I need help optimizing my paladin!!

[srkinguim]

hello everyone, I'm participating in a campaign that will face Tiamat in the future.
My party has:
1 cleric
1 warrior
1 rogue
1 bard
1 sorcerer
1 Paladin (me)
We are currently all on level 2, I know it's a bit early to ask for such help and that characters can die in the middle of the campaign or even before; But for that I came here to ask for the support of you GMs and players, so that at least I try to keep the party all my life until the end. (Enough of the nonsense and let's get to the details).


My character:
Name: Guverto Gartic (GuGa) / Race: Dragonborn (Silver) / Class and Level: Paladin (2) - (future Oath of Vengeance)
Antecedent: Soldier / CA: 19 / Life: 20
Strength (16)/ Dexterity (8)/ Constitution (14)/ Intelligence (8)/ Wisdom (12)/ Charisma (16)
expertise in: Athletics/Intuition/Intimidation/Persuasion
As Fighting Style I took: Duel
Equipment: Splint Armor/Shield/Warhammer (1 hand)
Spells:
Compelled Duel / Protection from Evil and Good / Shield of Faith / Wrathful Smite

Remembering that I want to make him a full paladin 15.
I know it's not the best choice, but I wanted some help optimizing it anyway. (it was point buy the statuses, and it is possible to use Tasha/Volo/Xanathar.

[paladinn]

Given the nature of your party, it seems like the casting and healing needs are going to be pretty much met, so I don't know how much spellcasting you'll need outside of boosting your smites. Your healing abilities are likely going to be more needed earlier in your campaign. I'm assuming the "warrior" is a fighter. Is s/he going to be more ranged or melee-based?

Is there a reason you chose 2-weapon style? If you can max your Str, a great weapon build could work Amazingly with your smites. OR, you can do a quick dip into Hexblade and max Cha and use it for Everything. It would also get you the best ranged attack cantrip in the game.

If you really wanted to open up the concept, sorlocadin (paladin/hexblade/sorcerer) is likely the most nearly-broken MC build. My favorite character so far has been a sorlocadin.

Just my $.02

[windgate]

your character looks good, no major improvements needed here. It a fairly balanced party, Biggest weakness of the party is likely intelligence skills, but a paladin is not really designed to tackle that.

Against a dragon, one of your biggest contributions would be giving allies frightened immunity (and a bonus to saving throws). And with that in mind, just stay pure paladin all the way. It might not be the best, but its easy to learn and 30 foot aura's (at level 18) are nice to have.

[srkinguim]

Given the nature of your party, it seems like the casting and healing needs are going to be pretty much met, so I don't know how much spellcasting you'll need outside of boosting your smites. Your healing abilities are likely going to be more needed earlier in your campaign. I'm assuming the "warrior" is a fighter. Is s/he going to be more ranged or melee-based?

Is there a reason you chose 2-weapon style? If you can max your Str, a great weapon build could work Amazingly with your smites. OR, you can do a quick dip into Hexblade and max Cha and use it for Everything. It would also get you the best ranged attack cantrip in the game.

If you really wanted to open up the concept, sorlocadin (paladin/hexblade/sorcerer) is likely the most nearly-broken MC build. My favorite character so far has been a sorlocadin.

Just my $.02

Warrior is melee-based.
"Is there a reason you chose 2-weapon style?" - reason, reason, it doesn't, but I think the +2 shield helps a lot in terms of avoiding damage in melee combat, unless how will I be from the judgment of revenge a greatsword would be better?

[srkinguim]

your character looks good, no major improvements needed here. It a fairly balanced party, Biggest weakness of the party is likely intelligence skills, but a paladin is not really designed to tackle that.

Against a dragon, one of your biggest contributions would be giving allies frightened immunity (and a bonus to saving throws). And with that in mind, just stay pure paladin all the way. It might not be the best, but its easy to learn and 30 foot aura's (at level 18) are nice to have.

