how to build a paladin?

[Samayu]

I've played a couple of paladins recently.

I really enjoyed the first one, from a mechanical context. It was a Conquest paladin with hexblade. I built it for battlefield control. Conquering presence, fear spells and Aura of conquest. Sentinel plus protection fighting style. Grasp of Hadar with the Eldritch Blast for both a ranged attack and a pull. I smited infrequently, usually using my spell slots for fear, bless or protection from evil, but hexblade's curse gave bonuses to damage (1/rest). And with hex warrior, I could put all my ASI's in CHA.

The second one I played was Ancients. The class abilities didn't seem too exciting, but I chose it for thematic reasons. Once I got in, I realized there wasn't much to it at all. Channel divinities were almost useless - turning fey and fiends, and the chance of ensnaring a single target. Aura of warding might have been nice, but I died in L7. Sword and board plus defense FS seemed to be a good choice, since I didn't graduate out of chain mail until L5. Lay on hands. No feats. That was it.

Even before the conquest paladin got the aura, I felt effective. With the ancients paladin, I never felt effective. Without a lot of extra abilities, I decided I'd use all my slots on smites. People talk in terms of paladins doing lots of damage with their smites, so obviously, that was the only way I could make a difference in combat, with my d8+4 longsword. With the optional Harness Divine Power ability, that was 7 smites per day. One per combat, maybe.

So what do you think? Is there a way to make an effective Ancients paladin? Are those smites enough? Did my Conquest hexadin set my expecations too high?

[Unoriginal]

I've played a couple of paladins recently.

I really enjoyed the first one, from a mechanical context. It was a Conquest paladin with hexblade. I built it for battlefield control. Conquering presence, fear spells and Aura of conquest. Sentinel plus protection fighting style. Grasp of Hadar with the Eldritch Blast for both a ranged attack and a pull. I smited infrequently, usually using my spell slots for fear, bless or protection from evil, but hexblade's curse gave bonuses to damage (1/rest). And with hex warrior, I could put all my ASI's in CHA.

The second one I played was Ancients. The class abilities didn't seem too exciting, but I chose it for thematic reasons. Once I got in, I realized there wasn't much to it at all. Channel divinities were almost useless - turning fey and fiends, and the chance of ensnaring a single target. Aura of warding might have been nice, but I died in L7. Sword and board plus defense FS seemed to be a good choice, since I didn't graduate out of chain mail until L5. Lay on hands. No feats. That was it.

Even before the conquest paladin got the aura, I felt effective. With the ancients paladin, I never felt effective. Without a lot of extra abilities, I decided I'd use all my slots on smites. People talk in terms of paladins doing lots of damage with their smites, so obviously, that was the only way I could make a difference in combat, with my d8+4 longsword. With the optional Harness Divine Power ability, that was 7 smites per day. One per combat, maybe.

So what do you think? Is there a way to make an effective Ancients paladin? Are those smites enough? Did my Conquest hexadin set my expecations too high?

Which level was your Conquest Paladin/Hexblade Warlock when you started playing them? And which level were they when the campaign ended?

[Angelalex242]

I specialize in Ancients Paladins.

First, what in the name of the good Torm/Heironeus are you doing in chain mail? Plate, for crying out loud! Should be +1 Plate by that point, with at least a +1 shield to go with it.

Second, go human ancients, like me, and start with heavy armor master. The idea of Ancients is, you're supposed to have a near perfect defense. Start with 16 str, 16 charisma, and make sure you boost charisma when you get ASLs. Cha 20 is where you want your ancients Paladin to be for maximum magic defense.

[Dork_Forge]

It sounds like you built a tank (sword and board with defense) and then focused on Smites for offense?

I think there was mismatched expectations between what you build and what you wanted to do, and by focusing on Smites you didn't get to use highlights of the oaths spells, like Misty Step.

Generally speaking, paladin builds can largely ignore the oath a lot of the time, so just build for what you want to do.

If you wanted to use a shield but still focus on damage, take Dueling instead of Defense, you have Shield of Faith if you need it.

[kazaryu]

I specialize in Ancients Paladins.

First, what in the name of the good Torm/Heironeus are you doing in chain mail? Plate, for crying out loud! Should be +1 Plate by that point, with at least a +1 shield to go with it. dude...not everyone plays in games where they can guarantee themselves +1 plate, (or even just mundane platemail)...much less 2 +1 items that both go to 1 character by level 5.

[RogueJK]

Ancients also works the best out of all the Oaths as a Ranged DEXadin.

You can't use Divine Smite with a ranged weapon, so you lean into Ensnaring Strike instead, supplementing it with the occasion Branding Smite and Banishing Smite too. Plus you have access to some additional battlefield control spells, like Plant Growth and Ice Storm.

[paladinn]

Since you're already running/pondering a MC, I would suggest you consider a sorlocadin: a paladin/warlock/sorcerer MC. The best character I ever played was a vengeance paladin/hexblade/divine soul. It wasn't optimized, but it could do just about everything. And it was CHA-SAD!

[Corran]

This is a nice breakdown. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=21013956&postcount=9)

The oaths that came after PHB are a little bit overtuned, or if you like, their features were carefuly chosen so that there is a bit more built up synergy between them and with the rest of the paladin chassis. Especially near the 9th level. To put it in other words, I imagine that devotion would most likely get hypnotic patterm and ancients would get conjure animals if they had been released in a splatbook.

That said, a lot of the goodies of the other oaths come with some opportunity cost, that of not making the most of your other paladin abilities. Taking the oath of conquest paladin as an example, every cast of fear is one less use of aura of vitality, or revivify, or crusader's mantle, or a smite. Every cast of spiritual weapon (or AoA at 2nd level) is one less aid or smite, as well as it is extra opportunity cost if you end up taking PAM (which I wouldn't).

An ancients paladin specifically is excellent if you intend on not multiclassing into caster. It gives you some early game ranged, AoE and mobility (in tight spaces) options that the paladin is very light on. PAM and sentinel have a lower opportunity cost as opposed to if you were playing a crown or conquest paladin, and both are really good feats on a paladin. You dont especially need to rush resilient con, so that opens up some other potentially good options like inspiring leader or spell sniper. You wont be as good as support for a melee heavy party as a conquest paladin would be, but with something like shield of faith or moonbeam and your auras you can hold choke points. With ensnaring strike, nature's wrath, wrathful smite or sentinel you can try to lockdown one or a few dangerous enemies. Misty step can help you get where you need to be in order to smite. Aura of vitality, aid, revivify or inspiring leader can help you push through more encounters. With your auras and misty step you could also act as bait for enemies to blob up around you so that your (stealthy) allies can use AoE's on them. Plant growth is probably the nicest thing they get IMO. All in all, paladins get nice things and can be effective at team play. Conquest is just a little more self sufficient at being tactically effective, and a tiny bit overtuned against mooks that can be frightened (which is most combats I suppose). Raw dpr and damage taken is what would frighten me most with an ancients paladin. I'd pick up PAM (spear) early to solve the former (things will slow down a little at 5-10 but your dpr picks up again at 11 with IDS), and I'd consider sentinel (for stickiness and perhaps the occasional dpr boost) if party comp and playstyle made it worth it. While they get some defensive buffs, since they cannot force easily mass disadvnatage (through fear like a conquest paly) or through excessive use of dodging (like a spirit guardians/ CD crown paly), I'd be a little more careful for when to allow an ancients paly to draw too much focus (devotion, crown, conquest and oathbreaker are better at this).

[Waazraath]

I've played a couple of paladins recently.

I really enjoyed the first one, from a mechanical context. It was a Conquest paladin with hexblade. I built it for battlefield control. Conquering presence, fear spells and Aura of conquest. Sentinel plus protection fighting style. Grasp of Hadar with the Eldritch Blast for both a ranged attack and a pull. I smited infrequently, usually using my spell slots for fear, bless or protection from evil, but hexblade's curse gave bonuses to damage (1/rest). And with hex warrior, I could put all my ASI's in CHA.

The second one I played was Ancients. The class abilities didn't seem too exciting, but I chose it for thematic reasons. Once I got in, I realized there wasn't much to it at all. Channel divinities were almost useless - turning fey and fiends, and the chance of ensnaring a single target. Aura of warding might have been nice, but I died in L7. Sword and board plus defense FS seemed to be a good choice, since I didn't graduate out of chain mail until L5. Lay on hands. No feats. That was it.

Even before the conquest paladin got the aura, I felt effective. With the ancients paladin, I never felt effective. Without a lot of extra abilities, I decided I'd use all my slots on smites. People talk in terms of paladins doing lots of damage with their smites, so obviously, that was the only way I could make a difference in combat, with my d8+4 longsword. With the optional Harness Divine Power ability, that was 7 smites per day. One per combat, maybe.

So what do you think? Is there a way to make an effective Ancients paladin? Are those smites enough? Did my Conquest hexadin set my expecations too high?

Bolded for emphasis. The problem as far as I see it is not in building the paladin (your Ancients build is absolutely fine and a very powerful character) but in playing the paladin.

To get the most leverage out of the class, you don't spend all slots on smite. Sometimes it's best to cast bless on a few allies and self, and then engage in combat (further buffing saves and doing extra damage by providing the to hit bonus); sometimes smite (or combined smite + smite spell) is great if you estimate can take out a monster with it, thus preventing damage. Smiting undead and fiends is obvous, as well as smiting on crits (unless you estimate the character will go down without it). Very nice spells from the oath are moonbeam (if enemies are convieniently grouped together) or misty step to get to a hard to reach place or quickly cross a distance. Additionally, with find steed you should have no duration summon available, as a steed or just a mastif for guarding.

A lot of the above is context dependent: what type of enemies your party encounters, if you have -5/+10 feat using allies (making bless better), etc., but in general a paladin will perform more optimal with other tactical choices than "everything in smite". Additionally, I think you might have had too high expectations given your earlier build - it offered a number of additional features, including usable at will (reactions). If that's your thing, the Ancient build will be less fun.

[Leon]

with oathsworn materials.

Its little wonder the second one felt under powered if the first one was a Hexadin.
Decide on a theme for the character and try to play to that theme, no matter the class at its core.

[CTurbo]

My best advice when building a Paladin is to understand that Paladins are NOT just damage dealers. They can also heal, support, tank, buff, debuff, control, and even face. The Ancients in particular is a more defensive/control subclass. It's not going to be a DPR champion. Sure you could probably min-max an Ancients towards DPR, but there are other Oaths better suited for it like Vengeance or Oathbreaker.

The Paladin class itself is very strong and simple. You could play a subclass-less Paladin and literally just put all your ASIs into Str and Cha and still have a very effective character.

The Ancients subclass in particular is very solid IMO, but much like Devotion, suffers from having some very situational abilities that are OP when you need them and useless when they don't apply.

Ancients' spells are hit or miss, but mostly are underwhelming.

Nature's Wrath is not great.
Turn the Faithless is GREAT if you're facing fiends and fey and useless if not much like pretty much any other subclass.

Aura of Warding is EXCELLENT when facing enemy spellcasters and useless when not. This is THE bread and butter feature of this subclass so I'd only consider Ancients in campaigns that I know I'll get good mileage out of it.

Undying Sentinel is a very good feature to have and hope you never need. It's not great considering it's a level 15 feature, but it IS a good feature.

Elder Champion, even though this is only for 1 minute a day, it is very very strong making you pretty much unstoppable and turning 1 combat a day into a sure win.

[diplomancer]

Ancients' spells are hit or miss, but mostly are underwhelming.

Strongly disagree, probably one of the best lists. Ensnaring Strike, Moonbeam, Misty Step, Plant Growth, Ice Storm... all very good spells that you're sure to use quite regularly. Misty Step pairs wonderfully with Find Steed too, I always remember the look of surprise on my DM's face when I said "I'm running with my warhorse towards the barn and jumping, casting Misty Step once close enough to bring us 30' up onto the roof"... and proceeded to run down the archers that were shooting at us.

Don't underestimate the Aura either. It means you can survive your party's spells. Which, if you use it well, can be wonderful. Think of the scene in OotS where Miko gets the ogres to surround her. You want to do that somewhat regularly, it's a lot of fun! Even better once you yourself get access to Ice Storm. My party of a Wizard, a Cleric and myself did like 1000 points of damage in one round to a bunch of wereboars. I think I got about 30 damage. Very good trade-off, and DM was like WTF!

