doesn't stop hitting you and dropped you on the first out of four blows, not having this ability means you'll die, no questions asked. Undying Sentinel saves you from one Death Save, meaning you'll be less closer to death). This would be the extreme choice.

That said, look at how it's worded. Once you're reduced to 0 hit points, on a system where there's technically no negative hit points: so as long as you're not killed by Death Saves OR incurring the damage threshold (your maximum HP amount in reverse), each hit will take you to 0 hit points, meaning you could activate it later. Now, that's a flimsy reasoning, but if you can pull it off, you could ignore being killed altogether by activating it on the right moment, furthering its benefit. Certainly, the reading implies that it's on the first moment you're taken to 0 hit points (afterwards, you're already at 0 HP and thus can't be taken any further), but it's a curious reading nonetheless.

And I would rate 2 weapon fighting as red as it also eats up your bonus action that can be used to cast many useful spells, it lacks the style and dex for the style feat if you want it. It may be still viable but you're playing in hard mode

Dual Wielder requires no Dexterity at all. You might be thinking of 3.5/PF, where it required Dex 15; in here, it requires no proficiency. Indeed, it lacks the proper Fighting Style AND eats your bonus action, but it has to contrast with having another attack where you can pile up bonus damage. Think about it: you fight with two Battleaxes (thanks to Dual Wielder), and you're already using a Concentration-duration spell (say, Hunter's Mark if you chose the Oath of Vengeance, or Crusader's Mantle otherwise). Casting a smite (one of the Bonus Action spells) will probably end your additional damage, and most of the times it'll end up dealing less than 2d8 damage. Even without the damage modifier, making an attack with your off-hand as a Bonus Action means you could deal 2d8 + 1d4 damage (longsword/battleaxe damage dice + Imp. Divine Smite + Crusader's Mantle), which could compensate for the Smite you couldn't deal. Two-Weapon Fighting, as with earlier editions, relies on stacking as many damage modifiers as possible on all your attacks, compensating for the loss of larger damage from other factors. Couple that with the fact that you *can* spend your slots on Smite and thus get three attacks with Divine Smites, and you can see why it's not Red. Dual Wielder grants half the benefit of a Shield in terms of AC, so it's not so bad either...once you get the feat, that is.

Also I agree with Gnomes2169 about protection style: it's good at low level but scales poorly IMHO: if it gave disadvantage on all attack from one source it would have been worth blue ranking, I would rate it black.

It's already at edge right at the beginning, as Multiattack is accessible to monsters of Challenge 1/4 or higher, and many low-level enemies love to swarm (the Kobold is a particular offender). However, other than the Sentinel feat or OA, you don't have many uses for your Reaction. I'd go further: later on, Opportunity Attack without the Sentinel feat (or stacking a bunch of damage modifiers) isn't as great as stopping one key attack per round, though the effect is more balancing than overcoming: at latter levels, effectively negating one attack is better than dealing the same damage as you did before (or slightly better), unless the damage you deal is effectively better than negating the attack altogether. In that regard, Protection is great, but Sentinel is much better. Personally, I would have liked to see the Disadvantage apply on all of the attacks (rather than one), but it still works where it counts.

I think also that warcaster feat is much more valuable than many other feats listed as black.

It's valuable because of necessity. Taking as a stance that you could use an Emblem Holy Symbol to bypass the need for Somatic Components, Resilient would be far better than War Caster because it further increases your Constitution score to be unbeatable (high score + proficiency bonus + Aura of Protection = easily over +11 on the save), making War Caster less useful. On the other hand, if a Holy Symbol doesn't exempt you from making Somatic Components, it becomes more of a necessity than something else; even then, the Smite-based spells and a few others have no Somatic Components, so you're never really out of spells compared to, say, the Cleric or a Weapon + Shield-wielding spellcaster.

Last, why barkskin is light blue? I'm actually a bit unsure on how it works and still I don't see it that amazingly good..

Barkskin, or Stoneskin? The former sets your AC to 12 + Dex modifier (IIRC), sorta like Mage Armor. The latter, which is the one that's Light Blue, grants resistance to all non-magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage; except for a few enemies (Fiends, mostly), it halves all the damage you take. Thus, even if you're hit, you're still capable of surviving because of it. The duration is pretty fair (you can cast it before combat, and it applies to out-of-combat situations), and despite being a Concentration-duration spell, for the most part it'll force only a weak DC (the minimum, 10). It's certainly not like the Light Blue spells the Paladin has innately, but it's superior to a whole lot of Blue spells when you think about it.

First, the spell list from oath of devotion is mostly on the paladin list anyways, with vengeance having the most spells off the paladin spell list which gives vengeance paladins a pump. And with that said, i want to go back to the haste spell... +2 ac, increased movement, an extra attack and dex saves are all great things to have. Sure it last a minute (10 rounds or as you said, 9 since your first round is casting) but whats not to love? sure its concentration but the spell itself is helping to on that. plus you don't have to bug the wizards for it.

Well, given that originally it was an area spell and now it's single-target, that'd be a good start. Particularly since it's now a hybrid of 3.0 and 3.5 (grants an extra action, but you can't use it to cast a spell and only grants one extra attack, much like the 3.5 version). The +2 to AC makes it very good, being one of the few spells that grant a static bonus to AC (such as Shield of Faith); the increased movement rate is useful as long as you need that movement rate, and the Advantage on Dexterity saves certainly helps to cover for AoE spells. That said, it competes with the Paladin's innate AoE, Concentration-duration buffing spells (Crusader's Mark, Aura of Vitality), and its duration makes it less attractive than, say, Stoneskin (1 action, 1 hour duration) or Shield of Faith (1 BONUS action, 10 min. duration).

Honestly, if it weren't because I limited myself to a 3+1 color coding system, I would have made this Purple (which would have meant it's undefinable), because it's very good at times but not as good in others. For example: when you have many martial allies, Haste has to seriously compete with Crusader's Mark, as the extra attack and bonuses might not compete with granting 1d4 damage per hit on allies that can potentially hit more than once, thus scaling the damage immensely. On the other hand, if alone, Haste can be a superb boon because it helps you finish the battle quickly. On a party with two martial characters and two casters, Haste might be useful, but if between you and your partner you have enough attacks, Crusader's Mark wins again. And few things rarely top in-combat healing that takes almost no action to improve your party's survivability. Thus, it's very good in some, not as good in others, and if someone else has the spell, it'll use it on the person who benefits it the most, which might as well be you.

Keko

2014-09-26, 06:58 PM

The reason I rate it red is because of the change
Yeah, I remember when paladin had Con-Cha but I don't think is fair rating it lower because before it was better.
But as I said your guide, your opinions :smallamused: ..

Had it been at-will OR working exactly as Detect Good and Evil, it would have been black
Again rate as you please, I just tried to come up with a different view.

if the opponent doesn't stop hitting you and dropped you on the first out of four blows, not having this ability means you'll die, no questions asked.
I didn't think of it, and this makes it a little better but is still pretty situational I suppose.
The trick is smart but I doubt it will be allowed often: if you go by RAI (that is pretty clear) you can't do it, and even if you go by RAW one could argue that from 0hp to 0hp you are not "reduced" as your hp are the same.
Also it says that you can "drop to 1 hp instead", again from 0 to 1 hp you don't "drop", you "raise".

Dual Wielder requires no Dexterity at all.
Probably I mixed up with defensive duelist that is just over it. Point yours.
Also I agree that at low level 2wf is pretty strong, just at higher level bonus action can a very contested, but I see your point :smallsmile:

at latter levels, effectively negating one attack is better than dealing the same damage as you did before (or slightly better), unless the damage you deal is effectively better than negating the attack altogether.
I'm not 100% sold on this but is a good point, I should get through the profile of higher CR monster to see their average damage to get a better idea.

Taking as a stance that you could use an Emblem Holy Symbol to bypass the need for Somatic Components
As I read it Emblem Holy symbol negates the need of Material Component that are different from Somatic Components (I have to admit I skipped the discussion about Holy Symbol), and if it is necessary is one more reason to rate it high I think.
Also, supposing you have moderate-to-good Con and maxed Cha you're going to have a pretty good save anyway and avoiding the bad roll is better that adding a fixed bonus always decreasing in relevance I think. But I wouldn't take Warcaster instead of Resilient, I would take both :smallcool:

Barkskin, or Stoneskin?
Ouch, with all those tree stuff I was sure the list added barkskin. You're right is a great spell.
As a side note Barkskin says that the target's AC "can never be lower than 16 regardless of what kinf of armor it is wearing"

toapat

2014-09-26, 07:11 PM

Hmm...I could swear every time I saw "Smite" I saw "weapon attack". With the double check, indeed, it limits it to melee attacks. Kinda sucks, since its competitor made it fit that their mark worked with ranged weapons, whereas the Paladin has to rely on melee weapons. That really involves having to downgrade Archery to Red, which is a shame.

ya, i dont like that paladin is incompetent at ranged when a large number of the paladin ACFs and sub levels were used for the class and for Oath of the Ancients, but somehow Elfadin is just missing.

Paladin isnt completely incompetent with ranged this edition, because thrown weapons can use str and Dex is wholly viable to use over Str with the tradeoff of needing a feat to equate the defense of fullplate, and if Mithril functions as it did in 3rd, then Fullplate can offer a maximum of 21 base AC with Medium Armor Master.

MeeposFire

2014-09-26, 09:38 PM

Theodoxus

2014-09-26, 11:54 PM

It specifically says that you can perform both material and somatic components with the same hand.

Material Component (pg 203) "A spellcaster must have a free hand to access these components, but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components. So, yes, sort of.

Somatic Component (pg 203) "If a spell requires a somatic component, the caster must have free use of at least one hand to perform these gestures"

You can use your emblazoned shield as a holy symbol - for channeling divinity or any spell that is M or V,M. You can't use your shield (because it doesn't have a free hand) to replace your somatic components. IS your hand free when accessing your shield? No? then it isn't free to perform somatics. Can you stow your weapon, do somatics with your right hand while displaying your shield *** holy symbol as the material component? Fine and dandy.

No where - except War Caster - does it say anything about not needing a free hand.
War Caster (pg 170)"You can perform the somatic components of spells even when you have weapons or a shield in one or both hands."

Rummy

2014-09-27, 05:00 PM

Two weapon fighting is completely outclassed by Polearm master for the Paladin.

Protection style actually protects. Sentinel punishes. They have different mechanical and roleplaying functions.

OldTrees1

2014-09-27, 05:33 PM

Two weapon fighting is completely outclassed by Polearm master for the Paladin.

Protection style actually protects. Sentinel punishes. They have different mechanical and roleplaying functions.

Sentinel punishes[bonus attack] or protects[0 movement]. That said, Protection and Sentinel protect in different ways. Sometimes it is nice to have the other option.

Gnomes2169

2014-09-27, 05:55 PM

Oh yes, that's right... I would just like to point out that a Paladin can smite on its Sentinel reaction. That would be all. :3

Strill

2014-09-27, 08:52 PM

Two weapon fighting is completely outclassed by Polearm master for the Paladin.

Protection style actually protects. Sentinel punishes. They have different mechanical and roleplaying functions.

Paladins don't get two weapon fighting style. Do you mean the Great Weapon Master feat? Because there's no reason you can't have both Sentinel, Great Weapon Master and Polearm Master all together.

Person_Man

2014-09-27, 08:56 PM

I put a lot of thought into this and shillelagh is not easy to acquire effectively in a timely manner for the paladin or the bard. You need to have 6 levels of bard (lore), 10 levels of valor bard, or tome warlock 3. Otherwise when you get that cantrip it uses wisdom and not cha which sort of ruins the point. This means you can get a cha based melee attack but you will either have to wait to eb able to attack effectively or you need to wait a long time before you can get important class abilities such as 2 attacks.

Yeah, a Shellelagh Paladin is something you do if you're starting at mid levels and your DM is fine with min-maxing to offset your MAD, not something you do if you're starting at 1st level.

MeeposFire

2014-09-27, 09:06 PM

Yeah, a Shellelagh Paladin is something you do if you're starting at mid levels and your DM is fine with min-maxing to offset your MAD, not something you do if you're starting at 1st level.

Whcih is too bad I would love to to do it but I rarely start games that high in level.

Rummy

2014-09-27, 09:09 PM

Paladins don't get two weapon fighting style. Do you mean the Great Weapon Master feat? Because there's no reason you can't have both Sentinel, Great Weapon Master and Polearm Master all together.

The guide talks about using two weapons, even if you don't have the style. Any extra attack is great for the paladin, but Polearm Master is a better way to get it.

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-28, 03:27 AM

ya, i dont like that paladin is incompetent at ranged when a large number of the paladin ACFs and sub levels were used for the class and for Oath of the Ancients, but somehow Elfadin is just missing.