I really wanted the campaign to go ahead with the level, but the master already let us know that it only goes up to 15. So I don't have a way to skip levels to improve the aura hehehe

[Nidgit]

Typically, a min/maxed Vengeance Paladin goes all in on damage to absolutely ruin some BBEG's day. It's the most offense-oriented of the Paladin subclasses by a fair margin. That means using Great Weapon Master frequently and offsetting the accuracy penalty with Vow of Enmity.

A typical optimized Vengeance build takes Great Weapon Master and potentially Polearm Master, and uses the Defense Fighting Style to compensate for the lack of a shield. You can also take a 3 level dip into Hexblade for the Shield spell, extra smite slots, and CHA priority, but it's less necessary than for other more CHA-focused subclasses. I would strongly suggest asking to swap your Fighting Style if you go this route, or doing so at your next ASI.

If you want to stick to sword-and-board tanking, a number of other Oaths might suit you better. Ancients and Crown are the classic defensive Oaths and Conquest is the edgiest tank, but Redemption and Watchers are good balanced options too.

[windgate]

I really wanted the campaign to go ahead with the level, but the master already let us know that it only goes up to 15. So I don't have a way to skip levels to improve the aura hehehe

Level 15 is a subclass feature of Paladin. In the case of Oath of vengeance, its an extra attack (+smite) each round. You need 13 levels in Paladin for 4th level spells/Smites (which includes a flying mount). Keep these sacrifices in mind when you consider any multiclass dips.

The Base 10 feet aura could still be large enough to benefit the fighter.

Edit: IIRC Tashas Cauldron rules allow you to swap your fighting style whenever you get an ability score increase, so you can adjust that later if you want.

[Urbanmech]

Looks solid, raising Strength at 4th and Charisma at 8th is probably the boring, but efficient way to go. Paladin is a solid class 1-20 so any multiclass options are about how much you want to delay Paladin features. Getting Paladin 6 for Aura of Protection is normally the stopping point for a lot of multiclass builds. But look at what you get for going straight paladin.

Paladin 7 gets you your subclass feature, vengence is really only situationally useful. Level 8 is an ASI, always useful. Level 9 is great, 3rd level spells, which means Haste for you. 10th is immunity to fear, that will be clutch in a campaign with a lot of dragons and Tiamat. 11th gets you improved divine strike, everyone loves bonus radiant damage. 12th is another ASI and is only one level away from 13th and Find Greater Steed. Single class Paladin is a gift that keeps on giving.

[LudicSavant]

Typically, a min/maxed Vengeance Paladin goes all in on damage to absolutely ruin some BBEG's day. It's the most offense-oriented of the Paladin subclasses by a fair margin.

I wouldn't be so sure about that margin.

Watchers grants an initiative bonus to the entire party. For a sense of scale of how much that matters, each time the Watchers Paladin converts a PC from going after Team Monster to going before Team Monster, that's worth more than an Action Surge (which creates +1 action relative to Team Monster's action economy, whereas winning initiative creates +1 turn relative to Team Monster's action economy).

As for Vengeance, most of its offensive benefit comes from its Channel Divinity, which is just bonus action Advantage against someone 1/sr. Useful, to be certain, but there are other ways to get Advantage, other ways to convert CD into damage (especially post-Tasha's, where CDs can be converted into spell slots), and other ways to use that bonus action. It also gets things like Hunter's Mark and Misty Step, but that means considerably less in 2022 than it did in 2014. There are other comparable spell options now... or just grabbing Fey-Touched.

[windgate]

If you want to stick to sword-and-board tanking, a number of other Oaths might suit you better. Ancients and Crown are the classic defensive Oaths and Conquest is the edgiest tank, but Redemption and Watchers are good balanced options too.

I agree. If you are thinking on a more defense focus: Ancients is Better. If you want a more balanced focus go with Watcher or Conquest.

[windgate]

As for Vengeance, most of its offensive benefit comes from its Channel Divinity, which is just bonus action Advantage against someone 1/sr.

+ the extra attack / round at 15th Level.