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I've played a couple of paladins recently.

I really enjoyed the first one, from a mechanical context. It was a Conquest paladin with hexblade. I built it for battlefield control. Conquering presence, fear spells and Aura of conquest. Sentinel plus protection fighting style. Grasp of Hadar with the Eldritch Blast for both a ranged attack and a pull. I smited infrequently, usually using my spell slots for fear, bless or protection from evil, but hexblade's curse gave bonuses to damage (1/rest). And with hex warrior, I could put all my ASI's in CHA.

The second one I played was Ancients. The class abilities didn't seem too exciting, but I chose it for thematic reasons. Once I got in, I realized there wasn't much to it at all. Channel divinities were almost useless - turning fey and fiends, and the chance of ensnaring a single target. Aura of warding might have been nice, but I died in L7. Sword and board plus defense FS seemed to be a good choice, since I didn't graduate out of chain mail until L5. Lay on hands. No feats. That was it.

Even before the conquest paladin got the aura, I felt effective. With the ancients paladin, I never felt effective. Without a lot of extra abilities, I decided I'd use all my slots on smites. People talk in terms of paladins doing lots of damage with their smites, so obviously, that was the only way I could make a difference in combat, with my d8+4 longsword. With the optional Harness Divine Power ability, that was 7 smites per day. One per combat, maybe.

So what do you think? Is there a way to make an effective Ancients paladin? Are those smites enough? Did my Conquest hexadin set my expecations too high?

Hmm, pre level 9 (or 10 if you dip hexblade) your go-to concentration spell is still Bless, so that doesn't change. Yes, you do make a SAD character with the dip, but there are not ASIs until 9th; there's one ASI and you're trading that +1 to one of your stats for whatever you would have got for staying single classed. So I guess what I'm saying is until level 7 a Paladin is a Paladin most of the time.

What do you also get for Ancients until then? Unless you're facing Fey or Fiends the 2 main things are spells. Ensnaring Strike, which I found useful on round 1 when you're closing; you make that single javelin attack a significant threat. Misty Step is situational for sure, but it's a spell that every character wants, and many at our table are taking a feat to get it. Also, cashing in an unused CD for a spell slot does compensate somewhat for a weaker CD.

I actually found Aura of Warding somewhat overrated, as many characters save anyway, particularly when they're already in your aura (and Blessed) so it's usually worth 1/4 damage.

[sithlordnergal]

I only play Ancients Paladins, though I have tried others. Here's what I've found:

1) Ancients Paladins focus more on spell casting than smiting. They have a couple of handy spells, like Moonbeam and Misty Step that are really handy.

2) They are the "Tank" Paladin, especially against spell casters at level 7. If you're not fighting spell casters, don't be an Ancients. But if you are...well...I was able to reduce a Meteor Swarm down from 153 damage to 38 with both of my auras, provided players succeeded on the save. And that was at level 8.

3) They are the best Paladin to go Soradin with, especially if you go Wild Magic Sorcerer. Their auras work really nicely with Wild Magic Surges. Accidentally cast Fireball on yourself? Well you're already in the front line cause you're a melee warrior, so whoever you're fighting just went boom. And you get to halve or quarter the damage you take.

[Angelalex242]

My best advice when building a Paladin is to understand that Paladins are NOT just damage dealers. They can also heal, support, tank, buff, debuff, control, and even face. The Ancients in particular is a more defensive/control subclass. It's not going to be a DPR champion. Sure you could probably min-max an Ancients towards DPR, but there are other Oaths better suited for it like Vengeance or Oathbreaker.

The Paladin class itself is very strong and simple. You could play a subclass-less Paladin and literally just put all your ASIs into Str and Cha and still have a very effective character.

The Ancients subclass in particular is very solid IMO, but much like Devotion, suffers from having some very situational abilities that are OP when you need them and useless when they don't apply.

Ancients' spells are hit or miss, but mostly are underwhelming.

Nature's Wrath is not great.
Turn the Faithless is GREAT if you're facing fiends and fey and useless if not much like pretty much any other subclass.

Aura of Warding is EXCELLENT when facing enemy spellcasters and useless when not. This is THE bread and butter feature of this subclass so I'd only consider Ancients in campaigns that I know I'll get good mileage out of it.

Undying Sentinel is a very good feature to have and hope you never need. It's not great considering it's a level 15 feature, but it IS a good feature.

Elder Champion, even though this is only for 1 minute a day, it is very very strong making you pretty much unstoppable and turning 1 combat a day into a sure win.

An underrated side effect of Undying Sentinel is that you become immortal, in terms of aging. Monks can stop the effects of age, Druids multiply their lifespan by 10, but only an Ancients Paladin stops aging period. Ancients Paladins be running around like much friendlier Highlanders.

[Arkhios]

When building a paladin, don't build for Nova. Planning to burn through your most valuable resources in one go is the stupidest thing you can do.

Spare them for when it really matters (mainly on critical hits against fiends and/or undead).

[Hawk7915]

My best advice when building a Paladin is to understand that Paladins are NOT just damage dealers. They can also heal, support, tank, buff, debuff, control, and even face. The Ancients in particular is a more defensive/control subclass. It's not going to be a DPR champion. Sure you could probably min-max an Ancients towards DPR, but there are other Oaths better suited for it like Vengeance or Oathbreaker.

The Paladin class itself is very strong and simple. You could play a subclass-less Paladin and literally just put all your ASIs into Str and Cha and still have a very effective character.

The Ancients subclass in particular is very solid IMO, but much like Devotion, suffers from having some very situational abilities that are OP when you need them and useless when they don't apply.

Ancients' spells are hit or miss, but mostly are underwhelming.

Nature's Wrath is not great.
Turn the Faithless is GREAT if you're facing fiends and fey and useless if not much like pretty much any other subclass.

Aura of Warding is EXCELLENT when facing enemy spellcasters and useless when not. This is THE bread and butter feature of this subclass so I'd only consider Ancients in campaigns that I know I'll get good mileage out of it.

Undying Sentinel is a very good feature to have and hope you never need. It's not great considering it's a level 15 feature, but it IS a good feature.

Elder Champion, even though this is only for 1 minute a day, it is very very strong making you pretty much unstoppable and turning 1 combat a day into a sure win.

This is good advice for all Paladins and what I've found (and fallen in love with) for my Devil's Tongue Tiefling Paladin (Redemption) in Wilds Beyond the Witchlight. I can do it all, and the challenge and reward of the character is to know when to pivot based on the encounter. Ideally with +6 in Persuasion, Stealth, and Deception, access to Charm Person, and the ability to invoke Emissary of Peace to go to +11 Persuasion I can avoid fights (and for anyone who has played Wilds, that's often the point). But when combat is there, I've got a lot of options.

- Sometimes I'm a controller, spamming Vicious Mockery and using spells like Hold Person or Sleep to shut down enemies.
- I'm often "The Healer": Lay on Hands is powerful, with Cure Wounds and Lesser Restoration on standby for even more healing.
- I can buff with the best of 'em since Bless is absurd and I've also usually got Shield of Faith and Protection from Good and Evil readied.
- I'm not the world's BEST tank due to the "Tank Fallacy", but against stupid enemies that don't figure out to just walk around me (beasts, tin men, etc.) my best-in-party 19 base AC (16 Dex, Mithral Half-plate, and a Shield) can jump to 21 with Shield of Faith or auto-disadvantage on attacks against the right enemies if I Protect myself instead of the Barbarian or Druid. And I've got the second-highest HP in the party behind that Barbarian, and can Lay on Hands myself in an emergency to really soak the punishment up. I don't have great ways to force attacks and limit enemy options, but Compelled Duel, Rebuke the Violent, Enthrall, and Sanctuary can also help somewhat force the issue.
- Also worth noting is my "Big 3" saves are pretty good with Proficiency in Wisdom (class) and Constitution (Resilient) and a +3 mod to my Dex saves. Can't wait for level 6, where I'll only fail mundane concentration checks on a natural 1.
- Because I like being a support that lets my party of mostly very new players shine, that's mostly what I do. But when the situation calls for it Word of Radiance makes for a fine AoE if I can get up in 3+ enemies faces, and of course the option to just unload smites is there and awesome especially when we come up against vile undead or fiends. Having Smites in my back pocket gives me the highest "burst" potential in the party if we need it.

To the OP I'd say - Hexadin is very different, and really emphasizes the offensive control nature of the class. Paladin generally and Ancients, Devotion, Watcher, and Redemption Paladins specifaically are about finding the best way to use a lot of often situational tools that, in sum, make you capable of handling anything as long as you as a player can read the situation and figure out what is needed.

[Samayu]

Which level was your Conquest Paladin/Hexblade Warlock when you started playing them? And which level were they when the campaign ended?
That one was L1 through 16. This one died just after turning 7, so it was just getting into the good part. We had a gloomstalker DPR - usually three hits per round, for over 20 points each. Other PCs were stars druid, warlock, bard, paladin, rogue.


I specialize in Ancients Paladins.

First, what in the name of the good Torm/Heironeus are you doing in chain mail? Plate, for crying out loud! Should be +1 Plate by that point, with at least a +1 shield to go with it.

Second, go human ancients, like me, and start with heavy armor master. The idea of Ancients is, you're supposed to have a near perfect defense. Start with 16 str, 16 charisma, and make sure you boost charisma when you get ASLs. Cha 20 is where you want your ancients Paladin to be for maximum magic defense.
I was finally able to scavenge some plate mail at L5. It was a low magic world, and a low-resource world in general. I did end up with a magic sword for a little while. Too bad its extra damage was of a type that most creatures were immune to. But that was my only magic item for the entire campaign. And I lost it when I died. Oh, and I was playing non-human for thematic reasons.

Put my ASI's in CHA? So I can be a martial and only do damage in the single digits? I had a d8+4 for damage, and let me tell you, I rarely rolled over 10 damage.


It sounds like you built a tank (sword and board with defense) and then focused on Smites for offense?

I think there was mismatched expectations between what you build and what you wanted to do, and by focusing on Smites you didn't get to use highlights of the oaths spells, like Misty Step.

Generally speaking, paladin builds can largely ignore the oath a lot of the time, so just build for what you want to do.

If you wanted to use a shield but still focus on damage, take Dueling instead of Defense, you have Shield of Faith if you need it.
I wasn't focusing on smites for offense, so much as I was relying on them to feel like I was helping.

OK, so what I'm gathering is that you shouldn't expect to be a damage dealer unless you really focus on that. Absent that focus, you need to be play support. But what is that, then? I feel like a paladin should act like a martial, but this is... a half caster in armor?

[Dork_Forge]

I wasn't focusing on smites for offense, so much as I was relying on them to feel like I was helping.

OK, so what I'm gathering is that you shouldn't expect to be a damage dealer unless you really focus on that. Absent that focus, you need to be play support. But what is that, then? I feel like a paladin should act like a martial, but this is... a half caster in armor?

Paladin is a martial, I guess I'm confused what you wanted the character to be? If your expectations of damage are high enough that a longsword with Extra Attack isn't 'helping,' then you shouldn't build in a way where that's your primary contribution to damage. Going Defense with a shield and then expecting to also perform as an above-average damage dealer isn't going to happen unless you have some build considerations for it, like at least leveraging Divine Favor for more damage.

So, what do you want a Paladin to be? Is it a generalist, above average at most things character you want?

[CTurbo]

Paladins are extremely capable in many ways but that comes at the cost of being MAD, which is the biggest complaint about the class. This is also why 99.9% of people around here practically insist on a Hexblade dip so the focus can be put on Cha only. But full class Paladins have to choose between prioritizing Str and attack damage or Cha for everything else.

Using a longsword and shield + Defense style is probably the worst case scenario for DPR for a Paladin, but even that gains an extra +D8 per hit at level 11. You could have chosen Dueling Style for +2 per hit right away. That's +4 damage in a turn which is not amazing, but definitely noticeable. If you really wanted to maximize offense, the Polearm Master feat turns you into a real heavy hitter. Even still, a Paladin can get away with "only" dealing ~10 damage per hit because it's helping the party in so many other ways with it's Auras, Lay On Hands, and control, buff, and debuff spells.

I'd argue that no class in 5e makes more of a total party impact than a Paladin does. They're a DM nightmare. They're so capable of turning would be dire situations into a cakewalk.

