Curse of Strahd - Paladin subclass question

[FlamingDazz]

Hi everyone, I hope you are all well.

I'm going to start playing curse of strahd in about two weeks and I'm running paladin. My question is related to the sub classes as I wanted to run a conquest paladin however I'm not entirely sure how ideal would that be for the campaign.

Any information and/or guidance will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Kemev]

Depends a little on what you consider ideal.

RP-wise, Conquest leans towards evil characters (although of course you can play it how you like), so it depends a little on how that fits with the rest of the party.

Just in terms of optimization, Conquest is a little weaker in Curse of Strahd than other settings; without giving away too much, there is a lot of immunity to fear in CoS, and Ancients and Devotion get a lot of mileage out of their auras.

[CTurbo]

Scourge Aasimar Devotion Pally all the way!

[RogueJK]

Devotion Paladin is likely the strongest Oath choice for that particular campaign. Ancients is also a solid choice. However, if you want to play a darker "non-traditional" Paladin, Vengeance is a good alternative, and would likely be a better choice than Conquest in Curse of Strahd.

Conquest is workable. You won't get as much mileage out of your Aura of Conquest or Conquering Presence as you might in other campaigns, but you'd still also have the useful Guided Strike ability and some handy Oath spells like Armor of Agathys and Spiritual Weapon.

[FlamingDazz]

Hi, thanks for the quick replies. The idea is a dark paladin of sorts. I was thinking oath breaker but I know it will boost enemies more than allies on this campaign. Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.

From a roleplay perspective is either vengeance or conquest. I was also thinking about dipping into hex blade to use charisma as my main attack attribute although I don't know if that's a good idea?

Thanks again.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Make sure to get a read on your DM first; the Domains of Dread are *the* setting for punishing evil actions of all sorts. But that material isn't really all that present in the Curse of Strahd book so if it's getting introduced in, it's due to the DM being an old fan of classic Ravenloft or reading about it and liking what he sees. If he's serious about old school dark powers checks, avoid evil archetypes like the plague; you won't last very long at all. Ask your DM if they're going to do this or not.

If not, Conquest is possibly the weakest archetypes to take into CoS due to it's overreliance on fear. Not that you can't make the Oath itself work- you're essentially the same as Azalin or Lord Soth before you, trying to conquer Barovia for yourself, and that could be cool. Also, a paladin without a subclass is still a serious threat in CoS, so don't feel like the relative weakness of Conquest is going to totally screw you or anything. And occasionally you'll actually get to use their abilities, and they will feel good then.

Vengeance is indeed pretty good in CoS. I've DM'd for one, they had no complaints. While Devotion or Ancients has more applicable powersets here, little is stopping Vengeance from using their own to their fullest.

A hexblade or sorcerer dip is always going to be helpful, but do make sure you're planning around your likely levels. CoS ends around level 9 at best. My party had to fight Strahd at 8, and they did everything outside the castle, with two extra adventures I popped in on top of it. I hear some parties get up to 9, but I've never heard of one go past that. If you go hexblade early, this means you won't get your aura until the very end of the game, or at all if you aren't completionists.

Also keep in mind that this game has precious little to do for an overly 'evil' character. I just watched another DM's run of CoS end in four sessions because they decided they were totally evil and willing to help Strahd. There's basically no material for them after handing over a certain character and killing a certain other one (both doable at extremely low levels), so their game ended. Poorly, because Strahd is not to be trusted. Even if you aren't this foolish, deciding not to handle things because you're too evil to get involved will mean limiting your overall XP, and this could put you in dire straits. Especially if you had multiclassing plans like the above. Do this too much and you might be missing key tools by the end. Be careful in defining your personality, make sure you always have an interest in getting involved in things. Even if it's purely selfish.

[CTurbo]

Oathbreaker is not a great choice here.

Immunity to charm is about the best thing you could bring to the table and for your allies close to you. There is no reason you can't play a very dark Devotion Paladin. I've played a lawful evil Drow Devotion Paladin before that was extremely dark.

Ancients would be my 2nd choice here over Vengeance because of the 7th level aura being party friendly, but either would be great.

Not every Paladin has to dip Hexblade. I'd stay single classed and probably even make a Dex based Pally.

[Mercureality]

Keep in mind that CoS only goes to 10 or so. Take a careful look at your class features and spell lists, and make sure you're okay with what you're giving up to achieve SADness

[FlamingDazz]

Thanks for all your useful replies.

