First Paladin!

[stormsouldevil]

So now that the rest of my party has pretty much tossed every option in the book I get to settle down and run a Paladin. My first.... ever. And Im pretty jazzed, they seem really cool in 5e, I have a cool character concept, and Im really liking the idea of what they are in this edition.

Rolled with the DM. Variant human Paladin, Kara- 20Str, 16con, 12Dex, 8Int, 14Wis, 16cha. (post racial, W/ Heavy Armor master bonus feat) Sailor. Perception, Insight, Athletics, Persuasion, and either intimidate, Medicine, or Perform (poetry)

The concept- Paladin of the Norse Gods, specifically Tyr but she wears a Mjolnir as her holy symbol. Dm wants me to keep things simple so Im doing a sort of amalgam god who will probably get "Thunnar"'s name, be called "All-father", and be the god of the Thing.

My question is on choices- Most guides seem to say "both choices are goood" on all the non skill concerns I have.

First- Sword and Board- Pros- Looks like a blast, sticky, good reaction and bonus action uses. Cons looks like it interferes with sentinel when I grab it so my reaction will have too many uses.
1stB- Polearm master. I love polearms, the reach can get fun, a spare attack lets me be a bit better at crowd control. Cons Lower Ac, less thematically appropriate for a sailorm, more feats but better synergy between them.

My second round of choices is whether or not I go Ancients or avenging. Avenging makes the most direct sense for her, but since she is coming from a nordic culture I could really see Oath of the ancients. Which gives me some nice crowd control. This choice I can see being very influenced by my weapon choice.

Keeping my party in mind we have a Barbarian, a Cleric, and a Wizard. We SHOULD be getting a Rogue or ranger as well. Both of my options are going to let me be pretty tanky with the right feat support which isnt a big issue since I have a maxed out Str at level 1 so I can grab the 2-3 feats Im going to want pretty much right off the bat. Sword and board only needs sentinel and shield master so I will be completely up by level 8. Polearm will want sentinel, polearm master, and Great weapon master- which more likely means im ditching heavy armor mastery or just waiting till level 12 until the build really comes into it's own.

So give me your thoughts on these choices and I'll figure it out. :D

[Marvnmartian]

Ok this will sound weird... but it works

Take 2 levels of Hexblade to get Shield, Charisma for damage, a hex curse on a bbeg, and of course Eldritch Blast w/ agonizing blast to fill in your ranged deficiency's as a paladin

So stats would look like 14 Str 16 Dex 16 Con 8 Int 12 Wiz 20 Cha
And if you can talk your dm out of multi-class stat priority's Str 8 Dex 14 Con 16 Int 12 Wiz 16 Cha 20

If you just want to take 2 levels in a regular warlock to not deal with the hexblade charisma shenanigans you would pick up the eldritch blast powered by agonizing which is a good thing to have for any charisma class

[Galadhrim]

What do you mean sword and board would compete for your reaction? Are you talking about taking the protection fighting style? You can go sword and board and take dueling our defense and have your reaction free for shield master or sentinel reaction.

As far as your choices, you really can't go wrong either way and it appears you have identified the pros and cons of each option.

I think the real question is do you want to tank and do decent damage or do you want to hit like a truck and be an off tank? That really makes your decision for you. Given the way you have arrayed your stats I would guess you want to do a ton of damage and off tank, but that is a guess.

[stormsouldevil]

Not aiming to MC. But will keep it in mind if it becomes an issue.

And I mean that polearm and sentinel both sort of work together. Basically any one enemy who enters or tries to leave my space is gonna get slapped and aint moving. If its jsut sentinel that's cool, but if I use my pole arm stuff then I can shut down some movement. I can do the same with my bonus action if I go shield with a bit better reliability but at the cost of damage

But if I use the Shield Master reaction then Sentinel's reaction is jsut sitting there. Which is even more competition if I go protection (which Im not planning on. Dueling is more fun.)

[Galadhrim]

And I mean that polearm and sentinel both sort of work together. Basically anyone who enters or tries to leave my space is gonna get slapped and aint moving.

But if I use the Shield Master reaction then Sentinel's reaction is jsut sitting there. Which is even more competition if I go protection (which Im not planning on. Dueling is more fun.)

That is one way to think of it.