Maybe one of the Oaths will enable ranged Smites? Their direct competition has an Archetype that does...

Paladin isnt completely incompetent with ranged this edition, because thrown weapons can use str and Dex is wholly viable to use over Str with the tradeoff of needing a feat to equate the defense of fullplate, and if Mithril functions as it did in 3rd, then Fullplate can offer a maximum of 21 base AC with Medium Armor Master.

It all depends on whether Mithral crosses over (and both Adamantine and Cold Iron, as well). The playtest document had Mithral armor, but it might not cross over as per 3.5. Distinct impression that they're not aiming for "Medium Armor Full Plate" anymore, though they'll maybe do so for Elven Chain as legacy.

As for thrown weapons, they're viable to a point. They're almost always best used at 20 ft., which as it currently stands now it's somewhat pointless since you could move that distance easily. The advantage is in how they can be used in both melee and ranged, but the actual effective range isn't something to brag about. The Javelin is a decent distinction because it boasts good damage and better range, and it still can be used as a 1-handed melee weapon, making it the ideal choice of Sword & Boarders. If you have a good attack bonus and Advantage on the roll, you can use the larger distance without penalty against most enemies, of which the Javelin boasts a solid 120 ft.

Two weapon fighting is completely outclassed by Polearm master for the Paladin.

Well, it's there for the sake of it. TWF wasn't always a consideration for a Paladin, but compared to earlier editions, it's far better. There's no penalty to attack rolls, just using a different weapon and no bonus applying to the second attack. Without feats, it's about the only way you can add another attack to the list, which includes just about any bonus damage you can add.

If feats are allowed, TWF still has a slight edge. The damage from the Polearm Master attack is 1d4 + modifier, whereas the TWF damage is based on your choice of weapon, which will most likely end up in 1d8 for the most part; however, unless you're wielding a Quarterstaff, Dual Wielder nets you +1 to your AC as well as the "increase" in damage, and of a different variety than the PM feat damage type (bludgeoning). The edge might not be that much, but it works. PM + Quarterstaff allows you to wield a shield and get a better bonus, though, so the point might be somewhat moot; also, PM + GWM (the most likely combination) is frighteningly good when tacked with Advantage.

Still, it lets you notice that the differences are so slight that there's no true margin of error. Going TWF on a Paladin might not be optimal, but its certainly viable, so it's no wash either.

Protection style actually protects. Sentinel punishes. They have different mechanical and roleplaying functions.

Sentinel punishes[bonus attack] or protects[0 movement]. That said, Protection and Sentinel protect in different ways. Sometimes it is nice to have the other option.

I agree on that regard: both allow protecting in their own way, and if your focus is on tanking, might as well have as many options available as possible. Between this and the Core options for Paladins regarding tanking (Shield Other spell, and...attacks of opportunity? Tripping inefficiently because of the need of Combat Expertise?), you can see the difference. A Paladin (or a Fighter, to be honest) has ways to provide some degree of battlefield control and working protection, and each one has its worth.

Oh yes, that's right... I would just like to point out that a Paladin can smite on its Sentinel reaction. That would be all. :3

Also, it can smite on its attacks of opportunity. That's the value of having a class feature that doesn't have a fixed action: with Sentinel, you can choose to make an Opportunity Attack, stop the enemy and punish it mercilessly with a Smite. It makes Divine Smite better (it applies beyond your turn), to be fair, but the cost is what makes it less worthwhile. Given how Divine Smite interacts with spell slots (as effectively confirmed by Mearls), peak efficiency is achieved with a few levels of Warlock, so that you can have 2nd level spell slots recharged by Short Rests powering your Smites.

Kinda makes me curious about the Gestalt feature of the DMG, and a Paladin/Warlock combination. Even as a 4e-based Multiclass, adding the Pact of the Blade and a few Invocations to a Devotion/Vengeance Paladin sounds like pretty nasty (weapon damage + Str + Cha necrotic from Lifedrinker + 1d8 radiant/necrotic on every blow, plus either Crusader's Mantle or Elemental Weapons). 3e Gestalt would be rightfully hilarious.

toapat

2014-09-28, 10:13 AM

It all depends on whether Mithral crosses over (and both Adamantine and Cold Iron, as well). The playtest document had Mithral armor, but it might not cross over as per 3.5. Distinct impression that they're not aiming for "Medium Armor Full Plate" anymore, though they'll maybe do so for Elven Chain as legacy.

As for thrown weapons, they're viable to a point. They're almost always best used at 20 ft., which as it currently stands now it's somewhat pointless since you could move that distance easily. The advantage is in how they can be used in both melee and ranged, but the actual effective range isn't something to brag about. The Javelin is a decent distinction because it boasts good damage and better range, and it still can be used as a 1-handed melee weapon, making it the ideal choice of Sword & Boarders. If you have a good attack bonus and Advantage on the roll, you can use the larger distance without penalty against most enemies, of which the Javelin boasts a solid 120 ft.

Did Titanium in the playtest function like in 3rd, or was it something different? In 4th Adamantine/Mithral were non-existant, at least in core as player accessible materials. I could see it be used to remove the STR requirements for superheavy armor and for heavy weapons to not be superheavy, but as you said, i dont expect 3rd ed style Uberarmor (which if we are going by the numbers, Glassteel Fullplate was the best due to its Non-magic +3 enhancement that let you slap Heavy Fort on it without the manditory +1 bonus and being Mithral).

I dont get why Mithral in 5th is able to be destroyed by Rust Monsters though, its never previously been a ferrous alloy

T.G. Oskar

2014-09-28, 12:46 PM

Did Titanium in the playtest function like in 3rd, or was it something different? In 4th Adamantine/Mithral were non-existant, at least in core as player accessible materials. I could see it be used to remove the STR requirements for superheavy armor and for heavy weapons to not be superheavy, but as you said, i dont expect 3rd ed style Uberarmor (which if we are going by the numbers, Glassteel Fullplate was the best due to its Non-magic +3 enhancement that let you slap Heavy Fort on it without the manditory +1 bonus and being Mithral).

Mithral in the playtest worked like a different kind of armor, honestly. Mithral Shirt worked like the Chain Shirt in 3.5, but at that moment the Chain Shirt wasn't part of Medium armor (Studded Leather was, though); Mithral Scale had 1 point of AC better than regular Scale Mail, whereas Mithral Plate only had the lack of Speed reduction, but otherwise it was identical to Plate armor (well, 1k gp cheaper). All kinds of armor were also lighter.

Thus, it'll be difficult to have Mithral behave as before. Armor-wise, the developers seem to attempt to recall 1st Edition, where having 0 AC (the equivalent of 20 AC) required Plate + Shield), and reaching -1 AC for any class other than a heavily armored class was a dream; reaching -10 AC (AC 30 here) would be an optimizer's goal for nearly no damage at all.

I dont get why Mithral in 5th is able to be destroyed by Rust Monsters though, its never previously been a ferrous alloy

Nowhere in the descriptions say that Mithral is immune to rust, or rather, to be oxidized. What we know as "rust" is the common name of iron oxide, which is what happens when elemental iron enters contact with oxygen or water. Rust is actually beneficial in the long term, but only when left unspoiled, as the outer cover of rust protects the elemental iron (or the ferrous alloys, as you mention, such as steel) from further oxidization.

Since Mithral doesn't specify that it cannot rust, it's viable to think that the alloy itself can be oxidized. It wouldn't be called "Mithral oxide", unless Mithral was a (chemical) element; equating Mithral with Titanium and its chemical properties, Mithral would probably form an outer coating of its oxide which is nanometer-thick and potentially lustrous, which is why Mithral may be considered a beautiful material. As an alloy (something which I personally prefer), it would depend on the end compound; the chemical element most prevalent in the alloy would determine if it rusts or not, with the other elements providing a degree of resistance. Titanium is notoriously resistant to corrosion, so it's most likely that Mithral also does; then again, Mithral in 3.5 is vulnerable to the acid of Oozes and other such creatures, which destroy it on contact. Thus, a safe assumption is that Mithral (whether the element or the main element in its alloy) creates an oxide layer, which protects the inner layers from further oxidation, but remains firm and grows slowly (unlike iron oxides).

That said, consider the Rust Monster to magically accelerate rust to the point where it oxidizes the entire substance in seconds with a touch. Using a combined-edition lore, the Rust Monster feeds from oxides, while most likely preferring iron oxides (aka, "rust"). The touch of a rust monster not only loosens the outer oxide layer of Mithral, but creates a favorable environment for further oxidization: thus, the metal rusts faster. Being abstract, the rust monster's feelers probably touched spots on your armor, so it's not like it grows homogeneously; it might start with some spots, which may grow or remain the same. Upon the second or third touch, chances are the armor has small holes, which would naturally expand with further touches. By the fourth or fifth touch, the armor has so many holes that it would render it unusable. Unless the metal is specifically immune to oxidization (not corrosion; mind that), the Rust Monster can induce oxidization and end up ruining the armor. In that regard, Mithral wouldn't be different.

It's mostly magic interacting with science at this point, but it's a rather tame explanation of why: if it can oxidize, the Rust Monster will eventually destroy it. At least it's no longer a "single touch, say 'bye-bye' to armor" thing...

TL;DR - Mithral isn't immune to oxidization by lore, thus the Rust Monster can destroy it.

T.G. Oskar

2015-04-09, 10:14 PM

Time for an update!

With the Dungeon Master's Guide released (and finding a way to write upon it), as well as the release of the Elemental Evil Player's Companion, I decided to update the guide with new content. This includes the oathbreaker subclass, the Aarakocra, Aasimar, Genasi and Goliath races, as well as the Deep Gnome and Eladrin subraces. It also includes pretty much all the magic items from the DMG.

I've declined on adding the races from the first Unearthed Arcana column, because they're still a bit unpolished. If there's a better release, I'll add them, though there's very little to speak about them. The Dragonmarks, though, are interesting, and I'd add them if the entire document wasn't so unpolished. Maybe if there's an "Eberron Player's Companion", I'll do the update?

As for magic items, I had to do a very specific presumption: that you'll get the items you want. The DM has full control over magic items, so the guide works as a way to measure if the item is worth it or if it's best to keep stored. Considering there's a lot of items that require attunement, figuring which of them don't or which of the ones that do are actually good is a must, so this is a service. It's deliberately vague at times, but for the most part, it should be enough information to let you know why it's good (or not) without really spoiling all of the properties.

There's still enough space for one or two more subclasses, several races and wondrous items, so I'll keep an eye on new content and update the guide accordingly.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, there's one more thing missing - the special combat actions in the DMG. Marking is insanely good for Paladins. Go look for it and figure why.

GWJ_DanyBoy

2015-04-10, 09:46 AM

UPDATE: Oh yeah, there's one more thing missing - the special combat actions in the DMG. Marking is insanely good for Paladins. Go look for it and figure why.

Is it because of the lvl 15 oath of Vengeance ability that allows the use of a reaction to make a melee attack? It's the only thing that stood out to me as an interaction.
Similarly, the Sentinel feat would allow for two attacks using the Marking rules, since it doesn't call the reaction attack it grants an opportunity attack.

silveralen

2015-04-10, 11:20 AM

Is it because of the lvl 15 oath of Vengeance ability that allows the use of a reaction to make a melee attack? It's the only thing that stood out to me as an interaction.
Similarly, the Sentinel feat would allow for two attacks using the Marking rules, since it doesn't call the reaction attack it grants an opportunity attack.

Because you can smite as an AoO, meaning a paladin who marked an enemy is very threatening (to discourage movement) and can lay down even more damage over a round.

Personally I think it has less synergy with paladin than ranger/fighter, but it isn't bad by any means.

T.G. Oskar

2015-04-10, 11:56 AM

By definition, anything that aids action economy is good. The Fighter's Action Surge is probably the best thing a Fighter has received in all editions so far, since it allows it to take almost an entire turn worth of actions at once. Marking allows you to remove the reaction requisite of Opportunity Attacks; this helps a lot, since it frees your Reaction.

Paladins don't have many native abilities that use reaction (other than the Protection fighting style), but since they'll most likely take Sentinel as a feat, it helps them a lot. Making a "free" Opportunity Attack means you can use your Protection fighting style benefit without worrying about spending their reaction, and those with the Sentinel feat can keep one or two enemies in place (or more, based on how many enemies you mark with your melee attacks). Polearm Master won't help that much, since you need to have attacked (and marked) the enemy in order to take advantage of the free Opportunity Attack, but it's there.