From what I've gathered Conquest should be a no-go due to usefulness and after that it depends on usefulness.

Party composition at the moment if it helps is: druid, rogue, ranger, light domain cleric and myself.

My paladin is lawful evil and sincerely I'm not too fond of vanilla paladin (devotion). My idea is that hex blade dip to max charisma and use it for my attacks that's why conquest made absolute sense... Although CoS didn't helped me at all.

I've seen people stating that ancient is really good and also really bad and the nature stuff is not down my alley.

So my question would be: is it worth going with conquest knowing I'll be hindered or it's better to go full on with vengeance ? I don't get how vengeance aura works and his functionality as a whole. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated 😀

[RogueJK]

Ancients has some really nice spells/abilities, especially since you're going Hexblade with a CHA focus, so you'll have a high CHA to maximize save DCs. They have a few different ways to inflict the Restrained condition (which is great, and especially helpful for the party Rogue), including the Ensnaring Strike spell and Channel Divinity Nature's Wrath. Ensnaring Strike in particular meshes well with a Hexblade with the Hex spell, since after the initial STR Saving Throw the Restrained creature then has to make STR ability checks to attempt to get free, and with Hex you can give them Disadvantage on STR ability checks, thus decreasing their ability to get free. Ancients also gets Moonbeam, which is not only a handy source of additional Radiant Damage, but also has a nice rider specifically when dealing with shapechangers. (Though the party Druid already has access to that spell.) But the big draw for Ancients is their Level 7 aura that grants you and anyone around you resistance to damage from spells. However, I'd have a hard time meshing that Oath with a Lawful Evil character concept, since it's pretty explicitly pro-good/life/light.


So in your case, I'd go with Vengeance. Your party needs frontline melee, and that's exactly what Vengeance does. Plus it's easy to fit it into a Lawful Evil character concept.

Oath of Vengeance is focused on one thing: putting some serious melee hurt on a single enemy at a time. Their spells and abilities all aid you with that. There's quite a bit of overlap/redundancy there between Vengeance stuff like Oath of Emnity and Hunter's Mark spell and the Hexblade stuff like Hexblade's Curse and Hex spell. But that just means you can use those kinds of abilities more often. For example, rather than having to decide if you use your Oath of Emnity in this fight or save it, you can go ahead and just use it, knowing that you'll still have Hexblade's Curse waiting for the next fight. And not needing to take Hex (since you already get Hunter's Mark) frees up your Warlock spells known for something else. I'd suggest taking Shield and Armor of Agathys, to allow you to be a more effective tank.

The Vengeance Level 7 aura allows you to reposition yourself anytime you hit an enemy with an Opportunity Attack. This allows you to maneuver yourself to block that enemy from escaping, or to block their access to the ally they're trying to get past you to attack. It's most useful when combined with the Sentinel feat to freeze them in place before you reposition, and especially with both Sentinel and Polearm Master, but can still be occasionally situationally useful without those. But unless you're doing the Sentinel/PAM/Vengeance combo, it's definitely not as strong as something like the Devotion or Ancients Level 7 ability, though.

So another good option, if you don't feel that Vengeance's Level 7 ability will be that useful to you, is to stop taking Paladin levels after getting Level 6's Aura of Protection, and just continue with Warlock levels from there for the last level or two of the campaign. This would look something like Paladin 1 -> Paladin 1/Hexblade 1 -> Vengeance 6/Hexblade 1 -> Vengeance 6/Hexblade 2 or 3 (depending on when your campaign finished up). The 2nd level of Hexblade gets you some potentially useful Warlock Invocations at the tail end of the campaign, and possibly even a Pact and 2nd level Warlock spells if you make it all the way to Hexblade 3 (Character Level 9).

[Sception]

Conquest isn't terrible in CoS - honestly no paladin oath is *ever* terrible because the parent class features on their own are such a good package that you really don't need to get any consistent use out of your subclass features to be effective. In particular, there are a greater than usual number of undead in the campaign and some paladin leaning magic items that together make any paladin quite strong.

That said, yeah, more enemies than usual for the levels involved are immune to frighten in CoS, so you'll get less use than you might expect out of the primary CD and the aura. Even so, the secondary CD remains useful and the oath spell list includes Spiritual Weapon, which is quite nice. So while admittedly conquest is not the best oath in CoS, and is less useful in CoS than in most other campaigns (well, apart from maybe DtA, which has a lot of spell resistant enemies), if you want to play conquest for role play reasons you can absolutely get an effective character out of it.