The first Pally I ever played in 5e was a Sword and board Devotion Paladin and I never even considered taking a feat. I alternated +2 Str and Cha at 4, 8, and 12 and not only did I always feel helpful, I felt like the star of the show most of the time.

[stoutstien]

Unless you're running both these paladins with identical party, encounters, rolls, decisions, and gear trying to compare them is mostly useless.
You could have interchanged it to and have the exact same outcome or not l. you have no way to know.

Additionally if you're running the same DM they may have subconsciously ratchet up the difficulty using their experience from the previous campaign.

As long as you are building a halfway decent PC it is probably one of the least impactful factors in your play experience.

Talk to your DM.

[Angelalex242]

Paladins are extremely capable in many ways but that comes at the cost of being MAD, which is the biggest complaint about the class. This is also why 99.9% of people around here practically insist on a Hexblade dip so the focus can be put on Cha only. But full class Paladins have to choose between prioritizing Str and attack damage or Cha for everything else.

Using a longsword and shield + Defense style is probably the worst case scenario for DPR for a Paladin, but even that gains an extra +D8 per hit at level 11. You could have chosen Dueling Style for +2 per hit right away. That's +4 damage in a turn which is not amazing, but definitely noticeable. If you really wanted to maximize offense, the Polearm Master feat turns you into a real heavy hitter. Even still, a Paladin can get away with "only" dealing ~10 damage per hit because it's helping the party in so many other ways with it's Auras, Lay On Hands, and control, buff, and debuff spells.

I'd argue that no class in 5e makes more of a total party impact than a Paladin does. They're a DM nightmare. They're so capable of turning would be dire situations into a cakewalk.

The first Pally I ever played in 5e was a Sword and board Devotion Paladin and I never even considered taking a feat. I alternated +2 Str and Cha at 4, 8, and 12 and not only did I always feel helpful, I felt like the star of the show most of the time.

Which is interesting, because longsword+shield+defense is how I prefer to build my Paladins. I consider my job to be tanking, primarily.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Paladins are extremely capable in many ways but that comes at the cost of being MAD, which is the biggest complaint about the class. This is also why 99.9% of people around here practically insist on a Hexblade dip so the focus can be put on Cha only. But full class Paladins have to choose between prioritizing Str and attack damage or Cha for everything else.

Using a longsword and shield + Defense style is probably the worst case scenario for DPR for a Paladin, but even that gains an extra +D8 per hit at level 11. You could have chosen Dueling Style for +2 per hit right away. That's +4 damage in a turn which is not amazing, but definitely noticeable. If you really wanted to maximize offense, the Polearm Master feat turns you into a real heavy hitter. Even still, a Paladin can get away with "only" dealing ~10 damage per hit because it's helping the party in so many other ways with it's Auras, Lay On Hands, and control, buff, and debuff spells.

I'd argue that no class in 5e makes more of a total party impact than a Paladin does. They're a DM nightmare. They're so capable of turning would be dire situations into a cakewalk.

The first Pally I ever played in 5e was a Sword and board Devotion Paladin and I never even considered taking a feat. I alternated +2 Str and Cha at 4, 8, and 12 and not only did I always feel helpful, I felt like the star of the show most of the time.

This is largely how I view paladins, particularly Ancients; you're contributing in a lot of areas, and probably only 'the best' at shielding you and a couple of nearby allies from dangerous effects. PAM with shield is good to get decent damage, and only not great because it's limiting in terms of what magical weapons are available. With Dueling you've potentially got 6-8hp of extra damage/ turn by 5th level which isn't too shabby, though Defense is an option.

If you play VHuman and take PAM at level 1, then you can have 18 in Str and Chr by level 8. For that reason I've started to see the Hexblade Dip as somewhat overrated. With the dip you finally get your 2nd ASI to put you clearly ahead by level 9 (8/1 split), but you're missing out on 2 level 3 spells. Given that, you're only clearly 'ahead' by level 10; the fear aura is a bit niche, but even though it can be a life saver when it comes up most of the time a 9/1 split will be better. From what I read many campaigns are almost winding up by then though, so unless a game is going a lot longer it's not really worth the bother.

[CTurbo]

I usually go for S&B style for my Paladins too, but I like Dueling. If I use a 2 handed weapon I take Defense.

If you're looking for a high DPR Paladin, play a Vengeance or Oathbreaker with PAM. The 2 handed reach PAM is best, but a staff and shield works too.

PAM is my go-to feat to boost offense. I normally don't recommend GWM on Paladins, but it can be a good feat for Devotion or Vengeance if your stats are already high. One of the Devotions I played got to start with 20 Str and 18 Cha so I took GWM and hit really hard especially when Sacred Weapon was activated.

I've also played a Dex based Vengeance Paladin that eventually got a +2 Scimitar of Speed and this character had a low Cha(13-14) and I played it as if it did not know any spells. Every slot was used only for smiting. This character was a lot of fun and dealt a ton of damage. (fun fact: this character was made by random rolling for everything including stats in order so I didn't really have any choice but to have a high Dex and low Cha, but it still worked out.)


I'm not sure what book the Blessed Warrior fighting style came out in, but that helped solve the lack of ranged attack that has typically plagued Paladins. I've usually had to throw Javelins for ranged attacks, but now you can get Sacred Flame and/or Toll the Dead to use At-Will.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I usually go for S&B style for my Paladins too, but I like Dueling. If I use a 2 handed weapon I take Defense.

If you're looking for a high DPR Paladin, play a Vengeance or Oathbreaker with PAM. The 2 handed reach PAM is best, but a staff and shield works too.

PAM is my go-to feat to boost offense. I normally don't recommend GWM on Paladins, but it can be a good feat for Devotion or Vengeance if your stats are already high. One of the Devotions I played got to start with 20 Str and 18 Cha so I took GWM and hit really hard especially when Sacred Weapon was activated.

I've also played a Dex based Vengeance Paladin that eventually got a +2 Scimitar of Speed and this character had a low Cha(13-14) and I played it as if it did not know any spells. Every slot was used only for smiting. This character was a lot of fun and dealt a ton of damage. (fun fact: this character was made by random rolling for everything including stats in order so I didn't really have any choice but to have a high Dex and low Cha, but it still worked out.)


I'm not sure what book the Blessed Warrior fighting style came out in, but that helped solve the lack of ranged attack that has typically plagued Paladins. I've usually had to throw Javelins for ranged attacks, but now you can get Sacred Flame and/or Toll the Dead to use At-Will.

PAM is also good when you need to nova, as it gives you one more chance to smite, so can compensate for less base damage. Not a go-to unless you're at a table with a short adventuring day, but great when you need it.
On the Palys and ranged attacks, I really think this is table/ adventure dependent. With Summoned Steeds with awesome movement + the ability to cast a spell (Bless online at level 2) I've never found it to be much of an issue. Sure if you're a Str based Fighter it's a regular problem, but in comparison Palys have a couple of ways to mitigate kiting in their toolbox.

[RogueJK]

PAM is also good when you need to nova, as it gives you one more chance to smite, so can compensate for less base damage.

The big draw for PAM on a Paladin isn't necessarily that you can burn yet another spell slot to Smite x3 in a Nova turn. Paladin's can't really afford to be Smiting on a regular basis throughout a day, or burning all their spells slots in a turn or two.

Rather, the draw is that it's 50% more chances to make a Critical Hit and therefore land a Critical Smite. (Paladins really ought to be reserving their Smites for just such an occasion, unless they're fighting The Big Bad Guy in The Final Battle and just need to put them down ASAP.)

Plus it's a third chance each turn to land the bonus damage dice from Improved Divine Smite, a spell like Divine Favor, Spirit Shroud, or Crusader's Mantle, or a +dice weapon.

[da newt]

WRT PAM the BA attack is nice and the extra Opp ATT trigger when they step to you only makes it that much better. I'm a big fan of stick and shield w/ dueling FS for many schmackles and chances to smite when you can make a big difference and very good AC to go with your great saves.

[Pixel_Kitsune]

Some of the question is going to depend on the type of game your table runs. BUT. I've had one Ancients Paladin among the 2/3 Paladins I played. (The none Ancients were a HexBlade 3/Oath of the Crown Paladin 8. Started as a HexBlade 3 and is still in play. The other is a Paladin 2/Assassin Rogue 9 who is also still in play, but I wouldn't call them a Paladin for any Mechanical discussion).

So the Paladin in question is a Lotusden Halfling (game was Zelda flavored, was essentially a Kokiri) Ancients Paladin who was played to level 7. She's an NPC in the greater world the other PCs are in and so was a side quest thing. Played her starting at level 4 and ended at level 7.

I honestly didn't Smite much. I tended to do two things with her that were unique to Ancients.

I made extensive Use of Snaring Strikes to tie down targets or slowly kill physically weak enemies. (Realize that Nature's Wrath is largely a trap as it does the same thing as Snaring Strikes but gives the enemy a choice on which stat they roll, free attempts to break free and deals no damage)

I used Misty Step to make sure I could tie up people wherever.

Then at level 7 you start just mitigating enemy Damage Casters... Though again, check with your table, with the newer monsters moving away from actual spell castings you might have a finnicky RAW interpretation that makes this aura less useful.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

The big draw for PAM on a Paladin isn't necessarily that you can burn yet another spell slot to Smite x3 in a Nova turn. Paladin's can't really afford to be Smiting on a regular basis throughout a day, or burning all their spells slots in a turn or two.

Rather, the draw is that it's 50% more chances to make a Critical Hit and therefore land a Critical Smite. (Paladins really ought to be reserving their Smites for just such an occasion, unless they're fighting The Big Bad Guy in The Final Battle and just need to put them down ASAP.)

Plus it's a third chance each turn to land the bonus damage dice from Improved Divine Smite, a spell like Divine Favor, Spirit Shroud, or Crusader's Mantle, or a +dice weapon.

If you read the very next line I wrote I basically said this: Good when you need it, but not a go-to. We do occasionally have nova battles against the boss monsters at our table, so in that case you want to be smiting regularly, but most of the time DS is a sub-optimal way of using slots.

There's a good chance you aren't going to hit 3 times anyway, but if you hit twice you have the option, and (as you say) more crit chances.

[Samayu]

I appreciate all the comments. You've been very helpful. Not going to quote everyone here...

A few people commented "what are you trying to be?" Obviously I didn't learn my lesson from my previous paladin, because that one I did try to be something (control). This one I didn't. It's odd because I don't usually have to focus like that. I just take my class abilities, and rarely even take a feat. In this case, i was clearly a tank (I had a high AC and bonus HP from a magic item), but I wasn't capitalizing on that. Ensnaring Strike had heretofore escaped my notice. That would have been good, though with only a medium CHA, my DC wasn't very high - I would have averaged one turn of ensnaring.

Nature's Wrath is not great. Turn the Faithless is GREAT if you're facing fiends and fey and useless if not much like pretty much any other subclass.

I agree with both of those statements, but will add that fey are rare and fiends aren't exactly common in most campaigns.

When building a paladin, don't build for Nova. Planning to burn through your most valuable resources in one go is the stupidest thing you can do. Spare them for when it really matters (mainly on critical hits against fiends and/or undead).

Absolutely. It was always tough for me to decide whether it was worth it. Even on crits. Like, did this guy have less than 10 HP?

Paladin generally and Ancients, Devotion, Watcher, and Redemption Paladins specifically are about finding the best way to use a lot of often situational tools that, in sum, make you capable of handling anything as long as you as a player can read the situation and figure out what is needed.

Yes, but part of the problem was that I didn't feel like I had many tools. Maybe if I had accepted the fact that I was going to do less damage than the monk, I would have paid more attention to my spell list.

One of the problems with this character is that I died before the best abilities came online. No aura, no 3rd level spells. So I walk away feeling useless, but another couple of levels and I would have felt like I was making a contribution? I would have had the aura, and also enough spell slots that I wouldn't have felt like I had to conserve them all for smites. Then another ASI. So... bad timing on top of the rest.

Thanks again!

[diplomancer]

One of the problems with this character is that I died before the best abilities came online. No aura, no 3rd level spells. So I walk away feeling useless, but another couple of levels and I would have felt like I was making a contribution? I would have had the aura, and also enough spell slots that I wouldn't have felt like I had to conserve them all for smites. Then another ASI. So... bad timing on top of the rest.