The real boon is on the interpretation of the rules. You get only one opportunity attack per turn, not per round. With Polearm Master, you can attack and move away, and if the enemy is compelled to attack you (say, the Compelled Duel feat), you can attack it once. If it doesn't Disengage and attempts to move away, it eats another Opportunity Attack. It does all of that without spending your reaction, so you can make several attacks. It's the same as the interpretation for Sneak Attack - it only works once per turn, not once per round, so if you make an Opportunity Attack against a creature, and you have advantage on the attack, you most likely get the Sneak Attack damage again. Now, consider that a Marked creature grants that advantage.

Sure: a Rogue is probably the one who benefits the most from the Mark (hit a creature once, mark it, then get a nasty Sneak Attack OA that doesn't consume your Reaction; also has Uncanny Dodge to spend its Reaction for), but anyone who prefers melee attacks also benefits, particularly those who rely on Reactions to work (Eldritch Knight and Battlemaster Fighters, either Fighters or Paladins with the Protection fighting style, anyone who takes Defensive Duelist or Sentinel). I can see why Fighters and Rangers benefit more (Eldritch Knight has shield, Battlemaster has the Parry maneuver, Hunter Rangers get either stand Against the Tide or Uncanny Dodge), but that doesn't mean Paladins can't benefit just as well, if not better. In short - anyone who relies on melee attacks and has ways to spend its Reaction will benefit from Marking.

So yeah, it's not for the synergies (or lack of them), but because Paladins are primarily melee combatants who might get need for Reactions, and thus decoupling Opportunity Attacks from Reactions is a massive boon for them.

Krigsmjöd

2015-07-02, 10:08 PM

Thanks for the responses everyone.

Am I misreading the rules, by the way, or are Paladins not required to be LG?

Magic Myrmidon

2015-07-03, 03:14 AM

Nope. Alignment restrictions have been almost entirely removed. The only one I think exists is for Oathbreaker Paladin, which requires evil. I personally believe that restriction is silly (if anything, why not chaotic?), but whatever.

Otherwise, a paladin can be any alignment. Indeed, certain oaths imply non-LG alignments.

Krigsmjöd

2015-07-03, 08:04 AM

Excellent, thanks!

Aubri

2015-10-08, 08:13 AM

Bear with Me: Casting a Spell or Smiting?
You may know how bad was my rant when Pathfinder decided to call its marking effect “Smite Evil”, so this is a touchy subject for me. Yes, I feel this is a smite: it is a sudden, dramatic effect. However, the problem is not with its execution, but with its resource.

What is the problem, then? You need to spend a spell slot to smite. YES. How do you think I feel about this? At 2nd level, I can smite twice per day (er-hem, per “long rest”), but I can’t cast any spell if I do so. I have a limited resource that becomes even MORE limited. Considering there are Short Rest abilities, this is kinda bad. By 19th level, I get 15 spell slots (no less, no more), which I can spend on spells or smites. Both the spell and the smiting have strong competition between each other, because some Paladin spells are awesome.

This is reduced by one thing: most of the Paladin’s unique spells ALSO happen to be Smites with Rider effects. In a way, you can cast a spell and smite (and add a nasty effect) all at once, but it forces a Paladin player to care for its resources. This isn’t a very good idea: a Paladin can happily go nova (i.e. spend its entire resources thin rather than saving them for a rainy day) in one battle, potentially.

I wouldn’t have cared if Smite was once per Short Rest, even if that has its own set of problems (Short Rests last for 1 hour, meaning sometimes it’s more effective to go all 8 hours and get a Long Rest, meaning all Short Rest-recoverable abilities suddenly turn into daily effects); that said, it would be comparable to Action Surge, which is a phenomenal Fighter class feature.
I feel that you may be letting prior versions of the game color your perception of this ability. Looking at it from another angle, this is a very interesting option.

The potential to stack Smite with a Smite spell or to use it on an AoO have been discussed by others, so I won't go over that here, but it's worth noting.

First, I'd like to take us back to the days of 3.5. You could Divine Smite X/day, true -- no more than five, mind you -- but they were chances to deal the extra damage, while this one allows you to fire it only after a hit is confirmed. So no, you don't get them for free, but every single one counts. 3.5's smite also failed if the target turned out to be non-evil, which I'll admit was rarely a concern for a typical adventurer (outside, I suppose, of constructs and summoned elementals), but it was always a terrible feeling to use up one of your precious smites, manage to hit with it, and then find out the target wasn't valid and you wasted it after all. (I think it should also be explicitly noted that since you decide to smite after rolling to hit, you'll know that you already rolled a crit and it would be a good time to smite the Lich with your highest-level spell slot. Always fun to drop enough dice on the table to make the wizard jealous.)

Second, the "Smite spells" are available, yes, but they generally trade damage (relative to Divine Smite) for some effect. More importantly, they have to be cast ahead of time; if you want to use Thunderous Smite, you'll have to drop concentration on your Bless spell. Not so with Divine Smite.

Third, it allows you to usefully spend spell slots that you don't have any applicable spells prepared for. A paladin of, say, 10th level may have 9 spell slots overall, but only 6 or 7 spells prepared. Every time he picks a utility spell, he has to forego a combat option. But this ability means that you can cheerfully dedicate your low-level spells to utility or special-case spells (or ignore low-level spells entirely, if necessary) and still be able to do something useful with those 1st- and 2nd-level slots in combat. In that respect, you can think of this as your domain spell.

Durgen

2016-01-28, 03:17 AM

Hey T.G. Oskar! Thank you for this guide!! My tabletop group and I are just starting to run with 5e and this was really helpful for making my now and future paladins. I need to ask for your help, although that I know you said in your guide but I want some clarification.

See, I found your post because I had a very heated argument with 2 of my other friends a few days ago (who have very heavy 3.5 backgrounds) over how paladins are in 5e and I decided to educate myself as much as I can on the matter to either prove them right or prove me right. They seem to be under the impression that only someone chosen by a deity can be a paladin (much like how Cleric is chosen). I have read through the player's handbook and I see no mention of paladin's needing to follow a deity and their power comes from their oath. My friends say that the oath acts like a warlock's pact with their otherworldly being. My friends have interpreted the phrase "Whether they are sworn before a god's altar and the witness of a priest, in a sacred glade before nature spirits....." from the guide that "oh yeah you were chosen through that..." but I have disagreed with them b/c that seems much too vague compared to how specific cleric's and warlock's are.

I have scoured the book and I have come to the very apparent conclusion that a paladin's power comes from the oath and not a deity UNLESS the player wants the power to come from a deity. I have asked other sources and consulted my DM (who i know has the last say) and all agree with me. I have not talked to my aforementioned friends since the argument due to how they acted in the argument but I want some confirmation from someone who knows a lot about D&D other than those friends so then i could possibly rub it in their face (they really hurt my feelings and I am a bit spiteful so...).

So I ask:

Am I correct? Have I misinterpreted anything from the players guide (i always leave room for error, like i could be suddenly dyslexic for all i know and can't read type of leave room for error). Does the power just come from the oath and that's it? But not any joe-shmoe can take those oaths and keep them, but when a paladin breaks their oath who in the D&D world keeps track of that? I know the DM does for the player but does just some deity come down and be like "Hey you didn't keep your oath, **** you" or like does their oath breaking corrupt their soul/spirit to the point of them embracing evil? I know these are all role playing questions but this argument has been messing with me and making me seek out information from any source.

I appreciate any and all help. <3

Corran

2016-01-28, 03:27 AM

snip
A paladin's power (''divine'' magic included) does not come from a deity, as per 5e lore. There is not much else to say about it, it is pretty clear. Anyone who does not want to admit that, well... he will not, and will try to read the phb like abstrat poetry rather than simple text.

Bottom line, you are right, your friends are wrong, but you wont be able to convince them if they dont want to be convinced (and interpreting the phb the way they do, it seems that's the case). If you do manage to prove that the earth is round and spinning, they will probably houserule it,as they seem really set on what the paladin's lore ''should be''.

Theodoxus

2016-01-28, 05:15 AM

Honestly, I think in your post, you dropped the most important line of text from your example...

"Whether sworn before a god's altar and the witness of a priest, in a sacred glade before nature spirits and fey beings, or in a moment of desperation and grief with the dead as the only witness, a paladin's oath is a powerful bond. It is a source of power that turns a devout warrior into a blessed champion."

Yes, it's the Oath that powers a Paladins higher [level] powers. But even without the Oath, a Paladin can still cast spells (2nd level). In fact, under 'Creating a Paladin', the PHB goes into some length regarding how you might interact with divine agents - and maybe not at all!

The 5E Paladin is truly breaking from the mold of its forbears. If the general mantra of 5E is 'Forget what you know from past editions', this holds doubly, perhaps triply true of the Paladin. One shouldn't cherry pick specific things from the text to make their case, but read the entirety as a whole and realize the Paladin can, but doesn't have to, follow a specific god, a pantheon, or just his own internal demons. I'd reckon that a Paladin who has sworn an Oath - any of them, really - but doesn't follow the divine, taps into the same potential that makes Monks work... A refocused Ki, perhaps, that manifests as divine power. That's just refluffed BS that doesn't have any mechanical meaning in game - a meta concept for why a Paladin doesn't need a patron to empower them, but it makes sense to me...

Does that help at all?

Durgen

2016-01-28, 04:11 PM

Thankyou so much Corran and Theodocux!! Thats a huge amount of help and gives me a lot of relief. :smallbiggrin:

I think my friends just don't like the idea that a paladin isn't chosen because it isn't as cool as in earlier editions (or so i'm told, 3.5 put a bad taste in my mouth for it b/c of how complicated it was to a newbie like me so I didn't like playing D&D very much) where you are, and then they don't like that there isn't a clear explaination as to where the power comes from and it feels like any joe-shmoe can be a paladin. We got into what the definition of a paladin is, which got really stupid after a bit. That paladins in D&D are clearly defined and them changing it is bad, but it's a table top game right? Definitions and class features change all the time with every edition but the core of what each class is doesnt change. Paladins are warriors with holy magic....aaand they fight for a particular cause of goody goodness. This isn't like real life where changing definitions isn't something we do without care, but in a table top game or even a video game we can change things as much as we want, although we should do so with care due to fans potentially not liking the changes. Thats a simple matter of "Just dont play it then". WOO I feel awesome for doing so much research and seeking help.

You guys are so awesome that I'm gonna try being an active member on this site! This will be a huge help for my groups campaigns!

T.G. Oskar

2016-01-28, 07:53 PM

Kinda late to answer, but I'll echo the sentiment. In fact, if you consider the history of the Paladin, you were right nearly 30 years ago.

Thing is - the Paladin was based on the original conception of the Knight-Errant, in particular from Ogier the Dane, or its interpretation from Three Hearts, Three Lions (in essence; Ogier is a modern-world guy that traveled to that age and became a Paladin). The Paladin was meant to be a Knight, and MORE than a Knight - a paragon of justice and altruism. From Rules Cyclopedia, the Paladin became tied to the Fighter class, in that it required adherence to a code or else its powers would be gone; that said, its powers were given by a Cleric of Law, so the tie was there.

As the game progressed, the Paladin became the arm of the Church, whereas the Cleric became a Priest, when its original intentions were that the Paladin was a knight-errant, and the Cleric WAS the warrior of the faith (hence, why it could wear heavy armor and was restrained in terms of weaponry, but got all the spells). In a way, it was for the best - the Cleric fit the idea of a war-priest, or a chaplain (or a combat medic!), whereas a devout Paladin could swear fealty to a deity rather than a lord...and since Fighters were meant to also represent knighthood (as "fighting men"; do note that they eventually got a fiefdom in 1st Edition as a class feature), everything just sort of got swept around.

If anything, the biggest culprit of forcing the interpretation of "Paladins are the warriors of their deity" was 4th Edition, since that was its fluff - they were chosen by their deity, got their power, and whatever they did with it was the Paladin's prerogative. 5e decided that forcing the Paladin into a single interpretation wasn't gonna work, so they decided the Oath they chose had greater importance - hence, why the Sacred Oaths have tenets the Paladin must follow, and why the Oathbreaker is the result of failing to uphold them and embracing darkness instead. The four Sacred Oaths (Devotion, the Ancients, Vengeance, and SCAG's Crown) exemplify this: you're either devoted to chivalry and become a knight-errant, you swear to defend the sanctity of life and nature, you swear an oath of vengeance against those that wronged you, or you swear fealty to your liege and gain power through it. You can interpret each of the oaths through a very specific lens (the Oath of Devotion being easy to interpret; Oath of the Ancients could be done through nature deities like Ehlonna, Oath of Vengeance could be sworn by a Cuthbertite, and the Oath of the Crown could be sworn to a god-king), but they can also be interpreted away from the lens of religion.

