Making paladin npc's

[Cakeking]

Newish DM, trying my hand at making a statblock and i am trying to make an order of paladins that the party may become enemies with and need to fight.

I have the challenge rating calculated, but i am not taking into consideration any paladin abilities or spells...

I am fine with ditching some of the abilities or even the spellcasting, and coming up for a reason why they dont have or use them, but do i need to?

divine smite ~ it'd be nice to keep
Divine health ~ dont care
aura of protection ~ i want to keep this, but would they stack?
everything with oaths~ need to keep

so how much CR do you think they'd add about?
they are CR2, i wouldn't wanna go above 3

[gfishfunk]

My opinion:

1. Enemies should be powerful but simple for you to play. Not only do you have to keep track of all of your baddies' abilities, you also have to keep track of all the characters' abilities as well! So, try not to overload. If you think you will use it, keep it. If not, throw it out. When I give an enemy spell levels, I typically grab one spell for each spell level and I am done with it; its not that I don't like options, its that I don't like keeping track of that sort of thing. THEREFORE: I recommend grabbing 2-3 features (that includes spell casting) and placing it on the paladin. For example: 1. Oath, and 2. Smiting (simply add 1d4 to all attacks; its less than 1d10 as a one-time, but it is potentially more over multiple rounds of combat). Add 3. either lay on hands or aura of protection to a leader character.

2. NPCs who are not enemies should not be powerful. I know you are not asking this, but if the PCs try to turn them into allies, its worth considering and its totally fine to then nerf them. The paladin might have some low level lay-on-hands type stuff and have some constraints to his/her behavior through an oath, but that is about it. Anything else and you have a strong GM incentive to intervene and a strong incentive to have the players get the paladins to do their work, and why would you want to do that? Then it would be you playing against you while they all check out their smartphones.