Shield master's reaction I think will come up much less often but when it does it is worth giving up the sentinel attack for that round (if you would have that option too). I don't think there would really be too many cases where you missed one for the other but I could be wrong. Really if you are using your reaction that often you are winning already. opportunities to use it just makes you that much more efficient with your action economy.

Granted, you get really good action economy with pole arm plus sentinel bc you are likely using Acton, bonus Acton, reaction every round (or close to it). I think both combos work really well together.

[mer.c]

Hello! Congrats on your first Paladin! :)

For what martial style to take, think about your other party members and compliment them. Will you need to stop baddies yourself, or can the rest of your party fend for themselves? (You’ll have a backline of course, but with enough durable bodies in the way having tons of defensive features may be less important.) Also worth noting that if your Barbarian is taking Wolf at 3, GWM is incredibly good since you’ll have frequent advantage to offset the hit penalty of power attacks (along with your insane Strength score).

If you expect to have friends tangling with you in the front lines, Ancients could be amazing for regularly doling out advantage vs. spells to 3+ PCs. But it sounds like you’re most interested (like me!) in the RP and character-building elements, so if Vengeance is a better fit I’d say do that for sure. Both are flavorful, powerful, and fun.

Hope that’s helpful!

[Sception]

Paladin is a strong contender for best and most interesting class in 5e. It does a little of everything except ranged combat, is good at most everything it does, every subclass oath is at least decent and most are great, there's plenty of available themeing options, it multiclasses with several other classes extremely well or works wonders on its own as a single classed character.

As a single classed paladin, you basically can't go wrong as long as you have a good cha and a strong melee attacking stat. If you aren't multiclassing, the options are all pretty straight forward and do what they say on the tin. The main thing to be careful about is getting too pushy with your oath. Yeah, you'll want to nudge your party towards more virtuous behavior, but try to do it by leading by example rather than by being obnoxious and disruptive.

Multiclassing will open a lot of interesting options, but it also opens up the possibility of getting in your own way or missing out on important parts of your progression. It's not hard to end up with builds that hardly get any stat advancements, for instance, and that can become a problem. Such a shame those aren't tied to character level like proficiency is. Oh, well.

[stormsouldevil]

Any thoughts on Glaive+ Oath of the ancients?

Got kind of an Odin-y bent to it, and balances offensive potential, becoming a giant whirling zone of death, and I could in theor ignore war caster with it.

I think i like oath of the ancients enough to go for it, though I am going vengeance in my character's back story.

As part of whichever Oath I go with is hunting down the ******* who killed her family and slaying him. Her youngest child survived but her husband, the other 2 children, and all of his family are dead. Becoming a Paladin basically changed her life but saved her kid (now residing with her parents) but she has to hunt the Jarl who did it down and kill him. No honorable combat, he's jsut a filthy murderer who needs to die.

[Sception]

Both vengeance and ancients work fine with a polearm. Ancients third level features are weakish, but they've got some good spells and the seventh level aura, while enemy dependent, is great in most campaigns. I played a single classed dual wielding ancients paladin a bit back, it was quite nice.

If you're going for a darker tone with that vengeance backstory, you might also consider Oathbreaker from the DMG or Conquest from Xanathar's guide. Oathbreaker gets a cha-to-damage ability at level 7 that's great with the minor action attack from polearm master, while Conquest gets fear-causing channel divinity and spells plus an aura that immobilizes scared enemies w/in 10 feat of you, which lets you beat on them with a halberd while they can't punch back unless they have ranged abilities or reach of their own.

On the other hand, both are highly dependent on charisma (oathbreaker for damage, conquest for save DC on their fear effects), so they really, really, really want that hexblade dip for cha-to-attack. And it needs to be a pretty hefty three level dip to work with any reach weapon heavier than a whip. And while both take a few levels to come online due to multiclassing, they also can have problems at higher levels. Oathbreaker because their damage bonus also applies to any enemy fiends or undead you might be fighting, which tends to become a bigger problem as time goes on, and Conquest because a lot of higher level enemy types have blanket immunity to fear.

[stormsouldevil]

Def going Avenging or Ancient. Her Dark back story got her in the road to being a Paladin.