Oathbreaker is arguably worse as its aura can eventually end up buffing a lot of enemy attacks, but that's also a very interesting effect that, with a simple lore re-write, can make for a fantastic 'cursed monster hunter' character concept like Guts from Berserk or Simon Belmont from Castlevania 2. Again, actively unhelpful at the end of the campaign, but still super cool and characterful.

Devotion is probably the strongest oath for the campaign in raw power. Good buff, radiant damage, and an immune to charm aura is useful in a setting with a bunch of vampires running about. Good for both tanky and offensive builds.

Vengeance is solid good, neither better nor worse than it would be in any typical campaign. Good for a paladin that emphasizes offense over defense, especially great weapon master builds. Notable for solid channel divinity and spell list. Level 7 feature's nothing to write home about, so you might consider multiclassing out into warlock, sorcerer, or bard after level 6. Then again, 'haste' as a level 9 oath spell is a very nice reward for sticking with paladin, so either way works.

Ancients, like Vengeance, works about as well in CoS as it does anywhere else. CD's are lackluster, which does hurt, but misty step is nice as an oath spell, and the level 7 aura is nice enough to make up for the long wait getting there. More defensive than offensive, but works either way.

Crown is often considered lackluster, but it's got a very solid spell list for tanking - most notably spirit guardians at level 9 which is *amazing* on a paladin, even if 9 levels is a long long wait in a campaign that probably ends at 10. But you also get warding bond at level 5 which is a solid tanking spell good for protecting weak party members and escort quest npcs alike.

Glory took a big hit going from ua to published version, but it's still got some selling points. The speed boosting aura, while difficult to make cooperative party use of due to the range, is a great boost for a mounted build, and CoS has a lot of outdoor adventuring for a mounted build to take advantage of.

Redemption... well, ravenloft is a dark place and a lot of the enemies are going to be hard to win over, but there may be opportunities for that role play aspect regardless. And mechanically the channel divinity and aura are pretty fantastic for a defensive party tank.

[RogueJK]

Ancients, like Vengeance, works about as well in CoS as it does anywhere else. CD's are lackluster, which does hurt

The ability to Turn Fey/Fiends is lackluster (at least in this and similar campaigns), and yes Nature's Wrath isn't as overtly powerful as something like Vengeance's Vow of Emnity, but I've found Nature's Wrath to be a very useful alternative/complement to Ensnaring Strike for the Ancients Paladin. Unlike Ensnaring Strike it doesn't use a spell slot, doesn't require Concentration, and isn't disadvantaged when used against Large+ enemies, but on the flip side requires an Action to use, and allows repeated STR/DEX Saving Throws instead of the STR Ability Checks of Ensnaring Strike.

Plus if going CHA-SAD with Hexblade, the save DCs for Ensnaring Strike/Nature's Wrath will be better than another Ancients Paladin with only moderate CHA, meaning Restrained will stick more often, and for longer. And as I mentioned in the earlier post, Ensnaring Strike pairs well with Hex from the Hexblade dip, to help decrease their ability to break free.

Whatever the source, inflicting Restrained is a powerful tool, especially for a frontline tank. It sets the enemy's speed to zero, so they can't get at the other party members. It gives their attacks Disadvantage, so they can't hurt you as readily. It gives all attacks against them Advantage, which is not only good for the Paladin itself but also means it triggers the party Rogue's Sneak Attacks (even if they're Ranged, unlike something similar like Grappled + Prone). And they have Disadvantage on DEX saves, which can be exploited by the party casters (by, for example, the party Light Cleric ramming their Flaming Sphere into them or casting Sacred Flame on them, or the party Druid casting Create Bonfire or using Call Lightning on them).

Great for locking down the baddest enemies in a fight, and allowing everyone in the party to work together to team up on them by exploiting their new weaknesses. And with Ancients, you have several sources for inflicting it, depending on the exact situation. Even if it only lasts a few rounds before the enemy manages to shake it off, the party can lay down quite a bit of hurt in those rounds, and can often drop the enemy before Restrained is defeated.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I forgot about Glory. If your DM is a stickler for the oath tenets, Glory can be played in the form of an ambitious and vain glory seeker. Really, all it's tenets basically say 'don't back down, ever'. You can easily mold any alignment to it.

The abilities are okay. Not amazing, but okay. It's definitely going to be better than Oathbreaker, Conquest, or Redemption in CoS, and it's better than Heroism if you were planning on multiclassing.