So yeah: in short, you don't have to follow a deity to gain your powers. Your Oath, in a way, grants them - and each Oath grants distinct powers reflecting their tenets. You could disconnect from your deity, become a complete agnostic, and still gain Paladin powers if you follow your tenets. Likewise, you could be absolutely devout to your faith, and your tenets challenged to an extent that you may be forced to abandon your Oath. It also tries to reflect on its past, as the Oath of Devotion IS the traditional Knight-Errant, and also expand upon the concept of the class.

That said - a Paladin's power is not orphan. A deity doesn't give you the power...but something does. Note that I said something - perhaps a Celestial may be sponsoring you, or perhaps your allegiance to your king allows you to draw from the strength of your countrymen. If Paladins drew their power from themselves, then they'd remain true to their Oath even while breaking their tenets, as long as they realize the source of their power - in fact, they could twist it. (Then again, that could be the source of the Oathbreaker...)

Which reminds me - I still haven't updated this with the Order of the Crown, or the new goodies from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide! Will have to find the moment, as well as indicate what's SRD-friendly.

Durgen

2016-02-01, 03:46 AM

That said - a Paladin's power is not orphan. A deity doesn't give you the power...but something does. Note that I said something - perhaps a Celestial may be sponsoring you, or perhaps your allegiance to your king allows you to draw from the strength of your countrymen. If Paladins drew their power from themselves, then they'd remain true to their Oath even while breaking their tenets, as long as they realize the source of their power - in fact, they could twist it. (Then again, that could be the source of the Oathbreaker...)

I actually discussed this with one of my friends (we made up, yay!), he pointed out that there seems to be a lot of fluff in the paladin section that it makes it very vague. Due to some wording used, such as the names of paladin spells, points towards deity involvement and you saying there IS something there (at least if you want it to be since you could have your power come from a deity, like my current paladin Durgen) supports this conclusion. A paladin always has deity or something like it involvement... whether or not a paladin acknowledges it is a completely different story. It does still come down to a person choosing to become a paladin. Which i think is way better than being chosen, like Grey Wardens in Dragon Age!

LordVonDerp

2016-02-02, 02:29 PM

I actually discussed this with one of my friends (we made up, yay!), he pointed out that there seems to be a lot of fluff in the paladin section that it makes it very vague. Due to some wording used, such as the names of paladin spells, points towards deity involvement and you saying there IS something there (at least if you want it to be since you could have your power come from a deity, like my current paladin Durgen) supports this conclusion. A paladin always has deity or something like it involvement... whether or not a paladin acknowledges it is a completely different story.

It's vague so that the paladin doesn't need a deity.

Estralita

2016-02-10, 11:37 PM

T.G. Oskar

2016-02-11, 01:40 AM

Hello Oskar.

First of all, I want to say how much I appreciate and love this guide (and the Pathfinder guide as well). All of it, from it's thoroughness as a guide, to the examination and comparison between systems, to the defense and support of the concept of the Paladin. I don't think it would be wrong to say that this guide was a big inspiration for me as a 5e player, and a player of Paladins. Even today, paladins remain one of my favorite classes. And because of how muhc I enjoy your work, I would like to hear more from you:smallbiggrin::

1.Would you ever consider adding a multiclassing section, on which classes work together with the class, and how?

I need to add some more content to the guide, in particular adding the Unearthed Arcana options (new Fighting Styles, for example) and the Oath of the Crown, which I really like (and which is to my opinion a classic example of DR). Multiclassing is certainly an option; the game has matured enough to provide the proper points where to drop off Paladin levels and get access to new features from others (particularly the Paladin X/Warlock 2 build), so I'd need to study that a bit.

2.Would you ever do a Paladin guide for 4th Edition?

That, sadly, I cannot do. There's three reasons why I can't. The first is because there's just TOO many content, and I don't have access to all of the books and whatnot; furthermore, I simply don't understand the system that well...which leads to the second and third ones. The second ties with the reason I don't have access to all of the books - I'm not a fan, to be honest. I'm not a fan of Pathfinder either, but I can at least stomach the system because it's familiar - on the other hand, the one sole attempt I made of a 4e Paladin was subpar, even if it had nice tricks. In fact, to even build it, I needed help...which leads also to the third - there are already VERY good guides out there, even if they were forced to migrate because of the WotC forum closure. I actually had to digest all that content, search through alternate means the Dragon magazine that had the information, even pretty much reverse-engineer one of the at-wills I wanted to use, only for one thing - to understand what I was doing. And, to be honest, it had average NADs (though Reflex was somewhat high), poor AC for a Paladin class, and only decent attack bonuses, even with an extensive choice of gear. That mostly reinforced my dislike of the system - to have so many troubles to make a working build, and it just somewhat fell flat to expectations, despite all the effort. But, I think the third reason is the one with the biggest weight - there's nothing I can't add that those people just didn't analyze, and to an extent that inspired doing it for 5e and PF. And, even then, I *still* have to update the PF guide, because of Unchained, Occult Adventures, and all the other releases. The effort just to keep up with PF, and every other thing I have on my mind, just makes it even harder.

Feliciano

2016-02-17, 03:19 PM

KorvinStarmast

2016-02-18, 05:15 PM

The 5E Paladin is truly breaking from the mold of its forbears.

I'd reckon that a Paladin who has sworn an Oath - any of them, really - but doesn't follow the divine, taps into the same potential that makes Monks work... A refocused Ki, perhaps, that manifests as divine power. That's just refluffed BS that doesn't have any mechanical meaning in game - a meta concept for why a Paladin doesn't need a patron to empower them, but it makes sense to me...

Does that help at all? A decent post all around, but the Paladin is by definition a Divine Caster in terms of how his spells work and Channel Divinity as a class feature. I suggest to you that this makes a difference.

Divine Smite has the word "divine" in it -- the source of the power is something supernatural and Divine. In the D&D default assumption, that which is supernatural exists, is tangible, is reachable, and is thus usable by mere mortals ... in some cases.

If you look to literature for assistance, what you so coarsely call fluff (as you worship at the altar of something mechanical:?) isn't. Note that oaths powerful enough to bind something or someone tap into supernatural power. The extreme case is seen in the Stone of Erech oath sworn to Isildur, but literature and folk lore run amok with oaths, their power, and their dangers!

Put another way: when you swear your oath, you are all in and bind your soul to it.

An oath powerful enough to grant power has to tap into something beyond the Paladin: something supernatural. What that something is has become flexible (which for playability is a very good thing!) An oath sworn at that level of the soul (souls exist in D&D, as an objective feature of the world) links the soul to the oath. No backsies.

Someone or something heard that oath and feeds the divine power to the Paladin via some conduit so that the Paladin can draw upon it. As a caster, the Paladin is classified as a Divine Caster, not an Arcane Caster: per how the game's categories go. So your Paladin's powers are NOT like a Warlock's, NOT like a Sorcere's, even though the spell ability is Charisma.

This makes a lot of sense. The deities (that exist per the game's assumptions and conventions) have a variety of agents and means to interact with the mundane world ... which path or conduit feeds the Paladin is left open to the nature of the oath. It remains as a piece of Divine Magic, or a Divine Act, thanks to how it is named.

Mini rant not really directed to you, but to this attitude in parts of the D&D community that I abhor:

I tire of people dismissing story and role playing game features with words like "Fluff."

This isn't a computer game. "Mechanics" is NOT the end all and be all.

The Paladin is IMO not a class to be entered into lightly. That character requires an investment in role playing before choosing.

When the Paladin was invented, there was a price for neat features. Some of that price was extreme. That core concept has been retained, and needs to be emphasized, not hand waved away. The result is very, very satisfying role playing experience, which last I heard is what this game is about: role playing in a swords and sorcery/fantasy setting.

A paladin's power (''divine'' magic included) does not come from a deity, as per 5e lore. There is not much else to say about it, it is pretty clear. Anyone who does not want to admit that, well... he will not, and will try to read the phb like abstrat poetry rather than simple text.
See above on why they used "divine" to describe the Paladin's powers.
What is it about the super special Paladin oath that tapped into the reservoir of divine magic, where as most other lesser oaths don't?

Your italicized portion suggests to me that you're bowing toward the altar of "mechanics" as somehow of value. The mechanics are a tool, not the end nor the aim.

T.G. Oskar

2016-02-19, 04:22 AM

@T.G. Oskar Thank you so much for this guide! Normally when I run across optimization guides, I get frustrated by the fact that they rarely take anything other than straight numbers into account or instead make it very obvious that they're using the guise of optimization to either fanboy over or **** on a certain class, so I really appreciate the fact that you not only looked at the actual mechanics, but did so in relation to what a paladin is supposed to be and how they work together.

Right now, I'm playing a dex-based, mounted, scimitar-and-shield fire genasi paladin of a sun god. Is she optimal? Fuuuuuck no. But I am having an absolute blast playing her. I've been anxious about playing a paladin for a long time - I'm not stupid, I know their reputation, and...let's just say neither I nor my characters are exactly used to being taken seriously by other groups I've played with, and it's not because they're jokesters. Luckily, this group is shaping up incredibly well, and I'm thrilled to have had the opportunity to really dive into this class and have fun with it.

We did a grid-based stat system (each of us rolled 2 sets of stats, we put them on a grid and then had to choose a straight line of numbers), which meant that I had to get creative with how I wanted to play her. I ended up with (after racial mods) 8 STR, 15 DEX, 20 CON, 14 INT, 15 WIS, 16 CHA at level 3, which I think is pretty damn respectable. I took Mounted Combat at level 4, and I'm debating between using my next ASI to bump my DEX and WIS up by 1 and get them both to 16, taking Resilient DEX (can't take it in CON since I've already got a 20), taking Shield Master, or bumping my CHA by 2 and getting it up to an 18. I'm not trying to optimize, but I am surprised at just how much fun I'm having playing a class that's so infamous for being an in-universe "stop having fun" guy.

Thanks for the comment. I must admit, the Paladin IS my favorite class in just about ANY game, because of the fluff (and the crunch, as well, since I've long adapted to how to play a tank that sacrifices damage potential for greater survivability). In particular, I'm thankful that you're having fun playing the class, and that's mostly one of the big victories of the 5e Paladin - it made it less difficult to play one in terms of roleplaying, while still imbuing it with its own flavor that makes it distinctive. Basic optimization can be a great tool, though - the key to optimization is to know your limitations and then meet or exceed them. That's actually what optimization is at any scientific or engineering task - solve a problem by using the best tools or methods for purposes of economy (not merely money, but resources). Once you meet the basics, further optimization is not usually required (though welcome, tho). I have nothing against those guide writers who focus on number-crunching, as they deliver invaluable data on what works; quite the contrary, they make my job easier. You don't have to sacrifice roleplaying for purposes of a build - the best build is the one you love to play, and still performs as you desire. If your Dex-based, SnB/Fen/MC fire genasi Paladin of most-likely-not-Pelor works well, then it's a matter of keeping enjoying the class. Part of why I wrote the "Roleplaying a Paladin" section is essentially because of the headache of playing one when your powers are on the line; and, as the Powder Keg of Justice shows, sometimes being on the edge is what makes it fun. Playing a hero can be fun; a real hero, that is, the one that stands for order, justice, and the way.

On other topics - I updated the guide with content from the [I]Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. I still owe the appendix with viable multiclassing choices, but I still have to do some research. Hope it keeps helping - so good that I don't have to update the guide every two weeks (I still dread the PF Paladin guide, because it's currently outdated despite its size, and updating it will just ADD to the size!)

Jarlhen

2016-02-19, 03:54 PM

T.G. Oskar

2016-02-19, 10:22 PM

When you look at the great weapon master feat, I think it's important to consider in what ways a paladin can benefit from it. More specifically, how can a paladin reliably get advantage? Barbarians get reckless attack and half damage. Perfect for GWM. Fighter Battlemaster gets precision attack. Perfect for GWM. What does paladins get? -5 to hit is a pretty hefty penalty for reliable damage since you can't apply it after the hit roll. It's going to result in a lot of misses. So how can a paladin use their paladinness to increase the chances of having their attack land?

One ability they can all share is the use of spells that boost attack rolls; that means Bless (+1d4 to attack rolls), Magic Weapon (+1 or +2 to attack rolls) and Elemental Weapon (ditto), which mitigate the penalty of GWM, while also increasing damage overall. Paladins undergoing Oath of Devotion get Sacred Weapon, which adds your Charisma to the attack roll; with a Charisma of 20, you effectively negate the penalty, thus essentially turning the Channel Divinity into a free +10 to damage (and you can refresh it through short rests, making it quite efficient). Oath of Vengeance Paladins get Vow of Enmity, which applies mostly to one character, but undoubtedly will apply to the toughest target overall. The fact that you can combine the first with the other two (Sacred Weapon + Elemental Weapon means you get an overall bonus to damage; Vow of Enmity + Magic/Elemental Weapon means advantage + attack roll bonus) further adds to the utility.

