Help with creating my first paladin (LVL 4 Conquest)

[Tel]

Hey guys, so I'm in the process of creating a lvl 4 Conquest Paladin with the base stats of 14, 10, 13, 8, 12, 17.

My goal for this character is to excel at battlefield control and being the face for my not so handsome party members. I enjoy roleplaying as much as anyone else, but I also strongly believe in playing an optimal character.

After deciding on picking Vhuman as my race, I selected to bump my stats to 14, 10, 14, 8, 12, 18, and with the Sentinel feat. (I'm open to switching to Aasimar)

Here's where I'm a bit lost. When it comes to my 4th lvl ASI I'm unsure if I should go for a bump to 20 CHA, STR/CON to 16 or possibly going for Res Con? (If I go for res con I would swap my base 14 stat on STR-> CON and give a +1 to it from my racial, but that would leave me at 13 STR.)

I haven't really played a Paladin before so I'm not really sure if maxing CHA would benefit me the most, although I've heard that Conquest paladins are more reliant on higher CHA than other paladin sub classes .

[Nidgit]

Once you hit Levels 6 and 7 you'll be very reliant on that CHA. It'll be a defining feature of your battlefield control.

As is, I'd probably boost STR for the Level 4 ASI. 14 is lower than I'd be comfortable with for an attacking stat and will also allow you to better use better heavy armors.

Another option you could definitely consider would be multiclassed into Hexblade down the road for the SADness. You could leave your STR at 13 and take Res (Con) for the ASI, then take Hexblade as soon as you feel like it. In fact, you might be best starting 3/1.

Actually, now that I think about it, the main reason to go Vuman is to maximize early access to feats. If you're going to take an ASI at Level 4, you'd probably be better off swapping the two. Go Half-Elf with 18 STR, 16 CHA, and 14 CON with more skills and then take Sentinel at Level 4.

[Tel]

Once you hit Levels 6 and 7 you'll be very reliant on that CHA. It'll be a defining feature of your battlefield control.

As is, I'd probably boost STR for the Level 4 ASI. 14 is lower than I'd be comfortable with for an attacking stat and will also allow you to better use better heavy armors.

Another option you could definitely consider would be multiclassed into Hexblade down the road for the SADness. You could leave your STR at 13 and take Res (Con) for the ASI, then take Hexblade as soon as you feel like it. In fact, you might be best starting 3/1.

Actually, now that I think about it, the main reason to go Vuman is to maximize early access to feats. If you're going to take an ASI at Level 4, you'd probably be better off swapping the two. Go Half-Elf with 18 STR, 16 CHA, and 14 CON with more skills and then take Sentinel at Level 4.

Would going for the 18 STR, 16CHA and 14 CON gimp my abilities to control the battlefield? Nonetheless, your idea does stand out to me. Would you go for High Half-Elf or Wood? Booming blade seems like a good choice and the bonus movement speed from wood elf seems cool too

[CTurbo]

Would going for the 18 STR, 16CHA and 14 CON gimp my abilities to control the battlefield? Nonetheless, your idea does stand out to me. Would you go for High Half-Elf or Wood? Booming blade seems like a good choice and the bonus movement speed from wood elf seems cool too


If you were any other Oath but Conquest, I'd say yes to 18 Str, 14 Con, 16 Cha, but for Conquest, I'd go 18 Cha, 14 Con, 16 Str since Cha is more important for you.

Sentinel is a great feat for a Paladin, but I would almost recommend starting with the menacing feat which would let you start 15 Str, 14 Con, 18 Cha. The Menacing feat is an absolute must have for any Conquest Paladin IMO. Plus starting with 15 Str lets you get into Splint or Plate sooner.

Menacing-
You become fearsome to others, gaining the following benefits:

Increase your Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill. If you are already proficient in the skill, you add double your proficiency bonus to checks you make with it.
When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one attack with an attempt to demoralize one humanoid you can see within 30 feet of you that can see and hear you. Make a Intimidation check contested by the target's Insight. If your check succeeds, the target is frightened until the end of your next turn. If your check fails, the target can't be frightened by you in this way for 1 hour.

[Tel]

If you were any other Oath but Conquest, I'd say yes to 18 Str, 14 Con, 16 Cha, but for Conquest, I'd go 18 Cha, 14 Con, 16 Str since Cha is more important for you.

Sentinel is a great feat for a Paladin, but I would almost recommend starting with the menacing feat which would let you start 15 Str, 14 Con, 18 Cha. The Menacing feat is an absolute must have for any Conquest Paladin IMO. Plus starting with 15 Str lets you get into Splint or Plate sooner.