[strangebloke]

Yeah at this level I'd say to pick up interception if you have an ally in melee. You'll mitigate a LOT of damage and your buddy will love you. Dueling is completely fine though. Either way, I would definitely transition to great weapon master and such around level 7-8 or so. the advantage and pursuit options are really good at that level if you have a means of exploiting them.

[Idkwhatmyscreen]

You have 3 Ability Score Improvements that are going to be your main source of Optimization

The first two should go directly into your strength (+2 each time) This will make it easier to hit with your weapons and give you more opportunities to smite.

The last one should probably be a +2 to Charisma for a little extra punch on your spells and another spell slot


Also as a paladin you can change your chosen spells after each long rest so feel free to replace spells that aren't working so well with ones that are better

[Corran]

Feats (and a little about haste and find steed/ greater steed).

If you dont mind trading the hammer for either a spear or a quarterstaff, then PAM would be a good feat @lvl 4. It will make the most of your dueling fighting style (allowing the +2 damage to apply to one extra attack) all the while without sacrificing any of your AC (cause you get to still wield the shield).

Resilien con is another good choice (probably at lvl 8), especially if you end up using haste a lot (on either yourself -notice that it doubles the speed of your mount, so potential there for some hit and run against tough enemies that your party is not engaging directly or for going after squishy enemies that try to stay out of trouble; or on the rogue, cause by readying their action they can get double sneak attack per round). Losing concentration on haste is pretty bad, but not the only reason to get con save proficiency.

Inspiring leader is great, especially with the number of characters you've got there. Ideally someone else gets it cause you are pressed for feats/ASI's more than the other CHA based characters of your group IMO. But if no one else is convinced to get it, then do get it asap. Best feat you could hope to get in this set up due to numbers, though as I said, it's better if someone else gets it instead of you.

GWM is something you can look at if you somehow get either a free feat from somewhere or a STR boosting item. Wont work with dueling, but it can be a good feat even if you wont be able retraining your fighting style. Becomes more useful if your playstyle revolves a lot around using a fast steed in order to go after enemy squshies, less so if you play the conventional frontliner. Deciding on which of these two you want to be is hugely dependant on how your party behaves in combat. Ie, try not to rush head first into melee if everyone else is dancing around it, cause you will end up being dropped quite a lot. Similarly, try avoiding excessive hit and runs if allies have a hard time surviving in melee.

Magic initiate or any feat that can get you a ranged cantrip (at the very least). Having a ranged attack can be very very important. Little bit of redundancy if at some point you have a hasted flying pegasus through find greater steed, but it can still be worth a feat if your party is not rushing head first into combats (especially if you are getting something else that's good with the feat apart from the ranged cantrip). If having a good ranged attack ends up being important for you for whatever reason, you might want to decide think if it's preferable to get it via a feat or a fighting style (since multiclassing is out).

There are plenty of other good feats to have a look at. Lucky and alert are good but you can live without IMO (though do look at them and think if they help you in a way I am not thinking of; perhaps skills are very important in your game, so lucky can be extra good then; or perhaps your DM likes to ambush you hard a lot, in which case lucky would be great, etc). Sentinel is pretty nice, and it has good synergy with a number of stuff, like PAM (and dueling), IDS, your potential to go after non-teleporting squishies, fighting next to a good number of melee allies, etc. Extra points if it's used against dragons that have not yet taken up to the air if your party relies a lot in melee combat. It has a lot of good uses generally. It will face some tough competition some of the time once you finally hit level 15 and get SoV, but it's still a good choice (be careful of its limitations though especially when it concerns potentially locking enemies down; you can only do that against one at a time, and only if you end up hitting with an OA -which the enemy still has to provoke). Give sentinel some good thought before deciding if you'll take it, because as you can see the competition for feats (and ASI's) is big. Ie, sentinel hasa lot of potention that can easily impress someone (a lot of the time for very good reason). So try to think how much of this potential you'll be able to put into good use.