The concession that can be made is that the Paladin that goes THF and seeks to exploit GWM has to compensate for the loss of attack bonus with their spellcasting and Channel Divinity, but as I showed, it's not that difficult to achieve. Arguably, the Magic Weapon/Elemental Weapon bonuses don't apply if you have a magic weapon already, but if you have a magic greatsword, you're already minimizing the impact of the attack penalty from GWM anyways; else, you still have Bless to provide a direct bonus to attack and damage rolls, and as a 1st level spell, easily accessible.

Dimcair

2016-03-06, 03:50 AM

Can anyone who already read both tell me which guide you prefer? Of course the guides take different perspectives, just curious of what you guys think a newbie to paladins should stick to.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-xCZsRMsiQz_at-0-OOSRWorKlk9AScuBISuekNEzqc/edit

weerwolf

2016-03-06, 07:26 AM

The guide to build a paladin is a great help, but there is one small problem, at the part of the oaths, where you tell about the channel divinity, you forgot to put the levels in the options, i thought it was nice to take the dread lord but that is not available at level 3. So can you put the levels behind the options.

Plaguescarred

2016-06-28, 06:44 AM

Socratov

2016-06-28, 07:58 AM

You know, I just noticed that you stated death saves to be concentration saves, IIRC it's just 1d20{x<10: fail|x>=10: success}

Just a minor point

Aubri

2016-06-28, 09:46 AM

I'm making a Suel human vengeance paladin of Wee Jas for an upcoming Greyhawk campaign and i took polearm master as my human feat. I hesitate between going Dueling fighting style + Quarterstaff & Shield OR Greatweapon fighting style + halberd. Anyone who tried either of those wants to give insight or otherwise anyone has an advice?
From a numbers standpoint, the quarterstaff sounds surprisingly good. Since both styles would apply to both attacks, you're looking at an effective d12/d6 for the halberd and d10/d8 for the staff. (You lose out a bit on the style by using a halberd, since Great Weapon is far more advantageous for 2d6 than 1d12. You might consider Defense style instead, depending on how often you Smite.) It's average 10 damage either way, but while the staff allows a shield, its damage is swingier and relies more on you not spending your bonus action on spellcasting. And then there's reach, but that's less valuable to a front-line tank (and also counts for less if you're not using a battle mat, in my experience.)

Now, when you hit 5th level, the halberd gains a little ground. With your Extra Attack, the halberd provides 16.5 average damage vs the staff's 15.5. Though, again, the staff is pretty evenly spread between attacks, while a miss on the first or second swing penalizes the halberd more and missing (or not attempting) the third is less costly.

I haven't played either myself -- I went traditional longsword -- but the decision largely comes down to how you play. Do you spend most of your spells on Divine Smite, or do you often want to cast a spell as a bonus action rather than take another swing? Are you the party's primary tank, or can you afford to leave the shield at home? Just some points to consider. It sounds like an awesome build either way.

SirHadrian

2018-03-13, 11:54 AM

I'm currently playing a Paladin in my campaign I just got to level 12. I chose to be a water genasi of the sailor background. I read this guide while making it so he was generally optimized. But though more research I realized that I could be stronger. And along the way I made it so I was permanently turned into a werebear. Not infected, otherwise I would have healed myself being a Paladin and all, but I have become as a natural born one. What happened was out party wanted to see who's the strongest. So our DM set up an arena for us and had us battle it out , free for all. I of course focused on the sorceress first teaming up with the rogue. Then killed the ranger and last of all the rogue. The reward was one semi reasonable request granted. I chose to be a werebear. Our DM not knowing exactly what this is gave it to me. And I having been planning to be one for a long time just not knowing how, had previously gained a boon from a minor diety that allowed any armor I wear to shape itself to any form I take. So I am now a werebear with all its strengths, resistances and 21 AC. I have a plus three shield and go with Sword an Board. And I have taken oath of the ancients. So I essentially am resistant to most common damage types and spell damage. Though my character hides his ailment so im usually in human form. So I rarely get the invulnerability. I am the party tank and healer and am able to do the job very well. We recently fought a boss and I kept on drawing his attention and then taking half damage from his attacks. Whether magical or physical. That was if he hit me after I cast shield of faith bringing my AC up to 23. But thanks for the guide, really helped me make an awesome character though I did make sure to leave room for flavor and not just make myself a God. I highly recommend becoming a werebear to any Paladin. They're the only good alignment werecreature.

T.G. Oskar

2019-04-03, 07:53 AM

A Small Glance to Xanathar's Guide to Everything!

New content? On this guide? But of course!

Xanathar's Guide to Everything is essentially the first book on the (very small amount of) D&D 5e Content that is explicitly meant as a player-centered splat. (Sure, there's Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, but that's mostly a campaign-related splat, and Volo's Guide to Monsters which is more of a "Monster Manual 2".) The biggest part of this book is the huge amount of subclasses for each class, which naturally includes Paladins. It also includes a lot of spells (of which Paladins get only a few), and some common magic items (as in, literally of common rarity). It also makes tools a bit more interesting to use and gives some sweet downtime applications that are better than those explained in the DMG, but...that's best kept as a side benefit.

First, let's go to the meat of the book, and what you're waiting for: the subclasses!

New Oaths
Oath of Conquest (LD): The first of the new oaths, and another one that's pretty dark. Basically, your purpose is to enforce order through fear, and much like the Spanish Inquisition, fear is your main weapon. Mostly, you can play it as a dour officer of the law, or a brutal tyrant. Usually the latter.

Channel Divinity - Conquering Presence: Creatures within 30 ft. must succeed on a Wisdom save or become frightened. The frightened condition is pretty nasty, since it imposes disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks, meaning your enemies can't hit you as well as they'd want to. It doesn't require concentration and you can hit them without losing the condition, but they can negate it with a saving throw on each of their turns. Good luck following them, but later on, you get a sweet ability that helps you a LOT.
Channel Divinity - Guided Strike: Got Great Weapon Master? Wish to hit with that sweet, sweet +10? Here's your chance! This is identical to the War Domain Cleric CD, by the way, but you get only one use. Use it wisely, but when you use it wisely...you do remember that you can stack up your Divine Smite WITH your Smite spells to go hideously nova.
Aura of Conquest (LD): Remember what I said about the frightened condition and "good luck following them""? Well, if they're frightened within your aura, all of a sudden they can't move. What better Lockdown method than this? Well, what about the DoT effect dealing psychic damage while frightened?
Scornful Rebuke (DR): Alright, so if they can't move away from your spot, and they can't hit you that well, right? So, what if they STILL manage to hit you? Well, that's when you punish them with psychic damage! Do note that it doesn't consume your reaction, so it applies to EVERY ATTACK MADE AGAINST YOU! ...Dang.
Invincible Conqueror: Alright, so - the oath itself is pretty good, but this capstone is just absurd. Resistant to ALL damage? Three attacks per round!? IMPROVED CRITICAL!? Yeah, it lasts for 1 minute, but compared to other capstones, this is probably the best capstone ever. Bar none.
Oath Spells: 3rd - armor of Agathys, command, 5th - hold person, spiritual weapon, 9th - bestow curse, fear, 13th - dominate beast, stoneskin, 17th - cloudkill, dominate person
Tenets: Beat them until they cry, punish rebels, and if someone's stronger, follow them until you can prove you're better. In other words; you play the bully. It's hard to play this and be non-evil (or non-chaotic), but if you're Lawful Evil...you pretty much do this already.

Oath of Redemption (DR): AKA, the controversial Oath. See, if you ever had access to the Book of Exalted Deeds in 3.5, you may remember Vow of Peace and Vow of Nonviolence; ways to play a non-violent, pacifist character. You may also remember that there was a LOT of heat about it, because all characters are glorified murderhobos. Well...this oath requires you, and empowers you to, not fight. I mean, you *can* fight, but the idea is to solve things passively.

Channel Divinity - Emissary of Peace: A nice, non-concentration based buff to Persuasion checks. It's a solid +5 bonus, and lasts for 10 minutes. It may seem real, REAL bad...but Persuasion is a strong weapon. If you manage to get a HUGE result, that person can be persuaded (pun intended) to agree with what you want. This power is as powerful (pun intended, again) as how much you can get from Persuasion.
Channel Divinity - Rebuke the Violent (DR): Someone hits an ally of yours, and does a bajillion points of damage while at it? Spend your reaction, cause the target to make a Wisdom save, and deal either a bajillion points, or half that amount (and half a bajillion points is still large enough). Do note that it works only once per short rest, and it's either this or EoP, and which one is better? (Hint: probably this one.)
Aura of the Guardian (DR): Remember the Crown Paladin's Divine Allegiance? Well, this is infinitely better; it affects creatures within 10 ft. (and eventually 30 ft.), so you don't have to be close to your target to use this. However - this means you either use this, or Rebuke the Violent. Noticed that your reactions are being assailed a lot?
Protective Spirit: Basically, Survivor for your character. When you take all that damage, you need to be able to survive, no? This gives you 1d6 + half your Paladin level, so it's between Survivor and using Healing Surge every turn. (For comparison: at 15th level, that's 1d6 + 7 HP, which is close to 10 hp; in essence, the same amount of healing a Champion with 20 Con would have. This gives you a LOT of survivability.
Emissary of Redemption (DR): The capstone. You get resistance to all damage from creature attacks (Sweet!), and if you get hit, you return half the damage you take (remember you're already resistant to all creature attacks, meaning you deal about a quarter of the damage), which applies EVERY TIME. Did I mention it applies EVERY TIME? Because I forgot to mention that this capstone is ALWAYS ACTIVE. You're right. This is the ONLY Paladin capstone that's always active; rather than having a time limit, the effect ends if you do something? What's that something, you ask? The reason this isn't the best capstone, like the Oath of Conquest capstone - it ends on any creature you harm, by means of an attack, a spell or an effect that causes damage. Note that the retributive damage doesn't count. Ask if stuff like Shove and the Shield Master's bonus shove action to knock prone don't count as attacks (note that they don't do damage, and you don't make attack rolls with them), and you can keep enemies locked near you. Just...don't do opportunity attacks. Like, ever. It's not a bad capstone (far from it), but it's hindered by its absurd restriction.
Oath Spells: 3rd - sanctuary, sleep, 5th - calm emotions, hold person, 9th - counterspell, hypnotic pattern, 13th - Otiluke's resilient sphere, stoneskin, 17th - hold monster, wall of force
Tenets: Here's where things get rough. The tenets all but force you to be a pacifist, by making violence a "weapon of last resort" (meaning: it's not your first course of action; you instead attempt to pull off a Persuasion check), leading by example and being patient (aka, turn the other darn cheek!). Of course, the last tenet gives you a slight excuse to fight ("...Well, the enemy won't stay its blade, and my people are pretty much dead if I don't act!"), but it won't always work. Thing is, it depends on the kind of campaign. With a good DM, this won't be much of an issue, because that good DM will always allow you to gain XP and defuse fights through talking. Most DMs, though, force you to fight monsters, and spending the first minute trying to stop them from fighting will be both impossible and a cause of grief. That said: I had a real bad experience with Persona games, and Redemption doesn't allow you to negotiate for XP and treasure, and most veterans won't accept playing with an actual pacifist, so I place this on a bad note.

New Spells

1st Level:
Ceremony: You get a set of cool rituals that require an hour to use. Note that atonement, once the Paladin's ticket from being a glorified Fighter, exists in a way here; you can use it to negate the effect of a helm of opposite alignment, if you want to. You also have an excuse to Bless Water as a spell (though you still need to spend the powdered silver). However, the cooler ceremonies involve a 1/lifetime guidance effect for an entire day, a 1/lifetime bless effect related to saving throws for an entire day, the effect of gentle repose (corpses can't become undead) and/or a 1/lifetime (or until widowed) fixed bonus to AC for an entire week while close to your beloved one. Alright, so they're cool, but their benefits are extremely limited (I mean, once per lifetime!?). Note that you can create holy water through a ceremony without casting the spell (see the PHB), meaning you don't have to memorize this spell. Let the cleric prep it instead.

4th Level:
Find Greater Steed: So, remember find steed? That awesome spell that lets you get a beefy steed? Well, this lets you get flying steeds! Or steeds that have better stats (like awesome dire wolves!) Sure, it's a 4th level spell, of which you have a few, but a spell that grants permanent flight or an entirely new and useful character to fight alongside you? Priceless.

5th Level:
Holy Weapon: Ah, a classic! You can enchant your weapon to light up as a torch, deal some SWEEEET radiant damage (2d8? Nuts!) and your weapon becomes magical if it isn't already. But, did you notice that, as a bonus action, you can basically do an area smite!? Wait: AREA HOLY SMITE!? Seriously!? Wait; IT TAKES A BONUS ACTION TO CAST!? Forgive me for this, but I'm sweating like a horse after seeing this spell. Good lord, Holy Weapon merged Holy Sword with Holy Smite and made it a super AWESOME spell! It's a 5th level spell, but...then again, it's a sweet 5th level spell with a bunch of benefits. (Trivia: Clerics also get this spell.)