Menacing-
You become fearsome to others, gaining the following benefits:

Increase your Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill. If you are already proficient in the skill, you add double your proficiency bonus to checks you make with it.
When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one attack with an attempt to demoralize one humanoid you can see within 30 feet of you that can see and hear you. Make a Intimidation check contested by the target's Insight. If your check succeeds, the target is frightened until the end of your next turn. If your check fails, the target can't be frightened by you in this way for 1 hour.

What race would I be running for 18 Cha, 14 Con, 16 Str?

[CTurbo]

What race would I be running for 18 Cha, 14 Con, 16 Str?

That was Vhuman with +2 Str at level 4

[sithlordnergal]

So, as someone who has done a lot of Paladins, and who's first character was a Paladin, I would suggest bumping Strength up to 16. You won't really need to boost it any further after that, as 16 is plenty to get you all the way to tier 4 levels of play. It lets you use Plate Armor, and lets you have a +3 to damage and melee attacks, which it perfectly fine. Especially if you find even a +1 weapon. Once you get to your second ASI, I suggest maxing out Charisma or snagging the Menacing feat.

[CTurbo]

I highly recommend Fallen Aasimar for Conquest Paladin. They are literally perfect for such a build since they have a built it Racial fear effect. Statting would be a bit tricky though with those stats. Fallen Aasimar gets +2 Cha and +1 Str

You could go 14 Str, 14 Con, 19 Cha to start and take +2 Str at level 4, then Menacing at level 8 which bumps Cha to 20.

[Corran]

I firmly believe that the sentinel feat is not worth it for a conquest paladin. It's not a bad feat, especially after you get IDS and if you have a lot of melee allies, but even in that case, there are better choices (most notably shield master), and IMO an optimized conquest paladin should skip it entirely.

Let me illustrate the above with a comparison. Personally, it helps me a lot to compare the mob scare tactics of a conquest paladin to those of an oathbreaker. Take the oathbreaker first. He uses dreadful aspect. Naturally, he needs a good spell save DC, so that means charisma bumps (same holds true even more so for a conquest paly). Now, dreadful aspect works exactly like conquering presence, with one extremely notable exception. It does not allow the enemies affected by it to make a save, as long as they are within 30' of the oathbreaker. So, naturally, the next optimization step for an oathbreaker is to plan for ways of keeping his enemies affected by dreadful aspect within 30' of him. If we are talking for a singleclass oathbreaker, the two most notable such ways, is taking the sentinel feat and using (armored) zombie minions that grapple the frightened enemies and keep them in place. This is not the case for a conquest paly though. You see, the conquest paly has the ''keeping the frightened enemies in place'' part covered by aura of conquest, so he does not need sentinel in regard to that. What the conquest paladin is noticeably missing, when comparing his anti-mob scare tactics to those of an oathbreaker, is a way to NOT allow the frightened enemies for additional saving throws. This is where the spell fear comes in. Fear + aura of conquest, is the best anti-mob scare tactics you can hope for. Once fear sticks, affected enemies within 10' are not allowed to move and are not allowed a save. Plus they take damage from the aura of conquest. One cannot do any better than that. Naturally, this tactic has some weak points you need to take care of, and this is when optimization starts.

The latest by level 9, when you get the fear spell, you need to have shored up your concentration checks. If one checks what the chances of losing concentration are, they come to the conclusion that a feat boosting concentration is very much needed. If you are a singleclass paly, that means resilient con is mandatory. If you are multiclassing into a caster (hexblade 1), that means that instead of resilient you must take warcaster.

The other weak point is the small radius of the aura of conquest (that is until you reach paladin 17 when all the auras expand). Remember the oathbreaker whose dreadful aspect has a radius of 30'? This and the fact that for an oathbreaker the sentinel feat is pretty much mandatory, along with the fact that apart from IDS he also gets aura of hate, make the PAM feat a very good choice for them at about lvl 12. Even without PAM, for an oathbreaker to choose a reach weapon is a good idea, since he has 30' of radius to work with (though there are some drawbacks being further of the enemies as in this case the sentinel feat wont trigger reliably, but this is an exclusive oathbreaker discussion so I digress). For a conquest paly, that has only 10' worth of radius to make the most out of his features and tactic, that means that he will almost always want to be in reach of his enemies, in order to make better use of that small 10' radius. That means that the ideal setup for a conquest paly is S&B (and don't forget that the better your AC, the better it usually plays with the disadvantage imposed on your enemies by the frightened condition). Changing to a polearm (and perhaps even grabbing the PAM feat at either 16 or 19 level) might be a good idea for a conquest paladin, once their auras expand at the high level that is, assuming of course they did not already take the shield master feat.