Thanks again!

I think this is it. Paladins are not very good (both compared to Fighters, and, relatively, to themselves later on) on Tier 1, and it looks like you died in early tier 2.

And with a lowish Cha, even if you got to level 6, you wouldn't feel its impact as much.

[RogueJK]

Paladins are not very good (both compared to Fighters, and, relatively, to themselves later on) on Tier 1

I strongly disagree with your position that Paladins are not very good in comparison to Fighters in Tier 1. In my opinion, it's only in Tier 3+ that Fighters begin to achieve any sort of parity with Paladins, thanks to their bonus ASIs and additional attacks.

In Tier 1, the only ability that Fighters get over Paladins is Action Surge, which is admittedly strong. But just like the Paladin's Channel Divinity, it's only 1x/SR. Beyond that, Paladins also get Spellcasting, Divine Smite, disease immunity, and the Divine Sense ribbon.

They both get a healing option, but while Second Wind is more efficient in-combat self-healing, Paladin's Lay on Hands is stronger from Level 2+, plus can be used on others and can also cure diseases and poisons.

In addition, Paladins get better save proficiencies, with WIS and CHA saves covering nearly all of the really nasty save-or-suck effects, while STR and CON saves mostly just inflict damage or lesser status effects like forced movement or movement restrictions.

Therefore, Paladins top Fighters in that Tier 1 comparison in just about every way.

[diplomancer]

I strongly disagree with your position that Paladins are not very good in comparison to Fighters in Tier 1. In my opinion, it's only in Tier 3+ that Fighters begin to achieve any sort of parity with Paladins, thanks to their bonus ASIs and additional attacks.

In Tier 1, the only ability that Fighters get over Paladins is Action Surge, which is admittedly strong. But just like the Paladin's Channel Divinity, it's only 1x/SR. Beyond that, Paladins also get Spellcasting, Divine Smite, disease immunity, and the Divine Sense ribbon.

They both get a healing option, but while Second Wind is more efficient in-combat self-healing, Paladin's Lay on Hands is stronger from Level 2+, plus can be used on others and can also cure diseases and poisons.

In addition, Paladins get better save proficiencies, with WIS and CHA saves covering nearly all of the really nasty save-or-suck effects, while STR and CON saves mostly just inflict damage or lesser status effects like forced movement or movement restrictions.

Therefore, Paladins top Fighters in that Tier 1 comparison in just about every way.

Let's see, shall we?
First, proficiencies. Armor and Weapon proficiencies are the same. On save proficiencies, while I agree with you that Wis and Cha are more nasty than Str and Con, they are FAR less common, specially in Tier 1. Your chances of getting Poisoned (quite nasty, actually, specially for a martial) in levels 1-4 are far greater than your chances of being banished, or even Charmed or Frightened. In most campaigns, advantage Fighter. Fighters are also more versatile, being as good at range as in melee, depending on their build choices. Not true for Paladins.

Level 1- Definitely advantage Fighter. Fighting Style+Second Wind is much better than Lay on Hands + Divine Sense. Lay on Hands is good to get people out of unconscious after a battle is over, true, but far less healing. It's 5 hps/LR vs 1d10+1/SR. And it would be a very unusual campaign where Divine Sense at level 1 is better than a Fighting Style.
Level 2- Paladins get closer, but are still behind. Getting spells is big, as is the Fighting Style, but Action Surge is at least as good as first level spell, and you will probably use it 3 times per day, more than your Paladin has spell slots. Even though both Paladins and Fighters now have Fighting Styles, Fighter's selection is better.
Level 3- Subclass- it will vary widely, since it's subclass. But, in general, Fighters get more from their subclass than Paladins do, that's just the design of the class; so Fighters will remain ahead, unless you go with a strong Paladin subclass vs a weak Fighter subclass. Paladins also get Disease Immunity. Do you know how many times I've seen this being relevant all my years of playing 5e? Zero.
Leve 4- ASI; technically a tie, but Paladins are MAD, which means they have a tougher choice to make, and so, whatever he chooses, the opportunity cost is greater. Fighter still ahead.
Level 5- Here the Paladin pulls ahead. They both get Extra Attack, but Paladins double their spell slots (and more than double their "spell points"), and get access to Find Steed. Action Surge on Fighter gets better though (because you now have more attacks), still I'd say here's where the Paladin hits his stride, specially on those campaigns where he can make full use of his steed.

[Dork_Forge]

Let's see, shall we?
First, proficiencies. Armor and Weapon proficiencies are the same. On save proficiencies, while I agree with you that Wis and Cha are more nasty than Str and Con, they are FAR less common, specially in Tier 1. Your chances of getting Poisoned (quite nasty, actually, specially for a martial) in levels 1-4 are far greater than your chances of being banished, or even Charmed or Frightened. In most campaigns, advantage Fighter.

Level 1- Definitely advantage Fighter. Fighting Style+Second Wind is much better than Lay on Hands + Divine Sense. Lay on Hands is good to get people out of unconscious after a battle is over, true, but far less healing. It's 5 hps/LR vs 1d10+1/SR. And it would be a very unusual campaign where Divine Sense at level 1 is better than a Fighting Style.
Level 2- Paladins get closer, but are still behind. Getting spells is big, as is the Fighting Style, but Action Surge is at least as good as first level spell, and you will probably use it 3 times per day, more than your Paladin has spell slots.
Level 3- Subclass- it will vary widely, since it's subclass. But, in general, Fighters get more from their subclass than Paladins do, that's just the design of the class; so Fighters will remain ahead, unless you go with a strong Paladin subclass vs a weak Fighter subclass. Paladins also get Disease Immunity. Do you know how many times I've seen this being relevant all my years of playing 5e? Zero.
Leve 4- ASI; technically a tie, but Paladins are MAD, which means they have a tougher choice to make, and so, whatever he chooses, the opportunity cost is greater. Fighter still ahead.
Level 5- Here the Paladin pulls ahead. They both get Extra Attack, but Paladins double their spell slots (and more than double their "spell points"), and get access to Find Steed. Action Surge on Fighter gets better though (because you now have more attacks), still I'd say here's where the Paladin definitely pulls ahead, specially on those campaigns where he can make full use of his steed.

A pretty good breakdown, the only thing I'd really add here is:

- Lay on Hands grows significantly each level

- Channel Divinity, depending on subclass, is a decent short rest resource

Overall I agree, Fighters just get more in Tier 1 than Paladins, it's their frontloaded design. Combined with their main chassis being at-will/short rest, it's not much of a competition.

Tier 2 is when Paladins really start to shine, it's always frustrated me that literally every Extra Attack class gets more at 5th level than a Fighter.

[diplomancer]

A pretty good breakdown, the only thing I'd really add here is:

- Lay on Hands grows significantly each level

- Channel Divinity, depending on subclass, is a decent short rest resource

Overall I agree, Fighters just get more in Tier 1 than Paladins, it's their frontloaded design. Combined with their main chassis being at-will/short rest, it's not much of a competition.

Tier 2 is when Paladins really start to shine, it's always frustrated me that literally every Extra Attack class gets more at 5th level than a Fighter.

Agreed. And good point on Lay on Hands, but it's still behind Second Wind on Tier 1 total healing-wise, it only catches up (and surpasses it) later on.

I did address, indirectly, the Channel Divinity bit. It's just that it gets way too complicated to compare all possible Channel Divinities with all possible subclass features, and how they synergize with the class chassis, so I decided just to say that Fighters get more from their Subclasses than Paladins do (which is mostly true).

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Palys are weak in Tier 1, and particularly so at level 1 and 2. Comparison with Fighters highlights it well.

Level 1 Paly is one of the weakest classes with the other 1/2 casters. You don't get spells. You don't get fighting styles. Divine Sense is extremely situational. You get Lay on Hands, which is worth roughly 1/4 of Second Wind (assuming 2 SRs) and needs an Action to use as opposed to a BA.

Level 2 You finally get fighting style. You get 2 spells, though Divine Smite is nearly worthless at that point because it pulls from the same pool as your spells which are almost always better. Did you catch up any? I'd say no because Fighters get Action Surge, which is seen as valuable enough to cause Fighter 2 to be a common dip

Level 3 You get one more spell; Divine Smite is still situational at best and a trap at worst. Lay on Hands has reached 1/2 the HP of Second Wind, but is still an action, so far inferior. Yes, you can do diseases and poisons, but this is often going to be done out of combat, and is used infrequently. It also is drawn from the same pool, so there's a trade-off.
Subclasses are a little tough to evaluate; some Palys get good CDs 1/ rest and some fighters get good abilities. Battlemaster is a pretty common fighter and gets 4 maneuvers/ SR, so potentially 12/ day. Maybe a good CD matches up; if you can use one of the 'Turn' CDs you can pretty much win an encounter. On average I'd say the gap stays about the same at this level, but it can narrow or widen depending on subclass.

Level 4 I'd say the gap stays the same, though given that Palys are MAD, you can't improve everything, where Fighters are going to bump their attack stat which may or may not (for EKs or Rune Knights) impact everything. Though EKs get another spell, actually bringing them in line with Palys in that regard. Edge to most fighters.

Tier 2

Level 5 This is where Palys really start to close the gap, and maybe catch up. Both get extra attack, but the Paly gets 3 additional spells including 2 second level ones. They can occasionally Divine Smite and still use spells. Lay on Hands is still inferior in terms of hp to Second Wind (25 vs 31.5) and in action economy, but the 25 hp at a time is finally enough that it may be worth using in combat.

Level 6 Aura of Protection is one of, if not the, best abilities in the game. Paly takes the clear lead and never looks back.

Summary:

Palys are great from Tier 2 onwards. I think because of that, and the fact early levels (particularly 1 and 2) get less play, that they're pretty poor early on gets overlooked.

[Corran]

1st level paladin spells have a higher ceiling than action surge in tier 1 if the difficulty of the day's encounters is variable enough.

[Dork_Forge]

1st level paladin spells have a higher ceiling than action surge in tier 1 if the difficulty of the day's encounters is variable enough.

This really depends on too much, arguably Action Surge has the higher ceiling given that it can do literally any action.

[Corran]

This really depends on too much, arguably Action Surge has the higher ceiling given that it can do literally any action.
True!
Let me try again to see if I get it right the second time. It will be more common to edge a very difficult encounter thanks to a 1st level paladin spell than thanks to action surge in tier 1.

[Yakmala]

I've played most of the various Paladin oaths over the life of 5e, Ancients being the one I have used the most, in spite of not being overly happy with their spell list.

But these days, Oath of the Watchers is easily my favorite. Among the reasons...

1: Channel Divinity: Abjure the Extraplanar. It's Turn Undead, but instead of being limited to one creature type, you can turn aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, or fiends. That's a lot more options, meaning this will be useful far more often.

2: Spells: The 3rd level spells aren't great, but at 5th, you have Moonbeam, giving you a nice AoE option and See Invisibility, which, while situational, is great when you need it. Counterspell at 9th can be a lifesaver!

3: Aura of the Sentinel. This is the best subclass only Paladin Aura available. Most other subclass auras, such as Ancients, are situational. But a bonus to initiative is always useful! With a big enough bonus, you can have the majority of the party acting before the bad guys. It's often like getting a free surprise round. The overall increase to both party DPS and survival that this brings can not be understated.

As for other Paladin advice, some of which has been stated by others, I wouldn't worry about focusing too much on Smite. Yes, those big numbers are alluring, but you are a half caster and are going to burn through those spell slots quickly! Save them for Crits, for fiends/undead, or when you know the big bad is only one or two big hits from going down. Paladins are very versatile. You can be the party tank, the emergency healer, party buffer, party face, etc. It's not essential that you be the highest DPS.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

True!
Let me try again to see if I get it right the second time. It will be more common to edge a very difficult encounter thanks to a 1st level paladin spell than thanks to action surge in tier 1.

That's an interesting claim. Given that the most common 1st level Paly spell is Bless it's certainly possible. Over the course of an encounter Bless can turn a couple of misses into hits and a couple of failed saves into successes. Is that equal to getting 2 actions off early in an encounter when the impact is the greatest?
I think it's pretty encounter dependent.