Spells
Avoid compelled duel like the plague. Its benefits are bad for the cost, especially since you dont have, well, a dedicated set up to take advantage of it. It requires too much fiddling wih group tactics to attempt making this spell being worth the cast, and even then I dont see it being great. If you however know of a way to make it work well, do let me know.

Bless. This shouldn't be your go to spell, though if you know a fight is ahead you can do a lot worse than precasting it, even if you dont know anything about the fight itself other than suspecting it will be (at least moderately) tough. You can do a number of things with bless, picked among the following combinations:
1) Protect the cleric's concentration. Eg the cleric is using spirit guardians against swarms of enemies. That would be a good time to bless him for that boost in concentration. Especially if the cleric is not dodging when they should.
2) Similarly, protect the sorcerer's and/or the bard's concentration. Sorcerer could be concentrating on something like, say, a twinned haste/polymorph/greater invisibility or something like an (upcast) hold person or banishment, the bard could be concentrating on something like a hypnotic pattern or confusion. Much like in the cleric's example where a spirit guardians was made to sound too good because it matches the enemy set up (ie swarm), spells in general have the potential to win you fights a lot more easily than you would be able to do (if at all) without them. They do that by either providing you a tactical advantage that the enemy cannot deal with adequately, or by exploiting the enemies' weaknesses (eg saving throws, formation, positioning, etc). You've got 3 fullcasters in your team. Even if they pick their spells randomly, chances are that enough of the time they will have something very suitable to cast for the occasion. If they have, and if they do, the pressure then takes off of winning and goes into risk mitigation. Part of that risk mitigation is protecting the caster's (or casters') concentration (a lot of it comes down to minimizing damage taken as well). In which case (ie protecting concentration), bless is an excellent tool and well worth all of the action cost, concentration cost and spell slot cost (usually in that order too).
3) You can also use bless to boost the average damage of anyone (emphasis on GWM's/SS's fighters in particular, as well as rogues who dont optimize both their action economy and ways of attacking with advantage). As well as the saves of anyone (emphasis when fighting against monsters with powerful abilities that force saves and when pc's can be shut down by simply failing a save; the latter could be due to positioning/terrain, or due to a pc being built too one dimensionally).
Bless will be good almost all of the time (the action cost is what is keeping it back more than anything and you have to take that into account before blindly commiting to casting it). Some of the time though, it will be great. It's not the spell that's winning you fights, but it's the spell that makes it a little less likely to lose a fight when you use it to defend an easily exploitable weak spot, and also the spell that makes it a little more likely to win a fight by providing an extra defensive layer to an already winning tactic. When these things apply (even either of them), then the opportunity cost is too small not to cast it. So, keep it prepared and try to think of fights beforehand.


Heroism. Fear can cripple melee specialists and rogues. You have both in your party. Keep heroism prepared.
Lesser restoration and magic weapon are similar to heroism in that they have their own countering niche.

Wrathful smite. Good spell. Becomes better once you get your extra attack (increased chance of sticking it in the first go) and your aura of protection (though that's true for all concentration spells). Once you stick it, the enemy rolls the check to get rid of it at disadvantage (because it's a check and not a save, and because the frightened condition imposes disadvantage on checks). Best way to exploit the frightened condition is via positioning. So, other than using it to lower the dpr of deadly enemies without resistances, keep in mind that you can also use this spell to maybe keep melee only enemies out of the fight sometimes (emphasis on sometimes, you need help from the terrain more likely than not for this one).

Aid. If you are not cating this at least once a day, you are no paladin. Actually, you have a cleric. So, think which one of you needs their spell slots more during that day. Will you need more uses of the likes of divine smite or of the likes of spiritual weapon and whatever else it is that clerics get and is good (prayer of healing could be worth it with your numbers, at least before the party gets access to better of combat healing spells like aura of vitality). It's a pretty good spell, dont be afraid to use it. Also notice that the extra hp are actual hp (so it stacks with temp hp, say, from inspiring leader), that can be healed to full while the duration persists. With good out of combat healing (which you anyway need in such a large group), this makes aid even better.