Spending daily resources might be considered by some to be another weak point of fear, but if I had to choose between relying on resource management and time management (as a CD recharges on a short rest and thus is limited by time), I would pick the former, as IME it is more in the hands of a player to plan for than the latter.

Fear generally has another weak point in that it is not party friendly (ie it can hit allies), but just after one level getting it, you get aura of courage, so that problem sorts out itself.

So, bottom line, going S&B (at the very least until level 17ish, if not all the way), and grabbing a feat that boosts concentration checks by level 8 the latest (resilient con if singleclass, warcaster if grabbing that 1st level of hexblade), and also obviously boosting charisma up to 20 eventually, is what I would consider to be the optimization base upon which a conquest paly is built.

Now, given you are a S&B setup, and that frightened enemies roll checks with disadvantage, and that they also have no move when within 10' of you due to aura of conquest, if (and this is a BIG if) your party is melee heavy, then you make room for the shield master feat. And if you take SM and also dip one level of hexblade, then at some point (not sure exactly when), you might want to look at the brawny feat as well, if you have an odd str score (usually one of 13 or 15 that is). Though I am not sure about brawny, as there are other good feats as well (most notably lucky).

Also, don't bother with aasimar or dragonborn for additional fear powers. Between conquering presence, fear and wrathful smite, you have everything you need. And what's more you don't really need to complicate even more your action economy. The menacing feat is a bit better, though if you can avoid it do so, cause IMO it isn't worth that much (and especially after level 11 when you get IDS, that opportunity cost of wasting one attack becomes unbearable, particularly moreso if you dipped hexblade and thus boosted your attack bonus due to cha-based attacks). Go with vhuman, cause there are any good feats, and at 1st level pick one of resilient con, warcaster (you have to start warlock for this one), or shield master, based on how I evaluated these feats (meaning I mentioned under which conditions each one of these makes sense to grab). If you plan on grabbing one level of hexblade, but you want to start as a paladin, then the starting feat of a vhuman becomes either SM (if melee heavy group) or lucky (seriously a very good feat), or alternatively, you pick a halfelf for better starting con with a point buy.


Now, with your rolls (best one is 17, second best is 14), it makes a lot of sense from an optimization perspective to grab one level of hexblade. Ideally, you would take that level at level 11 (that is after you take aura of courage and just before you take IDS). But, being stuck with a +2 attack mod for 10 levels can be a bit unpleasant. Not 100% sure how a point buy optimized hexblade1/conquest19 would go about grabbing that 1 warlock level, but I think that in your case (stats rolled), it might be a bit simpler. The only variable is if SM would make for a goodfeat to grab, and that is determined by your party composition.


So if I was in a ranged heavy party, so shield master would not be needed, and given your rolls, I would start as a hexblade, and then go all the way up to paladin 19. Race halfelf, starting stats: STR 14, DEX 14, CON 13, INT 8, WIS 10, CHA 19. First ASI goes to +1 con and +1 cha, bringing your stats to 14 STR, 14 DEX, 14 CON, INT 8, WIS 10, CHA 20, then second ASI goes to warcaster. After that your start picking feats like inspiring leader, lucky, etc, and maybe even PAM as the level 17 or level 20 feat.

But if I was in a melee heavy party, and thus it would make sense to take shield master, I would start as a paladin. Race vhuman, starting stats: 14 STR, 10/12 DEX, 14 CON, 8 INT, 10/12 WIS, 18 CHA. Shield master taken at level 1, brawny at level 4, warcaster at level 8, with the hexblade level taken somewhere between levels 5 and 11; if taken early enough, you first take warcaster and then brawny).

If you don't want that one hexblade level, so you are going paladin all the way, then optimization becomes pretty simple. Start as vhuman, starting stats: 15 STR, 10/12 DEX, 13 CON, 8 INT, 10/12 WIS, 18 CHA. Till level 9 you must have picked resilient con (bringing your CON to 14). If melee heavy party, pick SM as well early. Additionally, if brawny is allowed you pick that too, assuming shield master. Charisma bumps are also very good.

Hope this helps.

ps: Whip is a good backup weapon.