New Magic Items
Let's face it; pretty much all of them are redder than the burning rage in my soul. Mostly because their effects are meant for fluff. Some of them could be considered decent.
Clockwork Amulet (THF, Arc): 1/day, make an attack as if you had rolled a 10. If you know you're gonna hit on a 10, this is perfect. This is ALSO perfect if you have GWM or Sharpshooter, because if you can hit with a 10 despite the penalty, that means you ensure one attack. Mix that with Divine Smite and whatnot, and you end up with a perfect tool for a nova-based class. It doesn't require attunement, either!
Mystery Key: You have a 5% chance to open any lock. ANY lock. That means you have a 1 in 20 chance to open magical locks, complex locks...pretty much anything. Try it on any lock. They're common items, so they can eventually be purchased for very, VERY cheap.
Rope of Mending: You can cut up the rope and then mend it again, as long as the bits are in contact with each other. This kind of item rewards the smart player; find a reason why to have a rope that mends itself is useful, and exploit it.
Ruby of the War Mage (THF, Arc): Your weapon becomes a spellcasting focus. You already have holy symbols, but this means you no longer need them. You still need to have a hand free for somatic components, though; do note that, if you wield a weapon in two hands, you don't have to always have them grabbing the weapon, making this perfect for fans of these weapons.
Walloping Ammunition (Arc): On a hit, target must make DC 10 Strength save or be knocked prone. In your case, that means your subsequent attacks will suffer; on the other hand, if you have a lot of melee allies, that means you give them advantage. Knocking prone is a pretty solid tactic, and you can find several ways to reduce a creature's saving throws. After a while, it won't work anymore, but keep a handful of them, particularly if a bard is close.

New Feats
Bountiful Luck: Remember the Halfling's Lucky racial trait, that lets you reroll 1s? This lets you give that benefit to an ally, but you can't use Lucky afterwards. The range is 30 ft., but it's a really potent boon that you give.
Dragon Fear: This lets you have a secondary "breath" effect, allowing you to frighten enemies. If you're a Conquest Paladin, it's great. Otherwise...it's cool, but not that much. The frightened effect ends on a successful save, which is made every time it takes damage. Decent, but not excessively impressive.
Dragon Hide (US): Basically, you turn your Dragonborn into a poor-man's Monk. The claw damage is pretty decent, but you can wield better armor anyways.
Drow High Magic: At-will detect magic is fairly good, but the other two aren't so much. Plus, are you seriously playing a Drow Paladin? ...Eh, can't blame you.
Dwarven Fortitude: Interesting power you get; you can spend one Hit Die on a Dodge action. So, when things get dire, you can heal AND impose disadvantage on attacks. Pretty sweet, considering that you might not get to spend those Hit Dice as you gain levels. Note that Half-Elves get access to this. (*wink wink*)
Elven Accuracy (Fen, Arc): Ouch. This feat is absurdly great for Archers, because that means you can reroll your lowest attack roll if you have advantage. Also works for spells, but few (or actually, none) of your spells require an attack roll. Also; remember that weapons with Finesse key off Dex.
Fade Away: 1/short rest, go invisible after you get hit? Sweet, but this is awesome for...Rogues, not for Paladins. Unless for some odd reason you REALLY need to Disengage after attacking.
Fey Teleportation: Gain misty step, as the spell. It can be useful, as it's a 2nd level spell, but a) requires you to be a High Elf (generally not a good idea) and b) it can only be used 1/short rest at most. Not good, but not bad either.
Flames of Phlegethos: Searing smite is a thing, you guys. Also, hellish rebuke, considering you need to be a Tiefling. The "reroll 1" effect means you deal a bit more damage, and the wreath of flames is rather decent. Cool, flavorful, but it depends on you spamming searing smite, which won't help you that much.
Infernal Constitution: Gives you a free set of resistances and advantage with poison, which is pretty cool.
Orcish Fury: Just when you thought your smite couldn't deal more damage, you get one damage die. Wield a greataxe? Congrats; you just dealt 2d12 plus all your smite damage. And in case you dodge death, you get a free attack with it! As racial feats go, this one is pretty solid.
Prodigy: Expertise as part of a feat!? Who doesn't like that? Couple that with a skill proficiency, a tool proficiency AND a language, and it's a great package. It works for humans (pretty common), half-elves (very good) and half-orc (pretty nice!).
Second Chance: Get a free reroll 1/short or long rest to an attack an enemy makes. Decent, but not very impressive considering you're gonna get hit a lot. At least it gives you +Dex, +Con or +Cha with it.
Squat Nimbleness: Hey...you a Dwarf? Surprise, you're no longer as slow as before! Gnome or Halfling? Why, go ahead of course! Goblin! ...I think you actually go faster! You also get a free skill proficiency (with Acrobatics, even! You know that there's only ONE background that gives that proficiency?), and advantage on checks to avoid being grappled, which is pretty nice. Nice, but not overwhelmingly good.
Wood Elf Magic: Alright, so playing a Wood Elf isn't exactly conductive to a Paladin, but at least it lets you get a druid cantrip. Get guidance, and exploit the heck out of it. Longstrider is also super useful, because it extends your movement speed.

Bloodcloud

2019-04-03, 08:41 AM

Vow of enmity last for one minute or until the target drops to 0. So that is 10 rounds of having advantage. VoE is for sure a light blue ability in my book. this also makes Soul of Vengeance better and at LEAST a blue ability.

It's also a bonus action to activate, contrarily to the attack boost from devotion. That makes it way easier to use effectively, as you don't lose this turn's attacks!

KorvinStarmast

2019-04-03, 09:45 AM

T.G. Oskar

2019-04-03, 07:29 PM

It's also a bonus action to activate, contrarily to the attack boost from devotion. That makes it way easier to use effectively, as you don't lose this turn's attacks!

While a fair point that I can address after a few more hours of gameplay, I still consider Sacred Weapon to be superior. There's a caveat for it, though - Sacred Weapon is definitely superior if you find another source of Advantage for it, because it then cancels the benefit of Vow of Enmity.

The thing with Vow of Enmity, and why it's good but not exceptional IMO, is that it affects only one creature, and you can't switch it. Notice how the newer subclass options allow you to switch your target to someone else after you drop the creature. Since Channel Divinity is only a 1/short rest option, you have to use it on the right moment: when you're sure you're facing a real big monster. (Adult Dragons, for example, or Liches, or whatnot.) SW applies to all attacks you make against all creatures during that minute, meaning it's a solid "get out of a jam" card.

That said, there IS a good counterpart - Guided Strike. GS is exceptional when you REALLY have to go nova, but once it's used, that's that. It works only against one creature (like VoE), but while VoE has a longer lasting time, GS only has a usefulness of one attack. Even quantitatively, you can use a math concept to prove otherwise, so I'll consider bumping Vow of Enmity to Blue at most.

Remember l'Hospital's theorem? Where, if two expressions have a solution, and you can prove a third expression exists between the previous two, the third expression also has a solution? (Forgive my math if I didn't express it well; I did so from memory.) Well, we can use this to prove this argumetn as well.

I define Guided Strike as being inferior in quality than Vow of Enmity, because I can only apply Guided Strike to one attack, whereas I can apply Vow of Enmity to as multiple attacks as possible, provided they are made against one enemy. Likewise, I define Sacred Weapon as superior to Vow of Enmity, because it's a fixed bonus that applies to every attack I make, compared to Vow of Enmity which is a conditional bonus that applies only to one creature at a time. Doing so, I can express their relation as follows:

Guided Strike < Vow of Enmity < Sacred Weapon

Now, my evaluation of Guided Strike as Blue is because it ensures one hit lands, pretty much always. That +10 to attack rolls makes all but the worst rolls meaningless. If you roll a 10 or higher, using Guided Strike means you pretty much have a success, because you're looking at a 20 without your attack bonuses, and the highest AC you can get, in essence, is 30. Because it doesn't have a triggering action, but a triggering condition (i.e., after you make the roll, but before the DM adjudicates the result), you have fair control over the result. This all but enables you to make an Ultimate Nova Strike: fire up a Smite spell as a bonus action, consume a 4th level spell for Divine Smite, and drop your attack bonus by 5 to gain a +10 to damage. With the right weapon, you can probably drop a creature to half hit points or outright kill it in one blow. Therefore, it's a very good ability, with wide applications.

On the other side, Sacred Weapon is a static bonus. It ensures most of your attacks hit. If you're to use GWM to reduce your attack bonus, but your Charisma is somewhere between +3 or +4, a magic weapon can mean the difference. That means you're essentially adding +10 to damage to EVERY attack, before Advantage. Being massive sustained damage, this is also evaluated as Blue.

Now, previously, when I evaluated Vow of Enmity, there were few things I could evaluate it. Sure: Advantage is pretty good, but there's always a chance both rolls are low, and the higher you need to roll to land a hit, the less effective Advantage is. (Conversely, at a certain point, if you need to roll low to hit, you probably don't need Advantage; this is where GWM comes in, because it makes the required roll higher, thus taking serious advantage of Advantage, pun intended.) Furthermore, it only applies to one creature, so unless you have short rests, it's a risky proposal. It's no issue when you're under a OBF DM ("OBF" standing for "one big fight", where you get one bigh fight per session before going into a long rest, therefore undermining every single action that recharges on a short rest.) However, even then, it only applies to one creature, so unless you land it right (like Guided Strike), you can end up screwed. That's why I evaluated it as Black.

However, using Guided Strike as a comparison, the theorem of l'Hospital rings true. Both GS and VoE affect one creature at once, and if you're in a OBF against a single creature, there's no reason why to spend it early. The one moment where VoE is under fire is when you make multiple fights without short rests in between; however, that ALSO affects Guided Strike, and it affects it even worse, because at least you can fire up one or more novas with VoE.

So, using the previous expression, and applying l'Hospital's theorem in a very odd way, I have no other choice than to express it as this:

Guided Strike < Vow of Enmity < Sacred Weapon

And I can't really debate a math result when it's done right, no?

Not sure if I'll do the same for Soul of Vengeance, though. It's great on a OBF when you're soloing it, though.

Thank you for the update.
most veterans won't accept playing with an actual pacifist
Yeah, and that's due to the core assumptions of the game. Pacifist is a really bad fit for the genre unless you are in a highly social/urban setting. In a setting heavy on gaining allies and social conflict, this paladin becomes more valuable.

A few thoughts:

When I made reference to Oath of Redemption requiring you to not attack, it's for a good reason. I can agree with you that it encourages to be a pacifist, but the tenets are pretty inclined on that matter. Violence is only a last resort tool, not the third option after parleying and parleying some more.

However, there's some truth in what you say. There's a difference between a "technical pacifist" (that is, someone who doesn't provoke a fight or promotes it, but fights if it must) and an "actual pacifist" (someone who won't engage in violence, no matter what). The Redemption Paladin is a technical pacifist through and through: it promotes peace and non-violence (which aren't always the same thing: you can be non-violent yourself, but still promote violence through actions), but knows that when people are in danger, the best option is almost always a smack to the head. Preferably with a blunt weapon (you know, so as to not cause undue bloodletting. *ahem*) An actual pacifist in D&D wouldn't be an adventurer, and you can still consider yourself a pacifist while being a good warrior, if you believe in the concept of "self-defense".

The tenets, however, don't reinforce the idea of "self-defense", but actual pacifism. It depends on how you define it: the first tenet is inclined towards technical pacifism (it's a last resort tool, but it's still a tool), but the second and third tenets incline you towards actual pacifism. "Innocence" clashes with the "goblin baby" situation: an Oath of Redemption Paladin wouldn't kill a goblin baby, but when the fourth goblin child ends up murdering the other kids because it can't comprehend evil, that tenet has to be proven demonstrably wrong. This also leads to the orc raiders; are they doing this because they like it, because their culture demands it, or because they have no other choice? And when, despite all your talks, all they say is "there's no other choice", how much of that proves this tenet?

The thing is, the third tenet is what makes the second so unbearable. Patience. In other words, not only you have to believe that EVERY CREATURE is innocent, but also that, if the fourth goblin baby-turned-child murderer failed you, you still have to believe that the fifth will make the difference. Granted: this is the kind of tenet that, alongside Innocence, made the awesome Lamia Quest story (seriously, go read it if you haven't! Sir Patrick is DEFINITELY an Oath of Redemption Paladin played by the book, and Ssen follows that path admirably), but as you mentioned, not all DMs and not all campaigns allow for this. However, this makes Oath of Redemption a very conditional Oath, which generally leads to a Red evaluation, but the class features are simply insanely good. Heck, the first CD makes you a pretty solid face: couple it with Prodigy and expertise in Persuasion, and you'll effectively never have to fight again! It's the BoED situation again: great mechanics, but mature content, and not because you're playing an unspeakably evil character, but because you're playing an absurdly good character.