[diplomancer]

That's an interesting claim. Given that the most common 1st level Paly spell is Bless it's certainly possible. Over the course of an encounter Bless can turn a couple of misses into hits and a couple of failed saves into successes. Is that equal to getting 2 actions off early in an encounter when the impact is the greatest?
I think it's pretty encounter dependent.

Not only that, but the Paladin who casts Bless is actually two attacks behind the Fighter who used Action Surge; it will have to be a longish encounter for him to catch up (assuming the Melee warrior with a +2+d4 to his concentration saves can keep it up for the entirety of the longish encounter).

[stoutstien]

Not only that, but the Paladin who casts Bless is actually two attacks behind the Fighter who used Action Surge; it will have to be a longish encounter for him to catch up.

Depends if you credit the miss/hit save/fail conversions to the bless ergo favors the pally in this regard. That's why you can't look at stuff in a vacuum.

[diplomancer]

Depends if you credit the miss/hit save/fail conversions to the bless ergo favors the pally in this regard. That's why you can't look at stuff in a vacuum.

Yes, I would credit it. But are you crediting the guy who died faster (and so didn't cause as much damage) to Action Surge?

One other consideration, but this is definitely party-dependant. If the party has a Cleric, it is he who should be concentrating on Bless in Tier 1, and the Paladin's ability to cast Bless loses a lot of its charm. Once we get to tier 2, the Cleric will have better spells to concentrate on, and the Paladin's ability to cast Bless will be better (as it is also where saves start getting more common).

[stoutstien]

Yes, I would credit it. But are you crediting the guy who died faster (and so didn't cause as much damage) to Action Surge?

Depends. That's why it's difficult/ nearly impossible to take individual features and compare them in a hierarchy. You just end up in a lot of -what if- and -what about- clauses. 5e isn't tight enough to calculate the difference in any meaningful way. As I pointed out earlier it's hard to even compare 2 instances of the same class in different situations in table play.

[Gignere]

That's an interesting claim. Given that the most common 1st level Paly spell is Bless it's certainly possible. Over the course of an encounter Bless can turn a couple of misses into hits and a couple of failed saves into successes. Is that equal to getting 2 actions off early in an encounter when the impact is the greatest?
I think it's pretty encounter dependent.

It’s not just bless I think it’s more like the Paladin has more options. The Paladin can use shield of faith to tank something that’s hard hitting but low attack bonus. Alternatively they can be fighting a fiend/undead/Fey that would be a hard challenge to a level 2 group but the Paladin can use protection from evil and good as well as a smite to make the encounter even doable for a low level group.

So for really tough low level challenges paladins might be better. I don’t totally agree but I think that’s the argument being made.

[diplomancer]

It’s not just bless I think it’s more like the Paladin has more options. The Paladin can use shield of faith to tank something that’s hard hitting but low attack bonus. Alternatively they can be fighting a fiend/undead/Fey that would be a hard challenge to a level 2 group but the Paladin can use protection from evil and good as well as a smite to make the encounter even doable for a low level group.

So for really tough low level challenges paladins might be better. I don’t totally agree but I think that’s the argument being made.

This is another way of saying "but Paladins are better in a short adventuring day". Which might be true (from level 2), but not how the game's designed.

Definitely agree that Protection from Evil is awesome in the right encounter, and that if you're facing Fiends or Undead the Paladin might be better than the Fighter... but that is entirely out of your hands, and the odds are that you will be facing more of the other creature types than these two.

[da newt]

All fine points but it's difficult to argue that a lvl 2 pali who starts combat by using their first turn to cast bless or protection from G&E then using their second turn to divine smite (using their last spell slot for the day) is going to be more effective than the fighter who uses their first turn of combat to action surge for double attacks and next turn to attack (w/ a BA 2nd wind on hand if needed for tanking). The longer the fight, the more the pali's buffs can come into play (assuming they don't lose concentration) and 2x attacks on the first round (for (2d6+ST)x2 = 20) vs one divine smite on the second round (for 3d8 if it's a fiend = 13.5) assuming no misses ... meh.

But it's also hard to say the fighter will be more effective too (although if they get a SR, they can do this many times / day - the Pali can't).

6 of one half dozen of the other - two different ways to be effective. Overall the fighter is front loaded, the Pali gets better and better with more levels. Is this really worth arguing about?

[Corran]

That's an interesting claim. Given that the most common 1st level Paly spell is Bless it's certainly possible. Over the course of an encounter Bless can turn a couple of misses into hits and a couple of failed saves into successes. Is that equal to getting 2 actions off early in an encounter when the impact is the greatest?
I think it's pretty encounter dependent.
I had wrathful smite and protection from evil in mind. Sanctuary too but that's an oath spell so let's leave it aside. Maybe there is a good case to be made for other spells, but two can work for now.

Wrathful smite can be used to attempt to neutralize one melee threat. I can think of combats where I'd take that chance even with one attack, instead of action surging. Similarly, protection from evil can make you very tanky against the right enemies, so if you are fighting a bunch of them, having a good efffective AC can be key to winning that fight if say, you can go about making most of the enemies target you. Action surge, if used for attacking, wont hit as high as these spells could have (under the right conditions of course). Then again, as DorkForge points out, you dont have to restrict action surge to attacking, so its ceiling can surpass that of the spells. For example, if you use action surge to push people off buildings, or to get that extra movement so that you can reach the balcony and throw the piano on the bad guys in time, etc etc, then yeah, action surge can hit pretty high indeed, no matter the tier. But I think these scenarios are a bit less common than those that would allow you to try common decent tactics such as keeping a high melee threat at reach or trying to force the enemies to attack the tanky pc.

Bless is an interesting one. I think it gets better as you advance in tiers, because I mostly see it as a difference maker when it comes down to protecting against nasty save attacks, or when it's used as a safety net to the concentration of some other spell that can make the difference in a fight. At tier 1, well, it can have its moments I suppose. The best use I think I've ever made of it was when I used it to protect our druid's concentration on entangle in a previous campaign. We were early tier 2 (I remember cause I had spiritual weapon on my conquest paly, which I needed for upping my dpr against melee engaging thugs; not sure if I had the aura yet), and it was a fight against a good number of thugs and their leader (who would be dueling our barbarian as the rest of the party would fight off the thugs). The idea was to keep the thugs from surrounding us and to take down asap any who managed to apporached. To that end we had used a combination of entangle and conquering presecne to keep as many thugs as possible in range, while paladin, fighter and a wildshaped druid held of ground at the room's narrowest point. Essentially a lot of it came down to if we could keep many thugs restrained (or scondarily frightened; ideally both) for a lot of time, so entangle (the worst of the good CC spells as I like to think of it), which was out only option as spell CC, had to hold. But at the same time the druid had to plug a gap (that would prevent thugs from going after our warlock or dueling barbarian, and at worst, it would prevent from getting engaged by more than 3 or 4 at a time if CC didn't work or when it stopped working). The fight could be scaled down to tier 1 and not much would change tactically. I dont even remember if bless made a difference (though I do remember protection fs working well for me), but it lasted right up to the point I dropped unconscious (irrelevant, but conquering presence is amazing in that its effect does not have to stop if you are incapacitated). I'd still pick bless over action surge in that fight if I had the choice. Though maybe it's too circumstancial to expect all of your main CC user to have to tank during a fighter where you are expecting a good return from the CC.



Depends. That's why it's difficult/ nearly impossible to take individual features and compare them in a hierarchy.
If you try to stay away from, I dunno, abslutes (?), you can get a good idea about which one of two features you are comparing, you would rather have in this or that situation. At least you can get an idea about what's better for what you want to do or for what is up ahead. Examples:

Comparison: Divine smite (PAM) vs action surge at tier 1
Scenario: Dungeron with 8 encounters (2 short rests) of varying difficulty, most difficult of which is a boss fight (assume a cooperating AC value)
Goal: Be the guy who wants to make the difference against the boss. Getting there is either easy enough or not a problem for you to contribute greatly into solving. In other words, you finding a way to kill the boss faster maximizes the chances of overall success if a selfish goal sounds too unimportant.
Better choice: divine smite

Assume the same as above but now al the encounters are similar and your goal is to maximize your chances of winning. Action surge is now better.

Another comparison: dueling vs blessed warrior (restrict to offensive cantrip for cleaner comparison)
The more you up the amount of potential attrition the better blessed warrior becomes due to giving you an option to attempt at dealing damage without risking your hit points. So while in an easy enough run dueling will add up to more damage at the end of the day, as you increase the difficulty so do the chances of getting more mileage out of a ranged cantrip.

Without encounters or any noteworthy playstyle preferences in mind, I like to think of what kind of decent options any features in comparison open up for me.

[stoutstien]

I had wrathful smite and protection from evil in mind. Sanctuary too but that's an oath spell so let's leave it aside. Maybe there is a good case to be made for other spells, but two can work for now.

Wrathful smite can be used to attempt to neutralize one melee threat. I can think of combats where I'd take that chance even with one attack, instead of action surging. Similarly, protection from evil can make you very tanky against the right enemies, so if you are fighting a bunch of them, having a good efffective AC can be key to winning that fight if say, you can go about making most of the enemies target you. Action surge, if used for attacking, wont hit as high as these spells could have (under the right conditions of course). Then again, as DorkForge points out, you dont have to restrict action surge to attacking, so its ceiling can surpass that of the spells. For example, if you use action surge to push people off buildings, or to get that extra movement so that you can reach the balcony and throw the piano on the bad guys in time, etc etc, then yeah, action surge can hit pretty high indeed, no matter the tier. But I think these scenarios are a bit less common than those that would allow you to try common decent tactics such as keeping a high melee threat at reach or trying to force the enemies to attack the tanky pc.

Bless is an interesting one. I think it gets better as you advance in tiers, because I mostly see it as a difference maker when it comes down to protecting against nasty save attacks, or when it's used as a safety net to the concentration of some other spell that can make the difference in a fight. At tier 1, well, it can have its moments I suppose. The best use I think I've ever made of it was when I used it to protect our druid's concentration on entangle in a previous campaign. We were early tier 2 (I remember cause I had spiritual weapon on my conquest paly, which I needed for upping my dpr against melee engaging thugs; not sure if I had the aura yet), and it was a fight against a good number of thugs and their leader (who would be dueling our barbarian as the rest of the party would fight off the thugs). The idea was to keep the thugs from surrounding us and to take down asap any who managed to apporached. To that end we had used a combination of entangle and conquering presecne to keep as many thugs as possible in range, while paladin, fighter and a wildshaped druid held of ground at the room's narrowest point. Essentially a lot of it came down to if we could keep many thugs restrained (or scondarily frightened; ideally both) for a lot of time, so entangle (the worst of the good CC spells as I like to think of it), which was out only option as spell CC, had to hold. But at the same time the druid had to plug a gap (that would prevent thugs from going after our warlock or dueling barbarian, and at worst, it would prevent from getting engaged by more than 3 or 4 at a time if CC didn't work or when it stopped working). The fight could be scaled down to tier 1 and not much would change tactically. I dont even remember if bless made a difference (though I do remember protection fs working well for me), but it lasted right up to the point I dropped unconscious (irrelevant, but conquering presence is amazing in that its effect does not have to stop if you are incapacitated). I'd still pick bless over action surge in that fight if I had the choice. Though maybe it's too circumstancial to expect all of your main CC user to have to tank during a fighter where you are expecting a good return from the CC.



If you try to stay away from, I dunno, abslutes (?), you can get a good idea about which one of two features you are comparing, you would rather have in this or that situation. At least you can get an idea about what's better for what you want to do or for what is up ahead. Examples:

Comparison: Divine smite (PAM) vs action surge at tier 1
Scenario: Dungeron with 8 encounters (2 short rests) of varying difficulty, most difficult of which is a boss fight (assume a cooperating AC value)
Goal: Be the guy who wants to make the difference against the boss. Getting there is either easy enough or not a problem for you to contribute greatly into solving. In other words, you finding a way to kill the boss faster maximizes the chances of overall success if a selfish goal sounds too unimportant.
Better choice: divine smite

Assume the same as above but now al the encounters are similar and your goal is to maximize your chances of winning. Action surge is now better.

Another comparison: dueling vs blessed warrior (restrict to offensive cantrip for cleaner comparison)
The more you up the amount of potential attrition the better blessed warrior becomes due to giving you an option to attempt at dealing damage without risking your hit points. So while in an easy enough run dueling will add up to more damage at the end of the day, as you increase the difficulty so do the chances of getting more mileage out of a ranged cantrip.