[stoutstien]

Typically, a min/maxed Vengeance Paladin goes all in on damage to absolutely ruin some BBEG's day. It's the most offense-oriented of the Paladin subclasses by a fair margin. That means using Great Weapon Master frequently and offsetting the accuracy penalty with Vow of Enmity.

A typical optimized Vengeance build takes Great Weapon Master and potentially Polearm Master, and uses the Defense Fighting Style to compensate for the lack of a shield. You can also take a 3 level dip into Hexblade for the Shield spell, extra smite slots, and CHA priority, but it's less necessary than for other more CHA-focused subclasses. I would strongly suggest asking to swap your Fighting Style if you go this route, or doing so at your next ASI.

If you want to stick to sword-and-board tanking, a number of other Oaths might suit you better. Ancients and Crown are the classic defensive Oaths and Conquest is the edgiest tank, but Redemption and Watchers are good balanced options too.

Less than 20% of the meme vengeance pally's damage comes from GWM. Half of that is from the bonus action attack so if they have any competition for that it's closer to 10%..

[Nidgit]

I wouldn't be so sure about that margin.

Watchers grants an initiative bonus to the entire party. For a sense of scale of how much that matters, each time the Watchers Paladin converts a PC from going after Team Monster to going before Team Monster, that's worth more than an Action Surge (which creates +1 action relative to Team Monster's action economy, whereas winning initiative creates +1 turn relative to Team Monster's action economy).

As for Vengeance, most of its offensive benefit comes from its Channel Divinity, which is just bonus action Advantage against someone 1/sr. Useful, to be certain, but there are other ways to get Advantage, other ways to convert CD into damage (especially post-Tasha's, where CDs can be converted into spell slots), and other ways to use that bonus action. It also gets things like Hunter's Mark and Misty Step, but that means considerably less in 2022 than it did in 2014. There are other comparable spell options now... or just grabbing Fey-Touched.
Watchers are proactive, but their abilities are more geared towards boosting the party as a whole and have a mix of offense and defense. The initiative boost is very good but it doesn't push them as strongly into a particular play style.

Vengeance subclass abilities are more selfish and focus on boosting their own damage and mobility. They're encouraged to maneuver towards priority targets and focus their damage. That's what I mean by being the most offense-oriented subclass.

[Asmotherion]

If you want an optimised Build, Sorcerer X/Paladin 6/Warlock 5 (For stacking Eldritch Smite) or Sorcerer X/Paladin 6 for more sustainability of Smites. That's the best advice I can give.

[LudicSavant]

Watchers are proactive, but their abilities are more geared towards boosting the party as a whole and have a mix of offense and defense. The initiative boost is very good but it doesn't push them as strongly into a particular play style.

Vengeance subclass abilities are more selfish and focus on boosting their own damage and mobility. They're encouraged to maneuver towards priority targets and focus their damage. That's what I mean by being the most offense-oriented subclass.

Ah, that makes sense. Vengeance definitely fits that bill; they are quite adept at getting in and personally punching things in the teeth.

They have excellent mobility because of a bonus action teleport, an off-turn-move on an OA, and the ability to not only cast Haste but share it with a Find Greater Steed (Pegasus) for a whopping 540 foot movement speed.

[Keravath]

Typically, a min/maxed Vengeance Paladin goes all in on damage to absolutely ruin some BBEG's day. It's the most offense-oriented of the Paladin subclasses by a fair margin. That means using Great Weapon Master frequently and offsetting the accuracy penalty with Vow of Enmity.

A typical optimized Vengeance build takes Great Weapon Master and potentially Polearm Master, and uses the Defense Fighting Style to compensate for the lack of a shield. You can also take a 3 level dip into Hexblade for the Shield spell, extra smite slots, and CHA priority, but it's less necessary than for other more CHA-focused subclasses. I would strongly suggest asking to swap your Fighting Style if you go this route, or doing so at your next ASI.