[Pex]

You need to ask. Will great weapon style work on smites? If DM says yes, go for it. The AC hit for not having a shield hurts, but the damage spike is worth it. You won't need Great Weapon Master for damage. If no then weapon and shield. You still get decent damage with smites, and the AC from the shield helps a lot. If you think you need a steady damage boost there's always Divine Favor or Hunter's Mark as a Vengeance Paladin to go along with dueling style.

[stormsouldevil]

It doesnt, one of the guide's I read found a tweet confirmation it only works on weapon* dice.

But with a Polearm I get a spare swing to add 1d4+str+etc. So while the style is a bit behind dueling the feat support, which I have in spades, will make up for it. GWM of course adds that ridic +10 damage which is a potential 30 damage that i dont have access to with a dueling style. And arguably the psuedo brutal quality of the fighting style should normally come up to be the same damage range booster as dueling, dueling is just static and more reliable.

Dont get me wrong I want people to argue in favor of Sword and Board, I LOVE the idea of both weapon styles for this Paladin. Sword and Board has the iconic imagery both for the God in question, and the culture- but the Vikings were ecspecially utilitarian- they didnt have pole arms but if they did it's likely they'd have followed female Samurai and become a popular weapon for female warriors.

And for those whose only exposure is the FRGN realms or something that equally kinda treats Tyr like a POS- he's the god of Law, war, and the sword. In Iceland the national assembly, the Thing, traditionally included sword duels and they invoked Tyr to bring them Justice. Forsetti as god of justice is a weird thing that I'd need to take some time to get into but he's more the god of personal justice, i.E. Vengeance while Tyr is more the God of legal justice. And he sat opposite Odin in ancient times and parts of he eddas may be pointing to that the Vikings recognized this and him by having him be the king of Asgard before Odin, even though Odin is older.

[Unoriginal]

What do you mean, the Norse didn't have polearms? Odin was known to use a spear. Pretty sure they just didn't use that kind of weapons in viking raids much because it wasn't practical for their purpose.

Also, regarding Tyr, let's not forget that the main myth he's linked to is how he and the Asgardians imprisoned Fenrir for no reason other than fear.

[mer.c]

What do you mean, the Norse didn't have polearms? Odin was known to use a spear. Pretty sure they just didn't use that kind of weapons in viking raids much because it wasn't practical for their purpose.

They did use spears in Viking raids, IIRC. Although for OP’s purposes, we’re talking (I think) about specifically PAM, which spears don’t work with.

[stormsouldevil]

Well Pam and we are also talking about a proper pole arm weapons, which a spear is not.

Halberd, glaive, and similar weapons do have a lot in common aesthetically, but are both chopping and stabbing weapons and not throwing weapons. Additionally in Europe they came much later then the viking age. Largely because of advancements in armor that made 2 handed weapons a better choice then a shield and weapon.

Spears are more stabbing only weapons, and are designed also to be thrown for that effect. A sturdy enough haft would make throwing an extremely poor plan in terms of being able to cut with a spear. It's why polearm typically weren't thrown, at least as a common strategy.

Yes it's a bit of metal atop a pole. But it's pretty distinctly different from a halberd, glaive, or polearm that came after them.

[stormsouldevil]

Also that translation is bad. The Fenris wolf, Which my phone wanted to call the dentist wolf, was assuredly a problem not a threat.

It's actually one of the oldest myths we see reference to, archaeologicaly.and the idea that he hadn't become a problem is incongruent with other points in the mythos.

And this gets into theory and away from proper research but an explanation is also that Tyr raised Fenris as his own son. Loki does call out Tyr as a cuckold in Lokisenna but there's never any explanation for who this son is. It would stand to reason that it was Fenris. Who may only be half brother to Jormangandr and Hel since we are fairly certain Angrboda and Tyrs wife, whose name I can never remember, are separate beings. But again that's highly unsupported, it's just drawing lines in the incomplete and poorly preserved mythos. The cuckold comment, and perhaps Lokisenna in general could be a Christian forgery.

As for the incongruities we don't see any prepunishment for other gods or beings. Thor does try to hunt and kill Jormangandr but Odin never tried to slay Fenris, Heimdall doesn't slip in and slit Loki's throat, Asgard in general has a seeming peace with the Jotun, etc. Etc.

Loki is bound as punishment for his continuing promotion of chaos and his role in slaying Baldr, as well as pissing pretty much every possible ally among the Aesir and Vanir right the hell off.