What to do for the last ASI?

[1Pirate]

So my Dex-based Bardadin is going to be hitting level 17, he's currently a half-elf Paladin(vengeance) 13, Bard(Swords) 3. I want to get to Bard 5 so I can get that bump into the short-rest inspiration dice(plus 3rd level spells). But I'll be at 4th soon and, thanks to good ability score rolls and some bold--bordering on reckless--draws from a Deck of Many things--I've managed to score some of the better feats with my primary stats bumped.

Str 16
Dex 20
Con 16
Int 11
Wis 14
Cha 22

Feats: Elven Accuracy, Luck, Inspiring Leader.
Quick campaign-specific notes: He fights sword and board, with studded leather armor. Both his rapier and shield are plot-relevant magic items so he has to stick sword and board. He's also locked into the Paladin/Bard classing. No Hexblade shenanigans. Lastly, he has a set of Winged Boots, so between those and the Steed he hasn't had much trouble with flying enemies.

My initial instinct would be to shore up his concentration checks, but most of his scores are even, so taking a half-feat like Resilient Con seems a little...well not as good. Warcaster doesn't give me much else. Lastly, I don't use concentration for much apart from Bless(Haste has always seemed too risky).

One hole in his action economy is that most of his bonus actions burn resources so I was thinking of something that would give me more bonus action options(having become College of Swords, I tend not to dole out Inspiration as much as I use to as well). I thought about Shield master, however the campaign has had its share of creatures too big to shove plus his shield includes some of the same properties as SM's other benefits. Telekinetic also interested me, but that +1 is either going to go to waste or it's going to have an awful DC. Kinda the same with Fey-Touched/Shadow-Touched. That being said, maybe they're still worth a feat even without the ability bonus?

I also considered Alert but between Jack of All Trades and his Dex, I'm often at the top of Initiative anyway, and surprise and invisible opponents haven't been a huge factor.

So, yeah, didn't think I'd get this far in leveling.

[CTurbo]

Mobile is always pretty decent and it boosts the Vengeance's Relentless Avenger feature if you ever use it.

Magic Initiate and Ritual Caster are both always good. Either gets you Find Familiar.

Tough is boring, but effective

Piercer would synergize with your extra crits

Fey Touched is pretty decent

Observant is always solid

My vote goes to Defensive Duelist. It would be pretty good for you. I think it's a great late game pick. +5 or +6 to AC with your reaction.

[Witty Username]

Defensive duelist
Or magic initiate for the shield spell (if your DM let's you use spell slots for the shield, this one).

If your defenses are already solid you could go for Sentinel, it has some fun bits for keeping monsters from escaping/changing targets.

[ProsecutorGodot]

If it's an option, Gift of the Metallic Dragon offers similar utility to Defensive Duelist, though you trade infinite uses for the ability to use the reaction on an ally.

[PallyBass]

You could grab Mounted Combatant to give your Steed greater survivability and give yourself advantage to attack rolls against targets smaller than your mount. With your bard levels you can push this feat further by casting enlarge/reduce on yourself (and thus your mount with "share spells" feature) to make both of you bigger and thus be able to attack enemies up to Large size with advantage, in addition to the 1d4 damage boost(gaining Advantage is more important for this spell than the damage). This is far less valuable of a feat if you use flanking rules or otherwise have some other easy way to gain advantage.

As others have suggested Defensive duelist is a solid choice for your build, a solid use of your reaction.

Tough is super boring but effective if you find yourself getting one-shot often via damage.

Mage slayer is a very situational feat but if you know you fight casters often or the BBEG is a caster then this would be a good candidate. It's better on your character because Paladins do more damage on their opportunity attacks thanks to Improved Divine Smite as well as the ability to drop additional Divine Smites on top of that. The advantage on saving throws if the mage is within 5ft of you will come up more often too since you like to hit things in the face.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'd suggest Mobile or Mounted combatant.
But

What I like about Resilient Con is that it gives Proficiency in Con saves. At your level, you'll be +6 to con saves (Proficiency bonus) on top of your +2 (Con = 14).
Con saves still happen in higher tier games. A
When you add your paladin aura to that you end up with +11 +2 = +13 to Con saves. If you roll a 6 or higher you succeed on a DC 19 Con save. That's pretty good. The extra HP don't matter so much.

Compared with Warcaster: you will be +2 +5 (aura) with advantage. Numbers wise, that puts you at about +11 or +12 on average.
The problem to solve: do you want to have a better chance with one roll but a little, or always have two rolls so that a low number probably doesn't doom you?

[1Pirate]

I hadn't really considered Mounted Combatant for two reasons: 1. We use flanking rules, so getting advantage isn't difficult and 2. We've faced a number of creatures too big to qualify for the MC advantage. I typically use the steed to close the gap, then have it flank until another party member gets in(it isn't much of an attacker anymore due to profligate BPS resistance now).

I hadn't really considered Mobile either. Because of the flanking rules, I don't do a lot that would provoke attacks of opportunity and once I engage I often want to stay put to keep flanking. However thinking on it, it would technically bump my speed up to 50 when I attack(because of college of Swords), so there is that to consider.

Defensive Duelist is interesting. My reaction does see some use since one of the properties of the shield is use reaction to gain evasion 2x per day(which happens quite often), additionally the sword can store one casting of Absorb Elements(which 3 of the other players have so it's usually charged). Having a resourceless use for it might be nice though.


What I like about Resilient Con is that it gives Proficiency in Con saves. At your level, you'll be +6 to con saves (Proficiency bonus) on top of your +2 (Con = 14).
Con saves still happen in higher tier games. A
When you add your paladin aura to that you end up with +11 +2 = +13 to Con saves. If you roll a 6 or higher you succeed on a DC 19 Con save. That's pretty good. The extra HP don't matter so much.

Compared with Warcaster: you will be +2 +5 (aura) with advantage. Numbers wise, that puts you at about +11 or +12 on average.
The problem to solve: do you want to have a better chance with one roll but a little, or always have two rolls so that a low number probably doesn't doom you?
I do feel like Con save proficiency would be more versatile than pure concentration check advantage(since as I mentioned I'm often just concentrating on Bless), so I'd probably take it if I wanted to shore up concentration.

[JNAProductions]

I do feel like Con save proficiency would be more versatile than pure concentration check advantage(since as I mentioned I'm often just concentrating on Bless), so I'd probably take it if I wanted to shore up concentration.

It should also be noted that many Concentration saves will be DC 10.

+7 with advantage means you fail on a 2- with 2d20b1. 1% chance.
+13 with no dice futzing means you CANNOT fail, since 1s don't automatically fail on saves. You would actually need to take 30 damage in one go to have a 5% chance of failing-more, if Bless is active. And +7 (Advantage) against DC 15 is a 12.25% failure rate-more than double that with Resilient.

[1Pirate]

Heh, DC10 concentration checks are kinda rare now in this campaign. Getting smacked for 30 is not uncommon.

A note with the math that my Con score 16 and Cha is 22, so as it is now I auto pass DC10 concentration checks Bless or no Bless.

That's why I'm not too keen on Warcaster. Concentration hasn't been a huge part of my build, whereas Resilient Con would boost all Constitution saves. But, again, with that +1 Con not doing anything...dunno seems like I should take something else.

[Bobthewizard]

Shield master would give you a resourceless bonus action shove and gives you evasion. Offensively, it's not as great since you use flanking but you'll have a good idea how often someone escapes the flank. It's always fun pushing people over.

Mounted combatant is good if your mount is targeted a lot. Evasion for your mount plus you can force attackers to try to hit you instead of the mount.

Sentinel is always good on a front-liner.