If you want to stick to sword-and-board tanking, a number of other Oaths might suit you better. Ancients and Crown are the classic defensive Oaths and Conquest is the edgiest tank, but Redemption and Watchers are good balanced options too.

A recent thread showed that GWM didn't add much to a paladin - the average damage was about the same with or without. This is due to the effect of Improved Divine Smite at level 11. The more damage you lose on a miss the less attractive the -5 to hit from GWM becomes.

PAM using a quarterstaff and shield or spear and shield with dueling produced the same or greater damage as GWM (including the bonus action attack granted by GWM on a crit or kill).

So my suggestion would be Pole Arm Master using a spear or quarterstaff for the guaranteed bonus action attack from PAM. It also has much better AC due to the shield and it can benefit from magical shields.

However, choice of PAM and GWM really depends on what sort of image you want to project with your paladin since the total damage is pretty comparable (and how tanky you want to be ... since you can stack shield of faith in either case or hunters mark if you want to do more damage).

----

Finally, in terms of further optimization, one level of hexblade warlock is the usual suggestion so that you only need to boost charisma to boost both effectiveness with support and effectiveness with weapons. Using charisma to attack with weapons works well with the PAM version since one handed weapons are a valid choice for hex warrior while two handed ones are not. This also gives you the eldritch blast cantrip which provides the ability to do some ranged damage. Javelins aren't really that much fun, have a very restrictive range and you can only throw one/turn unless you start with one in your hands because pulling each javelin out is an object interaction and you only have one object interaction on a turn.

[Nidgit]

A recent thread showed that GWM didn't add much to a paladin - the average damage was about the same with or without. This is due to the effect of Improved Divine Smite at level 11. The more damage you lose on a miss the less attractive the -5 to hit from GWM becomes.

PAM using a quarterstaff and shield or spear and shield with dueling produced the same or greater damage as GWM (including the bonus action attack granted by GWM on a crit or kill).

So my suggestion would be Pole Arm Master using a spear or quarterstaff for the guaranteed bonus action attack from PAM. It also has much better AC due to the shield and it can benefit from magical shields.

However, choice of PAM and GWM really depends on what sort of image you want to project with your paladin since the total damage is pretty comparable (and how tanky you want to be ... since you can stack shield of faith in either case or hunters mark if you want to do more damage).
Fun fact- those calculations were actually wrong! The flat damage bonuses from Dueling, ability mod, and GWM kept getting included in the crit totals, which actually skewed things more towards GWM than they should have been.

Assuming a 65% hit rate, a PAM Dueling spear build hits for 29.75 per turn or 40.825 with advantage. A GWM hits for about 23.5/39.5 damage without GWF, or 24.63/41.55 with GWF. So a PAM spear build is certainly better at Level 11 given the extra AC.

However, two important points:

a) Improved Divine Smite does wonders for PAM's reliable bonus action attack, but before it kicks in GWM has a clear damage advantage over PAM. They're about even regularly, but GWM's damage spikes much more with advantage.

b) GWM hits a fair bit harder on opportunity attacks (particularly with advantage, once again). PAM typically has the edge here due to getting reactions in more reliably, but Vengeance Paladin's 15th level ability means it will likely get a reaction attack just about every turn. That invalidates one of PAM's key advantages, albeit at a pretty late level.

So while PAM is generally better than GWM for a Paladin due to the reliable bonus action attack and reaction, there's definitely nuance to it.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

First, I'll disagree that single classed isn't optimized. Since you're fighting Tiamat, if you don't get at least 10 levels of Paly you don't get Aura of Courage. If you don't get Aura of Courage everyone is going to need to make a DC 26 Wis check or be running the other way. When most of the party starts running the other way it gets rather difficult to beat Tiamat.
We learned this one in a fight with a Pit Fiend and a few goons when our party was in early tier 3. The Barbarian would have needed a 20 to stick around, but nope; no roll required due to the Paladin buddy.
Other than that crank up the Chr; you and your melee buddies will have saves through the roof.
Good luck.