Without encounters or any noteworthy playstyle preferences in mind, I like to think of what kind of decent options any features in comparison open up for me.

You are comparing them as hoc. The party doesn't know a quarter of this information in actual play. They don't see much past their nose in T1- early T2 unless you have a highly structured game play at table which is also not something that show in this type of comparison. It's not like boss fights have fancy music and big name bars with extra graphics to indicate what's up.

[Dork_Forge]

If you try to stay away from, I dunno, abslutes (?), you can get a good idea about which one of two features you are comparing, you would rather have in this or that situation. At least you can get an idea about what's better for what you want to do or for what is up ahead. Examples:

Comparison: Divine smite (PAM) vs action surge at tier 1
Scenario: Dungeron with 8 encounters (2 short rests) of varying difficulty, most difficult of which is a boss fight (assume a cooperating AC value)
Goal: Be the guy who wants to make the difference against the boss. Getting there is either easy enough or not a problem for you to contribute greatly into solving. In other words, you finding a way to kill the boss faster maximizes the chances of overall success if a selfish goal sounds too unimportant.
Better choice: divine smite

So... any reason in particular why the Paladin has PAM and the Fighter has nothing?

And you're saying Tier 1 like that's a level, there is going to be a huge amount of swing depending on what level you're talking about.


Assume the same as above but now al the encounters are similar and your goal is to maximize your chances of winning. Action surge is now better.

Another comparison: dueling vs blessed warrior (restrict to offensive cantrip for cleaner comparison)
The more you up the amount of potential attrition the better blessed warrior becomes due to giving you an option to attempt at dealing damage without risking your hit points. So while in an easy enough run dueling will add up to more damage at the end of the day, as you increase the difficulty so do the chances of getting more mileage out of a ranged cantrip.

Without encounters or any noteworthy playstyle preferences in mind, I like to think of what kind of decent options any features in comparison open up for me.


Now, I agree with Stoutstien, a party isn't going to know enough about adventure structure to perfectly pace themselves to have the big resources when needed. In a blind adventuring day, there's something to be said of the reliability of having a short rest resource vs pacing out a very limited long rest resource.

Then there's the whole, you can't evaluate them in isolation, problem. If you need to throw out a Cure Wounds, which in Tier 1 is quite likely, then that slot isn't available for a smite. Whereas, Fighters get more out of their subclass than Paladins, often including new resource pools. The value of Action Surge increases massively when you pair it with subclass powers, whereas Divine Smite is just 2d8 more damage. A Battlemaster can pump out that same damage with condition riders, Psi Warriors can mix damage types, Samurai increase accuracy with a durability bump etc.

You can't really compare something that's a static bump, like Divine Smite, against a force multiplier like Action Surge without considering the things being multiplied.

[Corran]

You are comparing them as hoc. The party doesn't know a quarter of this information in actual play. They don't see much past their nose in T1- early T2 unless you have a highly structured game play at table which is also not something that show in this type of comparison. It's not like boss fights have fancy music and big name bars with extra graphics to indicate what's up.
You dont need to know everything or even anything beforehand, to tailor your build how you want. But knowing what you can do well and what not, can inform your decision making. If I have a build that is very good at short bursts and very poor in attrition based scenarios, then I have a good idea about what quests I prefer and about what to look for as a major threat when examining the ways a quest can go badly, about how to best approach it (eg a quick resolution), etc. Conversly you could know the quest (or more likely the style of the campaign or of the DM), and make your builds choices accordingly.

[stoutstien]

You dont need to know everything or even anything beforehand, to tailor your build how you want. But knowing what you can do well and what not, can inform your decision making. If I have a build that is very good at short bursts and very poor in attrition based scenarios, then I have a good idea about what quests I prefer and about what to look for as a major threat when examining the ways a quest can go badly, about how to best approach it (eg a quick resolution), etc. Conversly you could know the quest (or more likely the style of the campaign or of the DM), and make your builds choices accordingly.

So.... It's relatively impossible to compare two independent features like this in a vacuum?

[5eNeedsDarksun]

One of the keys to making spells like Bless competitive with Action Surge is not using a full combat Action to cast them. If you can pre-cast: great. If you're casting instead of throwing a javelin and closing: still good. Most of the time if players are rolling initiative and close enough to melee they'll be looking at BA spells like Shield of Faith.

Advantage Action Surge as action economy can make many Paly Spells more situational.

[Corran]

So... any reason in particular why the Paladin has PAM and the Fighter has nothing?
Same reason the day has 2 short rests and 8 encounters of either similar or varying difficulty. The features are too similar between them to make the choice important at low levels, so I had to emphasize their different strengths so that I can then say in which situation or under what mindset I'd prefer one vs the other.


And you're saying Tier 1 like that's a level, there is going to be a huge amount of swing depending on what level you're talking about.
Since divine smite is not going to outlast action surge, the only thing this swing you are mentioning can do is push action surge close to the nova level of divine smite (which is why I left AC varying, so that I could avoid that). If the difference gets close enough then I might just want to reevaluate in favor of picking what deals better with attrition. I am not interested in the swing or in averages, because in this case I am more interested in deciding how to pick than deciding what's best if I am picking blindly. If I know why I picked something, that is, what are its strengths and weaknesses, then that gives me a good idea about what to expect even if I am going in blindly anyway.



Now, I agree with Stoutstien, a party isn't going to know enough about adventure structure to perfectly pace themselves to have the big resources when needed. In a blind adventuring day, there's something to be said of the reliability of having a short rest resource vs pacing out a very limited long rest resource.
With the long rest resource you pay more dearly if you waste it, for sure. There is more risk, and that risk increases the more blind you are to what you are facing next. I get that. I also think this is not nearly enough to base a decision on. At least not when there are more important factors to consider.

Action surge is mainly an HP burner. It's wild to expect that 2-3 more attacks spread in between short rests will make a huge difference. It's a great feature because of how it scales (also because it can be devastating when going around the not very thorough casting rules), and it can be useful in long adventuring days (not on its own, but it's a nice thing to add to the pile of whatever else can help you push for longer). Maybe I am missing something when it comes to tier 1 action surging (in fact, I hope I do, and this is my main motivation in replying).

Now compare it to something like wrathful smite. Wrathful smite does have shortcomings and it is a situational spell (in that it is effective when there is one notable melee threat present), I know it and I am pretty sure you know it, feel free to mention them. What can wrathful smite allow me to do that action surge cannot? It can allow me to win a fight I wouldn't be able to with action surge (barring the very odd non-combat action that can win you a fight; eg toss the one ring into the lava, sound the alarm bell, etc). The MM is full of melee threats that lack any (good) ranged options, and unless I know something different, it's not unreasonable to assume enough fights where a melee threat stands out from the rest. Getting it out of the fight through careful positioning is not complicated either. It's not a sure thing, a lot of this value is removed because of the failure probability which is not insignificant in tier 1. But, it still is a tool that can empower a commonly thought and easily enough applicable tactic. Burning through enemey HP fast is not nothing, but if my party does not have a better way of dealing with scary melee monsters, I am picking wrathful smite over one extra attack per short rest.


Then there's the whole, you can't evaluate them in isolation, problem. If you need to throw out a Cure Wounds, which in Tier 1 is quite likely, then that slot isn't available for a smite. Whereas, Fighters get more out of their subclass than Paladins, often including new resource pools. The value of Action Surge increases massively when you pair it with subclass powers, whereas Divine Smite is just 2d8 more damage. A Battlemaster can pump out that same damage with condition riders, Psi Warriors can mix damage types, Samurai increase accuracy with a durability bump etc.

You can't really compare something that's a static bump, like Divine Smite, against a force multiplier like Action Surge without considering the things being multiplied.
Sure. But such comparisons were not my intention. I much rather have a conversation that goes like:
C: Action surge is not great when you only have one attack, because at most you can use it with advantage and a -5/+10 feat for an ok amount of extra damage.
DF: But you didn't think about X.
C: Wrathful smite is good for Y.
DF: But did you factor in that using it how you say also makes it liable to initiative and to OA's which are usually a bigger deal at lower levels?
C: Yes but this is not a big deal because Z.

Replace your answers with whatever would make sense to you. You get the point.



So.... It's relatively impossible to compare two independent features like this in a vacuum?
No.
I suspect we dont mean the same thing when saying vacuum.

[Eldariel]

Meh. Both Fighter and Paladin kinds suck on Tier 1; martials do in general (Barb is great when it has Rage and gets to melee, but that has some reliability issues). Without Extra Attack, many martial abilities just get very unreliable and attacking has a significant chance of plain doing nothing, and that's all martials can do really. Action Surge and Divine Smite are both vulnerable to this: their power relies on successful attacks.

I might agree that Pally sucks a bit more for top subclasses but they are pretty similar overall (mostly because Fighter has a couple of very frontloaded subclasses like Echo Knight and Battlemaster; Rune Knight too to a degree - meanwhile Pally subclasses get their best stuff later and with more uses of the Oath spells). Pally needs levels to ramp up their LoH and get spell slots to both, do cool stuff and Smite with some reliability. Plus they are waiting for Aura of Protection to really push them over the edge. Fighter gets less from levels but particularly SW and their level 3 subclasses really do a lot of work. Redemption does get Sleep but only on level 3 where it's no longer that amazing (though still good); 1-2 is its heydey. Sadly Paladin doesn't get Entangle either - all this leads to the level 1 slots not having that much offensive value.

[Frogreaver]

Meh. Both Fighter and Paladin kinds suck on Tier 1; martials do in general (Barb is great when it has Rage and gets to melee, but that has some reliability issues). Without Extra Attack, many martial abilities just get very unreliable and attacking has a significant chance of plain doing nothing, and that's all martials can do really. Action Surge and Divine Smite are both vulnerable to this: their power relies on successful attacks.

This makes no sense to me. Well built tier 1 martials consistently outperform well-built tier 1 casters in my games.

[Arkhios]

This makes no sense to me. Well built tier 1 martials consistently outperform well-built tier 1 casters in my games.

Yeah. The meaningful difference in this so-called reliability between martials and non-martials is the Extra Attack, which, in tier 1 is a non-issue (because the earliest when it becomes relevant is tier 2).

In other words, non-martials are just as reliable or unreliable regarding this argument in Tier 1. To me, that argument sounds like the poster just has an unjustified opinion they want to validate for some reason.

[Marcloure]

Sword and shield sucks imo. Sure, you have a ton of AC, but you will be dealing 15 damage/turn with extra attack. Polearm is just far superior with PAM, specially when you can buff your weapon and deal the extra damage with the bonus action attack as well.

[Eldariel]

Yeah. The meaningful difference in this so-called reliability between martials and non-martials is the Extra Attack, which, in tier 1 is a non-issue (because the earliest when it becomes relevant is tier 2).

In other words, non-martials are just as reliable or unreliable regarding this argument in Tier 1. To me, that argument sounds like the poster just has an unjustified opinion they want to validate for some reason.

Except non-martials have a significant number of very powerful abilities called spells. And those let them reliably solve encounters while martials ONLY have the at-will options (slightly stronger than casters' if they use their fighting style on it but nowhere near comparable to the difference in resource power).

Basically, martials are built around enhancing their at-will. Martial resources are typically multipliers for their at-will. Casters are built around their resources - their resources are divorced from their at-will. On low levels, at-will sucks for everyone. So martials don't really have any good options since their everything is built around their at-will. Meanwhile, casters still have their potentially encounter-ending resources, which are comparatively even more out of whack than on high levels, where martial resources are at least multiplied by their at-will multipliers. Compare level 2 Fighter's Action Surge to level 5 Fighter's Action Surge for instance. It's a straight-up doubling.

[Arkhios]

Except non-martials have a significant number of very powerful abilities called spells. And those let them reliably solve encounters while martials ONLY have the at-will options (slightly stronger than casters' if they use their fighting style on it but nowhere near comparable to the difference in resource power).

Basically, martials are built around enhancing their at-will. Casters are built around their resources. On low levels, at-will sucks for everyone. So martials don't really have any good options since their everything is built around their at-will. Meanwhile, casters still have their potentially encounter-ending resources, which are comparatively even more out of whack than on high levels.