Because of this, the tenets are what end up being to blame (hence, the Red evaluation). Peace invites you to be a pacifist; Innocence and Patience all but require it, and Wisdom doesn't mitigate it. The class features, of course, empower this.

Playing a badass pacifist character with heavy armor and a Holy Avenger is a pretty awesome concept, though.

Link to Nhorianscum's interesting point you may want to include: (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23819502&postcount=35)

While that is technically only true for the "killing blow/knock out" mechanic for 5e, it's something to work on/work from at a given table.

I can't agree with this. It's a cop-out. Someone who believes in self-defense actively seeks that no violence erupts. This is the reason the Vows of Peace and Nonviolence were so grudgeworthy: not only YOU couldn't do it, but you couldn't allow others to do it. The silver lining is intent.

You can't control others' actions. This is what Patience teaches; change takes time. If they resort to violence, the last thing you can do is ask them to stop the battle, and if things go worse, stop them before they indulge in killing. This makes an Oath of Redemption Paladin all but incompatible with an Assassin, because that's essentially what they do. (Likewise with a College of Whispers Bard). However, they can't turn a blind eye: they can't just say "well, I won't draw my blade, but I'll buff everyone so that they can kill others", because that's violence by omission. That's when your intent is twisted, and that's enough to make the Redemption Paladin fall.

Redemption Paladins are the ones that lead others to incredibly awesome personal stories. Have someone in your party with a list of people they want killed in revenge? Possibly an Assassin? (Like, say, Arya Stark?) Or, perhaps, a fellow Paladin who's sworn an Oath of Vengeance? It's a powerful moment in the story when such a character acts with mercy and lets the idea of revenge go; it's the kind of story that really has an impact. However, as you mentioned earlier, it's not the purpose of many campaigns, and it's not the expectation of other players. It's something that everyone on the table has to feel comfortable with.

I mean: you don't have to baby-sit them, but you can't leave them without supervision either. That's why I can't agree with Nhorianscum: the quote feels like a way to game the Oath, rather than embrace it.

Fro two handed swords/great weapons/polearms, this helps you have a focus without having to bear your shield.

True that. It's not any better because it doesn't affect everyone, but I'll make sure to ramp up the rating for THF and Archery.

KorvinStarmast

2019-04-04, 10:10 AM

First off, some blue pencil edit recommendations for your first few pages:

Being a 3.5 player, some things might be a bit disconcerting to players transitioning from an edition to other, though not as jarring as the shift from 3rd to 4th.
players transitioning from one edition to another.
The original intention of the Paladin was to be a variant of the Fighter, and the 1st Edition Player’s Handbook of the Dungeons & Dragons r
1st Edition Player’s Handbook of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game
Paladins get five Ability Score Improvements, much like all other races
much like all other classes.
5th—Lesser Restoration, Zone of Truth,
A small explain on why Lesser Restoration is red.
Vow of Enmity: 1/Short Rest, gain Advantage on attack rolls against single creature for 1 round.
You gain advantage on Attack rolls against the creature for 1 minute or until it drops to 0 Hit Points or falls Unconscious_

I guess I forgot that this guide began as "seeing it through a 3.5 lens" and I am not very content with 3.5ness ... but that's not an obstacle to a productive discussion.

When I made reference to Oath of Redemption requiring you to not attack, it's for a good reason. I can agree with you that it encourages to be a pacifist, but the tenets are pretty inclined on that matter. Violence is only a last resort tool, not the third option after parleying and parleying some more. At some point, we leave the "theoretical" and the "ideal" to enter into "I am playing in a party with other players, not playing solo." We seem to roughly agree what pacifism is, as a general principle, though I think it fair to point out that its root is a philosophy applied "in group." In other words, a pacifist can eschew killing of other human beings and still eat fish or lamb for Sunday dinner. Taking 'pacifist' to the reductio ad absurdum of "kills nothing, not even a fly" (danger, getting close to RL philosophy issues, so stopping there) renders any PC unsuitable for a D&D 5 adventuring party -- unless they are all pacifists. That would be an interesting campaign to try and run.
All that to say: your Red rating reflects that, so good call.

I agree that one needs a bit more creativity when trying to convince anyone/anything-monstery to do as the party wishes without violence, but this is a two way street. The other party may be simply hungry (an owl bear) or a zealot, or ... so, yes, we agree that the tenets are red. They barely fit the game unless the whole party takes on that approach to adventuring. (Session Zero Material, yes?)

However, there's some truth in what you say. There's a difference between a "technical pacifist" (that is, someone who doesn't provoke a fight or promotes it, but fights if it must) and an "actual pacifist" (someone who won't engage in violence, no matter what). The Redemption Paladin is a technical pacifist through and through: Bingo. Good point.

the third tenet is what makes the second so unbearable. Patience.
(I sinpped a bit) I think this is a bit to 3.5ish as an approach for my taste, but I see your point and I commend you for how well you express your points. It is a pleasure to have such a discussion with someone who does that so well.

Playing a badass pacifist character with heavy armor and a Holy Avenger is a pretty awesome concept, though. Yeah, tricky, and I think getting the whole party into the mind set could make for some really neat adventures.

The silver lining is intent. I see your point. No need to take that further.

Redemption Paladins are the ones that lead others to incredibly awesome personal stories. Have someone in your party with a list of people they want killed in revenge? Possibly an Assassin? (Like, say, Arya Stark?) Or, perhaps, a fellow Paladin who's sworn an Oath of Vengeance? It's a powerful moment in the story when such a character acts with mercy and lets the idea of revenge go; it's the kind of story that really has an impact. However, as you mentioned earlier, it's not the purpose of many campaigns, and it's not the expectation of other players. It's something that everyone on the table has to feel comfortable with. Yeah, also on board with these points.

but I'll make sure to ramp up the rating for THF and Archery. Glad to be a tiny bit of help.
Thanks, again, for your nice guide and your very high level of discourse. :smallsmile:

T.G. Oskar

2019-11-28, 01:53 AM

A Small Glance to Eberron: Rising from the Last War

First and foremost: I dig Eberron. A lot. It was the setting where the second D&D campaign that I ever played was set up (the first and third ones were homebrewed), and where I really began delving into a shared world. With the most recent release already in my hands, I figured it might be fair to figure out how you can work Paladins in this setting of wide magic, where magitek, pulp and noir reign supreme.

New Races
Changeling: A shapeshifting race, though most of its features are meant for subterfuge. The ability score set-up is nice, allowing you to boost Strength, Dexterity or Constitution while having exceptional Charisma (or, you can have truly exceptional Charisma and middling other scores). The free skill and language proficiencies are nice. That said, their main trait (Shapechanger) is meant to allow you to assume any form, which can be great when you're trying to pass undetected, but you're not exactly talented in subterfuge anyways.
Goblinoids: Yes, we got all three main goblinoids as races! This is important, because goblinoids comprise a great deal of Eberron history. Did you know they actually had an empire and everything!?

Bugbear: Big and nasty. They have a huge boost to Strength and some decent Dexterity, but there's three things that really set them up - first, they're the only class with reach. Second, they got Powerful Build. Third, they can deal some decent damage if you manage to surprise them. Plus, they got free proficiency in Stealth, in case you wanna be stealthy. That said, you'll want to go either Strength or Dexterity (and 9 out of 10 times, you really want Strength; you want Dex if you're going the rare Fencer or Archer path), you'll rarely be able to catch someone by surprise on your own, and if you're wearing non-Mithral heavy armor, you can kiss your Stealth success chances good-bye. I can still take good Strength and reach any time...

Goblin: With Dex and Con, they can make a decent Fencer, and the ability to reposition yourself through bonus action Disengage makes you pretty mobile. Fury of the Small is pretty big, adding a whopping amount of damage equal to your level; at first, it might not seem like much, but a Goblin going nova with this little bugger can pretty much one-shot most creatures, if not all. That said, it's not exactly the most amazing race, and being Small, that means Heavy weapons (the ones that deal more damage) are slightly off-limits.

Hobgoblin: Constitution and Intelligence!? Ugh, why!? Anyways, most of the traits are poor, and for being the most military-inclined, they oddly make good spellcasters. Saving Face is a nice ability that lets you attempt to succeed on a save, but only works on a short rest. For the most part, the one race of the goblinoids that should be the most appropriate for Paladins is the one that's the least.
Kalashtar: These super-pretty humans miss some of their psionic flavor (mostly because WotC is having issues with psionics), but it has a few goodies. The stats aren't as favorable (boost to Charisma, but minor, and the other is Wisdom), resistance to psychic damage (which is pretty rare but painful), advantage on Wisdom saving throws (with your Wisdom save proficiency and your added Charisma, you're most likely never gonna fail such a save), but the one feature I find interesting is Mind Link. As things go, it's wonderful for intra-battle communication; you can essentially relay info to other allies, and have the leader (or the strategist) always in mental contact. Note on Severed from Dreams - you're immune to dream effects, but not to sleep. Keep mind of that.
Orc: Yes, Orc is a race now. It was on Volo's, and here, it's improved. For one, it has stats on the right places (Strength and Constitution), a dangerous move that lets you be really sticky (Aggressive), the useful though not broken Powerful Build, plus two free skill proficiencies in skills that you might actually want to see some use. Orcs are really pretty nice for Paladins, even if they don't add that much to them.
Shifter: One of my favorite races, because it lets you play with werewolf-lites! One thing to realize is that the ability scores are specific to their subraces, sharing only Darkvision, the ability to Shift...and that's it. Speaking of Shifting; it's not gonna be that great if you don't have many short rests, but if you have only One Big Fight, it's super useful.

Beasthide: The meaty ones, they get scores on the right places, proficiency in a very useful skill, and their shift increases their AC (in addition to the temporary HP). Arguably the better of the four.
Longtooth: The scores aren't that great, but you get proficiency in a very useful skill, and their Shift ability gives you a free bonus attack that deals pretty decent damage (1d6 base). Note that Improved Divine Smite and all other weapon modifiers apply to this one.
Swiftstride (Fen): The scores aren't that impressive, but it has several good things. For one, it's one of the few rare ways to get Acrobatics as a bonus skill proficiency. You also become super-slippery and fast, so if you dig movement, this is the one for you. Most Paladins aren't, but the rare Fencer always likes its movement, so there's that.
Wildhunt: Scores in stats that aren't useful, Survival is great but easy to get, and while denying advantage to enemy attackers is great, it's nothing exceptional. Leave this one to the Rangers and Monks.
Warforged: The stars of the setting, these living constructs were meant to be tireless combatants, easy to train and easy to deploy, repair and command. In essence: they're Terminators. Their ability score increases are awesome, since while they have their main stat as Constitution, their other one is floating; add it to Strength, Dexterity or Charisma as you like. Their Construct Resilience gives them superb bonuses, and while they need to "rest", they don't fall unconscious, so they can alert the party on an ambush. Integrated Protection is controversial, since it no longer means the Warforged doesn't need to wear armor, but the benefits are actually very solid - +1 to AC and the inability to have your armor removed, on a class that most likely relies on wearing the heaviest armor possible, is always a positive. Do note that you have to be proficient in the armor, but you don't care because...well, you actually do! You also get a free skill proficiency of any kind, which is superb. Warforged are almost ridiculously close to variant Humans in flexibility.

Dragonmarks
These are essentially subraces and variants for specific races (namely, the common ones - Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Human - and some uncommon ones - Gnomes, Half-Elves and Half-Orcs - which were the standard races on the 3.5 PHB. Each subrace or variant grants a specific ability score bonus, a "Guidance"-like effect on specific skills, some minor powers, but most importantly, it offers a list of spells that are added to the spell list of any class you have access to, meaning you can either learn or prepare them. As the Paladin prepares spells, it means it has access to all of these spells. Thus, the worth of the dragonmark clearly will be influenced by the spells on this list.

Detection (Medani): While the flexible score is nice, Paladins don't use Wisdom that much. Access to two very useful Detect spells is great, but the spell list is rather crummy.

Spell List: 1st - detect evil and good, detect poison and disease; 2nd - detect thoughts, find traps; 3rd - clairvoyance, nondetection; 4th - arcane eye, divination; 5th - legend lore
Finding (Tharashk): This mark applies to either Half-Orcs or Humans, and replaces everything they have. It's slightly more useful for Humans because it gives Darkvision. The skills to which the d4 applies are very useful, but the crowning achievement is getting Hunter's Mark 1/long rest, which is formidable if you don't wanna go Oath of Vengeance. That said, the ability scores leave a lot to be desired. (They look like perfect for Clerics...)

Spell List: 1st - faerie fire, longstrider; 2nd - locate animals or plants, locate object; 3rd - clairvoyance, speak with plants; 4th - divination, locate creature; 5th - commune with nature
Handling (Vadalis): Same issue with the Mark of Detection regarding ability scores, but if you plan to deal with animals, beasts and monstrosities, this is your mark. Animal Friendship 1/short rest can be pretty solid, but do note that it requires you to have a pretty high Wisdom score.

Spell List: 1st - animal friendship, speak with animals; 2nd - beast sense, calm emotions; 3rd - beacon of hope, conjure animals; 4th - aura of life, dominate beast; 5th - awaken
Healing (Jorasco): A subrace for Halflings, it grants a boost to Wisdom, which you don't use that much, but it has one of the most controversial spell lists you can field. You also get the ability to cast Cure Wounds and Lesser Restoration once per day (do note that the amount you restore is based on your Wisdom, so it'll most likely be decent, but not impressive). Arguably one of the best Dragonmarks, but mostly because of that spell list.

Spell List: 1st - cure wounds, healing word; 2nd - lesser restoration, prayer of healing; 3rd - aura of vitality, mass healing word; 4th - aura of life, aura of purity; 5th - greater restoration
Hospitality (Ghallanda): Another subrace for Halflings, this one has a weaker spell list (great for utility, but you don't have the slots for it, let's be honest), but a better choice for ability score and gives you a cantrip. Still not enough to save it.

Spell List: 1st - goodberry, sleep; 2nd - aid, calm emotions; 3rd - create food and water, Leomund's tiny hut; 4th - aura of purity, Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion; 5th - hallow
Making (Cannith): The focus on Intelligence really smarts, but it has a pretty interesting spell list. The hallmark of this dragonmark (pun not intended) is getting to use Magic Weapon from 1st level, without concentration. This can work if you're in a dungeon, right after using your short rest.

Spell List: 1st - identify, Tenser's floating disk; 2nd - continual flame, magic weapon; 3rd - conjure barrage (Arc, Thr), elemental weapon; 4th - fabricate, stone shape; 5th - creation
Passage (Orien) (Fen): Focused on being super mobile, this dragonmark grants you a bonus to Dexterity and another stat of your choice. You get a boost to your speed, and the ability to cast Misty Step, which is perfect for when you want to reposition yourself. Insanely good spell list. (Note: this dragonmark got a nerf from its incarnation in Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron, where it had faster speed, the d4 applied to Athletics, and gave you the ability to ignore difficult terrain on a Dash)

Spell List: 1st - expeditious retreat, jump; 2nd - misty step, pass without trace; 3rd - blink, phantom steed; 4th - dimension door, freedom of movement; 5th - teleportation circle
Scribing (Sivis): Gnomes are already the weirdest choices, and here you get a subrace that's just as odd. It has the ability score increase on the right stat (Cha), but the effects aren't as impressive. Message as a cantrip can be pretty amazing if used correctly, and if you're the face, Comprehend Languages is a must.

Spell List: 1st - comprehend languages, illusory script; 2nd - animal messenger, silence; 3rd - sending, tongues; 4th - arcane eye, confusion; 5th - dream
Sentinel (Deneith) (DR): A tough choice, since while it gives great stats to Constitution, you really have to suck up the boost to Wisdom. You get to apply the d4 to two very useful saves, and you gain the ability to use Shield for free. Sadly, it's only applicable once per long rest, alongside the nice Vigilant Guardian effect. (Seriously, why not once on a short rest? Oath of the Crown and Oath of Redemption let you cover up for an ally once per round anyways...) The spell list is pretty boss for a defender, and any way you can add Warding Bond as a Paladin spell is always a bonus. (Note: of all the Dragonmarks, this one received a serious nerf, since the d4 applied to Initiative checks, and Vigilant Guardian was more of a stance, as well as the ability score increases applying to Strength and an additional score)

Spell List: 1st - compelled duel, shield of faith; 2nd - warding bond (DR), zone of truth; 3rd - counterspell, protection from energy; 4th - death ward, guardian of faith; 5th - Bigby's hand
Shadow (Phiarlan/Thuranni): An odd choice, this is the only Elf subrace, but it's an interesting one nonetheless. You get a bonus to Charisma, and the ability to use the incredibly useful Minor Illusion cantrip, plus a 1/long rest Invisibility. The spell list at first isn't as impressive, but the latter spells are just insanely good. If you plan to rely on stealth and be an Elf, this is arguably the better of the elven subraces.

Spell List: 1st - disguise self, silent image; 2nd - darkness, pass without trace; 3rd - clairvoyance, major image; 4th - greater invisibility, hallucinatory terrain; 5th - mislead
Storm (Lyrandar): The second variant of Half-Elf. The stats are fair for Paladins who use Dexterity, and it has a rare resistance (to lightning damage). Gust is a pretty fluffy cantrip, not exactly very useful but has its uses nonetheless. The spell list is unique in that it deals no damage whatsoever, but it's full of crowd control effects which can see a lot of use.

Spell List: 1st - feather fall, fog cloud; 2nd - gust of wind, levitate; 3rd - sleet storm, wind wall; 4th - conjure minor elemental, control water; 5th - conjure elemental
Warding (Kundarak): The only Dwarven subrace, but this one is tailored for Dwarves who want to be more roguish. You get a bonus on Intelligence (aka, dump stat), the spells you get access to are pretty decent but not awesomely so (Alarm is the most useful one since it helps you during your sleep watch; Mage Armor is useful when used on an ally, though), and the spell list is...well, did you know they have access to Armor of Agathys? Color me surprised.

Spell List: 1st - alarm, armor of Agathys; 2nd - arcane lock, knock; 3rd - glyph of warding, magic circle; 4th - Leomund's secret chest, Mordenkainen's faithful hound; 5th - antilife shell

Feats
The book has only one new feat, but it's tied to the concept of Dragonmarks.
Aberrant Dragonmark: A very impressive feat. It's essentially Magic Initiate, except it requires no minimum ability score, boosts Constitution (which is always VERY useful), and gives you only one cantrip instead of two. You also get a 1st-level spell, but the spellcasting ability you use is Constitution, which as I have mentioned is always very useful to have high. Since you can choose from the Sorcerer spell list, that means you can choose from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide cantrips, including but not limited to Booming Blade. Snatch two useful spells, get your Con boost...oh yeah, and a roleplaying flaw that's more fluff than anything. Seriously - this feat is awesome!

Magic Items
The book has a treasure trove of magic items, most of which are tied to either Dragonmarked characters or Warforged. You also get the rare prosthetic items, which allow you to replace a limb for something just as good, if not cooler. Assume that whatever I don't mention is either on its own section, or is mostly for fluff and thus not very useful.
Arcane Propulsion Arm (UA): Are you willing to cut your arm for it? If you do, you get an awesome item that allows you to throw your punches away. Seriously. Rocket. Punch. That said, it does require attunement, but you deal an amazing amount of damage with your unarmed strikes (1d8, and it's force damage, so resist that!)
Dragonmarked Items: All of these items require attunement to someone who has a specific Dragonmark.

Finder's Goggles (Mark of Finding): Its main use is to add your d4 to Insight checks. The ability to use Locate Creature on the creature is fun, but not amazing.
Keycharm (Mark of Warding): A nifty tool that lets anyone in your party ignore the effect of certain spells you cast (if you're a spellcaster, mostly, though the Alarm and Arcane Lock effects are powers you can manifest without being a spellcaster), That said, it's mostly utility.
Scribe's Pen (Mark of Scribing): It lets you write invisible messages?
Speaking Stone: Aka, magical cellphones. It's located here because you need to have a gnome with the Mark of Scribing to make use of it, but if you have one such stone, you can receive messages from it.
Feather Token: First: it's a common item. Second: it doesn't require attunement. Third: it doesn't require an action. Have at least one at all occasions.
Glamerweave: More of a fashion expression than anything else, but for the most part, the main utility is to get that d4 on Performance or Persuasion checks, and that only works once per day. Great if you're the face of the party, particularly since it doesn't require attunement.
Imbued Wood Focus: Essentially a spellcasting focus, this item's main use is to boost damage from a spell you cast. This includes your smite spells. The damage boost is very, VERY small. If you're looking for options, Fernian Ash, Irian Rosewood, Lammanian Oak and Xorian Wenge are the best. The utility of this item depends on how much you use your spells.
Orb of Shielding: Common, and its effect is small but relatively useful. When you hold an item of this kind, you can spend your reaction to reduce damage by a paltry 1d4. This requires DM adjudication, but if it can apply after damage reductions, it's a much better choice. Otherwise, it's a wash.
Prosthetic Limb: Unlike the Arcane Propulsion Arm, this is mostly meant to replace a lost limb. One of its key benefits is that every limb counts as a single item for purposes of attunement, but on the other hand... Stick to Regenerate.
Symbiotes: All items of this kind are technically considered cursed items, but that's relative. All of these items can't be removed, and usually have a specific negative effect tied to it, but as with most cursed items, they can be minor or heavy.

Belashyrra's Beholder Crown: Magical darkvision is the bee's knees, but the ability to cast certain spells as if they were a wand, with a pretty high DC of 16 for their actions, makes it worthwhile. Do note that there's an issue with Telekinesis, because if you don't have spellcasting, you technically can't use this spell because it references it. Also, the costs are pretty hefty; seven charges for Finger of Death, yet six for Disintegrate?
Dyrrn's Tentacle Whip: Magical whip, no negative effects, +2 to attack and damage rolls, +1d6 extra psychic damage, and stuns on a nat 20. And it can't be disarmed unless your arm is cut, and even then, it might just retract and reappear on your other hand. Other than the shock of having a tentacle flowing from your arm, there's very little drawbacks. Oh yeah, you have disadvantage on attacks against aberrations, but that's what normal weapons are for, right? Right?
Earworm: No, not that kind of earworm. You can use Dissonant Whispers or Detect Thoughts, but if you do, any thoughts you hear are also heard by the nearest daelkyr. A DC of 15 for Dissonant Whispers is pretty boss.
Kyrzin's Ooze: Gain resistance to acid AND poison, immunity to the poison condition, and you can either become amorphous (and squeeze through everything) or gain a decent acid breath weapon. Do note that the penalty is severe; if you die, your body is destroyed, and you just added a new and very annoying enemy for your party to fight. I'd say, though, that the costs outweigh the benefits.
Living Armor: This is a strange form of armor - it can be any kind (even Full Plate), with a +1 to AC, and it also grants resistance to three pretty nasty damage types (necrotic, poison and psychic). The drawback, however, is immense - it demands half of your HD every day, or gain one level of exhaustion. I'll give it a good score because it can't be removed.
Living Gloves: One of the few, if not the only, items that grant you Expertise. You also gain proficiency in the skill, if you lack it. You can also choose which kind of item to become proficient with, and apply your Expertise. That said, the proficiencies applicable are Sleight of Hand, thieves' tools, one artisan's tools or one musical instrument. It's half useful, but losing one attunement slot for it kinda hurts.
Ventilating Lungs: They don't replace a lost set of lungs, but rather modify them. (Wait; isn't that cyberware? You mean, you added Shadowrun to my Eberron? RPGception!) The main benefit is getting water breathing, vacuum breathing, and advantage on saves against aerial contaminants. You can also use Gust of Wind 1/day, which isn't so bad.
Warforged Components: All of these components require you to be a Warforged. That's basically it.

Armblade: It's a magic weapon that can't be disarmed, but it has to be one-handed and specifically melee. (YMMV on whether you can throw it, but convention says no.) You can retract or extend the weapon as a bonus action, which hurts because you can't use your free item interaction for the same. The best use for it is when you have a ranged weapon, since you can then switch weapons during the same turn.
Docent: The best way to explain it is, it's basically Cortana. No, seriously - for Warforged, this is essentially artificial intelligence on a small sphere, which you can grant your Warforged in order to gain some useful skills and benefits, except you don't get control of most of your functions. For the most part, it's a translator (understands Common, Giant, and up to four other languages, of which it can learn by just hearing them), a defibrillator (yep; it's meant to stabilize you), a +7 bonus on four Intelligence skills, and the option to either cast Detect Evil or Good, or Detect Magic, but the docent chooses when to use it. While it's mostly for utility, a docent is insanely useful - in fact, it's probably too useful, and attunement is not enough.
Wand Sheath: Amazing item. Lets you store one wand, which you can then release and use, except that unlike Armblades, the hand remains free. Also, the wand and the sheath are considered a single item for purposes of attunement, so you get to save attunement slots! And, you can't be disarmed.