Pardon me, but what does access to spells have anything to do in terms of reliability? My understanding of reliability means the reliability to land a hit or other effect, and everyone at tier 1 have just one attempt at that in general. Just because you have an expendable resource doesn't mean you are somehow more reliable to do that. It's just that, and option to use an expendable resource instead of an at-will. Having more tools at your disposal falls into the category of Quantity, not Quality, and just to be clear: Quantity ≠ Quality

[Eldariel]

Pardon me, but what does access to spells have anything to do in terms of reliability? My understanding of reliability means the reliability to land a hit or other effect, and everyone at tier 1 have just one attempt at that in general. Just because you have an expendable resource doesn't mean you are somehow more reliable to do that. It's just that, and option to use an expendable resource instead of an at-will. Having more tools at your disposal falls into the category of Quantity, not Quality, and just to be clear: Quantity ≠ Quality

There are spells with 100% reliability. Magic Missile always does something. Web always does something. Even Thunderwave or similar always does something. And Sleep is over 99% to do a pretty good amount of something against typical low level foes. Expeditious Retreat kiting or Bless or Entangle or similars as well.

Action reliability wise, attack action is maybe 40% to be fully wasted. No chip damage, no changes to movement, no actions lost, just action for zero gain. Meanwhile spells typically have guaranteed or near guaranteed effects. Like if there is a high priority target, a martial has to pray they hit while a caster can just take an action with an almost guaranteed effect and an even more brutal effect on a success in some cases. It's fully possible for a martial to spend a whole fight missing while a caster has the tools to choose when they can afford a miss, and when they can't.

[Theodoxus]

There are spells with 100% reliability. Magic Missile always does something. Web always does something. Even Thunderwave or similar always does something. And Sleep is over 99% to do a pretty good amount of something against typical low level foes. Expeditious Retreat kiting or Bless or Entangle or similars as well.

Action reliability wise, attack action is maybe 40% to be fully wasted. No chip damage, no changes to movement, no actions lost, just action for zero gain. Meanwhile spells typically have guaranteed or near guaranteed effects. Like if there is a high priority target, a martial has to pray they hit while a caster can just take an action with an almost guaranteed effect and an even more brutal effect on a success in some cases. It's fully possible for a martial to spend a whole fight missing while a caster has the tools to choose when they can afford a miss, and when they can't.

Eh, I'll still take a martial, or martially inclined Cleric (dwarven Life being my go to for heavy armor and a 2H warhammer) over a sorc or wiz and their 2-7 spells a day in tier 1. Especially levels 1 and 2; there's just too many times where you don't know if you should burn your reliable spell or hold off for something later. Taking a single attack action every turn might be boring, but it never runs out until you run out of HP.

[Eldariel]

Eh, I'll still take a martial, or martially inclined Cleric (dwarven Life being my go to for heavy armor and a 2H warhammer) over a sorc or wiz and their 2-7 spells a day in tier 1. Especially levels 1 and 2; there's just too many times where you don't know if you should burn your reliable spell or hold off for something later. Taking a single attack action every turn might be boring, but it never runs out until you run out of HP.

You can take that single attack action all day as a Sorc or a Wizard just fine too. If you're specifically a Wizard or a Warlock, have your Familiar Help too whenever opportune (which is honestly most of the time; there's little reason to be afraid of losing it if enemies go out of their way to attack it with their ranged weapons) and your Wizard with 16 Dex and Light Crossbow (or racial weapon) can actually do pretty darn well as a physical attacker doing at-will on Tier 1; it's not like anyone else has anything significantly better.

Honestly, any caster can do the at-will attack thingy on low levels. That's the whole deal; martials just aren't that much better at-will compared to how much worse they are at using resources.

[Theodoxus]

Well, except for the crappy AC and crappier HP. I know if I was fighting a small pack of goons and one guy in the back in a dress was shooting me with a crossbow (or even firebolt), I'd concentrate fire on that guy first, it's not even really metagaming to know the unarmored (but possibly mage armored) guy in the back has fewer HP, probably a crappy Dex save, definitely a craptastic Str save... should be easier to take out than the dwarf in chainmail swinging a big honking warhammer into my skull. Might even assume the dwarf is a Fighter with a less than stellar Wis save, and blow a Hold Person on him, only to be shocked to find out that nope, he's proficient in Wis saves, thanks to being a Cleric. Well, poop.

[Eldariel]

Well, except for the crappy AC and crappier HP. I know if I was fighting a small pack of goons and one guy in the back in a dress was shooting me with a crossbow (or even firebolt), I'd concentrate fire on that guy first, it's not even really metagaming to know the unarmored (but possibly mage armored) guy in the back has fewer HP, probably a crappy Dex save, definitely a craptastic Str save... should be easier to take out than the dwarf in chainmail swinging a big honking warhammer into my skull. Might even assume the dwarf is a Fighter with a less than stellar Wis save, and blow a Hold Person on him, only to be shocked to find out that nope, he's proficient in Wis saves, thanks to being a Cleric. Well, poop.

Sure, enemy can try to focus on the backline. But like, you can just drop prone against enemies with physical attacks - Str saves aren't easy to invoke at range. Dex...well, the Dex saves are likely fairly good for said ranged types actually since they really want to go first and if they're using Crossbows, they want it for attacks and AC too. And enemies will have to eat OAs to get to you to melee if they can do so even then, provided you don't manage to get surrounded. In my experience, it's not an issue all that often though of course, it depends on how well tactically the party plays.

And yeah, I have nothing against Clerics either, they're a caster and I count them here just the same. Their low level combat spells aren't that strong outside some Domains (Twilight gets Sleep which is kinda ridiculous with all the other good stuff they have) but they're still superb. If I were to pick an optimal party for a rough Tier 1 adventure, I'd probably just go with my tried and true Cleric/Druid/Wizard/Bard. Covers all bases, has tons of resources, etc. Probably again Bladesinger or Swords Bard, Twilight Cleric, Moon Druid, and then Chronurgist or Diviner or Eloquence (Bladesinger + Eloquence is online the earliest so for specifically Tier 1, that seems like the way to go).

[diplomancer]

Wizards at level 1 (and possibly at level 2 as well, depending on how generous DMs are with gold as well as opportunity to buy it) don't have a Crossbow. Their at-will damage at those levels suck, and they don't have that much money to be risking their familiars regularly either (and if they ARE going to risk them, it's smarter play to have the Familiar Help those with better damage, and not the Wizard)

Also, if thinking long-term, it's probably better to invest on Con than on Dex, so not all Wizards will have Dex 16. Many will make do with 14. Which makes their AC 12. 15 if they invest one of their very limited spell slots on Mage Armor (and the party is not attacked outside of that 8 hour window). Still a far cry from a Martial, and possibly dropping at the first successful hit. So if it happens they have to use Shield. And now they have one spell slot left for the whole day. Sleep at level 1 is wonderful, sure, but it doesn't deal with 6 different encounters on its own. Better have someone with actual defenses and offenses for those other encounters.

But why are we discussing Wizards in this thread about Paladins? Oh, I remember, because some people can't let others discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different martials without jumping in to say that martials drool and casters rule.

[Eldariel]

Wizards at level 1 (and possibly at level 2 as well, depending on how generous DMs are with gold as well as opportunity to buy it) don't have a Crossbow.

If you can sell starting gear at half price, you can afford a Light Crossbow and bolts just fine. And a familiar even, with normal starting packages. Or roll for starting gold. Or borrow the few gold you need and pay back the first treasure you get. Or do literally whatever. That's not likely to be a problem unless you (the player) want it to be one.

As for why the point? Well, because the discussion turned to relative merits of Paladin and Fighter; it's not really fair to harp on Paladin's failures on Tier 1 without acknowledging that Paladin's whole archetype has issues there and peaks a bit later - it's not so much Paladins as anyone relying on attack action (not named Moon Druid naturally since Moon Druid solves the issue by getting Extra Attack on level 2) that has issues with reliability on Tier 1. It gets better on Tier 2.

[diplomancer]

If you can sell starting gear at half price, you can afford a Light Crossbow and bolts just fine. And a familiar even, with normal starting packages. Or roll for starting gold. Or borrow the few gold you need and pay back the first treasure you get. Or do literally whatever. That's not likely to be a problem unless you (the player) want it to be one.

Rolling for starting gold is by no way:
1- guaranteed to be permitted. You might as well assume rolling for your stats, which literally no one does in any optimization discussion on this forum, even though it's the standard rule.
2- guaranteed to be sufficient. A Wizard starts having to spend 60 gold on their Spellbook+Focus. To get a Crossbow you have to roll at least 90gp, and even then it will be very close, you will be almost naked... and without a familiar.

As for selling your stuff- no, not all DMs allow that either. And it's definitely campaign dependent, as you might start in media res. In my experience, DMs say "starting package" and leave it at that. If you want more, you have to start negotiating with your DM about it. As it's only for 1, 2 levels at most, I'd rather wait to negotiate for things my Wizard actually will care about... you know, like access to spells, downtime for copying spells, and so on. Not for buying a Crossbow at level 1 so I can feel superior to the martials.

And as for "borrowing gold", lol. My martial is going to borrow enough gold for a full plate, will pay back whenever he can.

No. Optimization discussions are supposed to be on a level playing field. If your wizard can start borrowing gold, why limit it to just enough to buy a Crossbow? Wizards don't get a Crossbow at level 1, therefore you can't just assume that the DM will waive that problem aside just so you can feel superior to the martials.


As for why the point? Well, because the discussion turned to relative merits of Paladin and Fighter; it's not really fair to harp on Paladin's failures on Tier 1 without acknowledging that Paladin's whole archetype has issues there and peaks a bit later - it's not so much Paladins as anyone relying on attack action (not named Moon Druid naturally since Moon Druid solves the issue by getting Extra Attack on level 2) that has issues with reliability on Tier 1. It gets better on Tier 2

If missing at Tier 1 really bothers you, just be a V. Human or Custom Lineage and grab PAM. You're going to do it eventually anyhow for most Paladin or Melee Fighter builds (not true for casters, though, who basically are never going to get that feat). This way, you get Extra Attack on level 1. Take that, Moon Druid!

[Eldariel]

Rolling for starting gold is by no way:
1- guaranteed to be permitted. You might as well assume rolling for your stats, which literally no one does in any optimization discussion on this forum, even though it's the standard rule.
2- guaranteed to be sufficient. A Wizard starts having to spend 60 gold on their Spellbook+Focus. To get a Crossbow you have to roll at least 90gp, and even then it will be very close, you will be almost naked... and without a familiar.

As for selling your stuff- no, not all DMs allow that either. And it's definitely campaign dependent, as you might start in media res. In my experience, most DMs say "starting package" and leave it at that. If you want more, you have to start negotiating with your DM about it. As it's only for 1, 2 levels at most, I'd rather wait to negotiate for things my Wizard actually will care about... you know, like access to spells, downtime for copying spells, and so on. Not for buying a Crossbow at level 1 so I can feel superior to the martials.

And as for "borrowing gold", lol. My martial is going to borrow enough gold for a full plate, will pay back whenever he can.

No. Optimization discussions are supposed to be on a level playing field. If your wizard can start borrowing gold, why limit it to just enough to buy a Crossbow? Wizards don't get a Crossbow at level 1, therefore you can't just assume that the DM will waive that problem aside just so you can feel superior to the martials.

Borrow from a teammate, not a random NPC. Your Druid or whatever probably doesn't need much gold anyhow. Not that it really matters. Wizards get gold for a Crossbow on level 1 easily enough so like...whatever. If your DM goes out of your way to deny it to you, more power to him I guess, but it's not going to really matter for long.

Average gold suffices. It's not clear that they need to buy Spellbook either as their Spellcasting specifically states, independently of gear, that they start with a spellbook. But even if you do, average roll will give you more than enough. You only need 5 for a focus since Staff exists so 55gp for casting, 10gp for Explorer's Pack, 26gp for L. Crossbow and bolts, and might as well toss in a 10gp familiar on top of it.


If missing at Tier 1 really bothers you, just be a V. Human or Custom Lineage and grab PAM. You're going to do it eventually anyhow for most Paladin or Melee Fighter builds (not true for casters, though, who basically are never going to get that feat). This way, you get Extra Attack on level 1. Take that, Moon Druid!

Yeah, feats are good. Doesn't really help classes themselves though.

[da newt]

Just borrow the martial PC's Xbow. 'Hey you gonna be using that or donning your shield and swinging your sword/weapon of choice? Mind if I use it from the back?' - done.

[diplomancer]

Ok. Wizards are gods (if DMs and other PCs cater to their whims, give them extra gold, lend them their items, etc).

Seriously now, it's standard (and correct) procedure to say that the extra damage from Bless and other similar spells "belongs" to the caster, since it wouldn't happen without his input. By that same token, the extra damage for the Wizard that gets a Crossbow by borrowing money from other players (or just simply borrowing the crossbow itself- by the way, very few classes can just lend a crossbow to the wizard at level 1 without a significant opportunity cost; Artificers, Warlocks, and, maybe, Clerics) should be attributed to the other player, not to the Wizard. Bottomline- Wizard at-will damage is bad at levels 1 and, possibly, 2. Or is the standard of extra damage from help from other players only attributed to the other player when that extra damage comes from a spell?

Can we go back to talk about Paladins, and their merits/demerits relative to other classes that fulfill similar roles in the party, not relative to the hypothetical Wizard that starts with a Crossbow for reason of Wizards needing to be gods?

[Theodoxus]

Ok. Wizards are gods (if DMs and other PCs cater to their whims, give them extra gold, lend them their items, etc).

Seriously now, it's standard (and correct) procedure to say that the extra damage from Bless and other similar spells "belongs" to the caster, since it wouldn't happen without his input. By that same token, the extra damage for the Wizard that gets a Crossbow by borrowing money from other players (or just simply borrowing the crossbow itself- by the way, very few classes can just lend a crossbow to the wizard at level 1 without a significant opportunity cost; Artificers, Warlocks, and, maybe, Clerics) should be attributed to the other player, not to the Wizard. Bottomline- Wizard at-will damage is bad at levels 1 and, possibly, 2. Or is the standard of extra damage from help from other players only attributed to the other player when that extra damage comes from a spell?

Can we go back to talk about Paladins, and their merits/demerits relative to other classes that fulfill similar roles in the party, not relative to the hypothetical Wizard that starts with a Crossbow for reason of Wizards needing to be gods?

Not sure why a Wizard would justify the expense of using a light xbow. You need to pay for bolts periodically, on top of the expense of getting it in the first place. And for what, a measly +1 damage bonus over Firebolt, but a whopping -2 to hit in comparison (presuming your starting Int is 18 and your Dex is 14, so you're not a one hit wonder with a 13 Con?)

But hey, at least that Wizard has a ranged attack, amirite? The poor 2014 Pally gets some javelins, or maybe hand axes if they're emulating the party Ranger. Woo! The 2024 Pally can smite at range (until WotC realizes the wording is wrong and nerfs it back out) - Halfling Pallys with Light Xbows for the Wizard to borrow from, brilliant!

[Dork_Forge]

Same reason the day has 2 short rests and 8 encounters of either similar or varying difficulty. The features are too similar between them to make the choice important at low levels, so I had to emphasize their different strengths so that I can then say in which situation or under what mindset I'd prefer one vs the other.

Giving one a feat and the other nothing might serve the purpose of highlighting what you want, but it isn't a fair comparison by any means.



Since divine smite is not going to outlast action surge, the only thing this swing you are mentioning can do is push action surge close to the nova level of divine smite (which is why I left AC varying, so that I could avoid that). If the difference gets close enough then I might just want to reevaluate in favor of picking what deals better with attrition. I am not interested in the swing or in averages, because in this case I am more interested in deciding how to pick than deciding what's best if I am picking blindly. If I know why I picked something, that is, what are its strengths and weaknesses, then that gives me a good idea about what to expect even if I am going in blindly anyway.

I mean, depending what level you're talking about you could be talking about two hits with maneuvers, or you could be talking about casting two spells back to back. When I say swingy I don't just mean sheer damage, subclasses change the potential of Action Surge massively.


With the long rest resource you pay more dearly if you waste it, for sure. There is more risk, and that risk increases the more blind you are to what you are facing next. I get that. I also think this is not nearly enough to base a decision on. At least not when there are more important factors to consider.

Action surge is mainly an HP burner. It's wild to expect that 2-3 more attacks spread in between short rests will make a huge difference. It's a great feature because of how it scales (also because it can be devastating when going around the not very thorough casting rules), and it can be useful in long adventuring days (not on its own, but it's a nice thing to add to the pile of whatever else can help you push for longer). Maybe I am missing something when it comes to tier 1 action surging (in fact, I hope I do, and this is my main motivation in replying).

Bolded for emphasis, this is a limited way of thinking about Action Surge. In a one shot with a bunch of other forumites, I used my Action Surge to Dash, allowing me to get in the face of the big bad and pressuring him to make him reactionary rather than have the scope of dealing with us how he saw fit. It was a hard choice to Dash with it, but it really changed the impact of the encounter and he ended up focusing on me whilst the Bard (iirc) narrowed his options down.

Action Surge is powerful because of how flexible it is, if the Fighter has it in pocket then they have a huge degree of flexibility in which to deal with something that goes beyond 'these are the spells I prepared today.'


Now compare it to something like wrathful smite. Wrathful smite does have shortcomings and it is a situational spell (in that it is effective when there is one notable melee threat present), I know it and I am pretty sure you know it, feel free to mention them. What can wrathful smite allow me to do that action surge cannot? It can allow me to win a fight I wouldn't be able to with action surge (barring the very odd non-combat action that can win you a fight; eg toss the one ring into the lava, sound the alarm bell, etc). The MM is full of melee threats that lack any (good) ranged options, and unless I know something different, it's not unreasonable to assume enough fights where a melee threat stands out from the rest. Getting it out of the fight through careful positioning is not complicated either. It's not a sure thing, a lot of this value is removed because of the failure probability which is not insignificant in tier 1. But, it still is a tool that can empower a commonly thought and easily enough applicable tactic. Burning through enemey HP fast is not nothing, but if my party does not have a better way of dealing with scary melee monsters, I am picking wrathful smite over one extra attack per short rest.

I mean, this really highlights how you're just seeing AS as nothing but more hits really, it can easily be more chances to say, knock that scary melee monster prone, which will massively gimp the vsat majority of 'scary melee monsters.'


Sure. But such comparisons were not my intention. I much rather have a conversation that goes like:
C: Action surge is not great when you only have one attack, because at most you can use it with advantage and a -5/+10 feat for an ok amount of extra damage.
DF: But you didn't think about X.
C: Wrathful smite is good for Y.
DF: But did you factor in that using it how you say also makes it liable to initiative and to OA's which are usually a bigger deal at lower levels?
C: Yes but this is not a big deal because Z.

Replace your answers with whatever would make sense to you. You get the point.

I mean, I thought it was a conversation comparing AS and DS, though it seems like you want it to instead be AS vs... DS and Spellcasting? Or start AS vs DS and gradually unfurl into full Fighter vs Paladin comparison?


Meh. Both Fighter and Paladin kinds suck on Tier 1; martials do in general (Barb is great when it has Rage and gets to melee, but that has some reliability issues). Without Extra Attack, many martial abilities just get very unreliable and attacking has a significant chance of plain doing nothing, and that's all martials can do really. Action Surge and Divine Smite are both vulnerable to this: their power relies on successful attacks.

The notion that martials in general 'suck' compared to casters in Tier 1, particularly when you're advocating for casters to make weapon attacks in Tier 1, is nonsensical.

You praise Expeditious Retreat? It's a fraction of Uncanny Dodge, nevermind Expertise, Sneak Attack, and subclass abilities, which for a Rogue are much more significant that a lot of caster subclasses, but let's be real you're talking about Wizards.

Monks? Faster than most by default, one of the highest Tier 1 damage dealers at will, with the variety of things brought along by Ki and subclasses.

Fighting Styles enhance martials beyond the baseline weapon use, even if Action Surge, Divine Smite etc. aren't currently available.



This makes no sense to me. Well built tier 1 martials consistently outperform well-built tier 1 casters in my games.

That's my experience as well.


Sword and shield sucks imo. Sure, you have a ton of AC, but you will be dealing 15 damage/turn with extra attack. Polearm is just far superior with PAM, specially when you can buff your weapon and deal the extra damage with the bonus action attack as well.

A lopsided comparison since it's feat vs nothing, but this is also assuming the sword and board isn't Dueling.

Extra Attack (assuming +4 mod) for Dueling sword and board is an average is 21 on two hits. PAM, assuming the feat came at literally no cost for a lopsided white room comparison, is not that much better than a longsword/rapier with dueling unless you start piling things on top of the attacks, that's just the reality of lowering the weapon dice.


Except non-martials have a significant number of very powerful abilities called spells. And those let them reliably solve encounters while martials ONLY have the at-will options (slightly stronger than casters' if they use their fighting style on it but nowhere near comparable to the difference in resource power).

What are you on about? When did martials suddenly lose resources? Ki? Subclass resources? Action Surge/Second Wind? Lay on Hands?

You've literally reduced martials to nothing but swinging a weapon, maybe with a Fighting Style, and since you only mentioned a Fighting Style making it better, it doesn't seem like you're even thinking of Sneak Attack or Martial Arts.


Basically, martials are built around enhancing their at-will. Martial resources are typically multipliers for their at-will. Casters are built around their resources - their resources are divorced from their at-will. On low levels, at-will sucks for everyone. So martials don't really have any good options since their everything is built around their at-will. Meanwhile, casters still have their potentially encounter-ending resources, which are comparatively even more out of whack than on high levels, where martial resources are at least multiplied by their at-will multipliers. Compare level 2 Fighter's Action Surge to level 5 Fighter's Action Surge for instance. It's a straight-up doubling.

A massive overgeneralization that isn't really based in reality. 'At low levels at-will sucks for everyone' except that martials are capable of one-shotting low level threats with reasonable reliability?


There are spells with 100% reliability. Magic Missile always does something. Web always does something. Even Thunderwave or similar always does something. And Sleep is over 99% to do a pretty good amount of something against typical low level foes. Expeditious Retreat kiting or Bless or Entangle or similars as well.

They always do something, provided that you can meet the requirements for casting the spells and the monsters don't happen to be immune. I will never understand the opinion that Sleep is an amazing, encounter-ending spell, but the argument is moo if you're, oh I don't know, fighting elves? Imps are incredibly low level threats, but if they're invisible and flying? Well that negates a good chunk of your selection... Oh and Bless! Who's good to Bless? Martials.


Action reliability wise, attack action is maybe 40% to be fully wasted. No chip damage, no changes to movement, no actions lost, just action for zero gain. Meanwhile spells typically have guaranteed or near guaranteed effects. Like if there is a high priority target, a martial has to pray they hit while a caster can just take an action with an almost guaranteed effect and an even more brutal effect on a success in some cases. It's fully possible for a martial to spend a whole fight missing while a caster has the tools to choose when they can afford a miss, and when they can't.

Save or suck and immunities are interested in this discourse. It's entirely possible to spend spell slots and end up with no benefit. And if all you're doing is highlighting spells that are save for half or the like, you're cherry-picking a subset of spells.


If you can sell starting gear at half price, you can afford a Light Crossbow and bolts just fine. And a familiar even, with normal starting packages. Or roll for starting gold. Or borrow the few gold you need and pay back the first treasure you get. Or do literally whatever. That's not likely to be a problem unless you (the player) want it to be one.

Ahh yes, handwaving gold costs for casters, a time honored tradition in discussion. Let's look at it in reality, shall we?

If the DM does allow rolling average gold, for the Wizard that's 4d4x10, so average 100GP. Sounds like a lot! But it's not enough.

- Staff 5GP (though you won't have the freedom of action economy of the more expensive component pouch)
- Spell book 50GP (because assuming it from the Spellcasting trait is not guaranteed, even Crawford said to work it out with your DM, choosing to explicitly forgo starting equipment for money should exclude just having a book).
- Explorer's Pack 10 GP (I believe this was your choice for general adventure equipment)
- Light crossbow 25 GP
- Bolts 1GP (this is generous, since realistically you'll need more than just 20)
- Common clothes 5 SP (cheapest option)
- Familiar components 10GP

Total: 101.5 GP

So... average isn't enough if you want a familiar. And that's just a single casting of find familiar and you don't even have travelers clothes or a case to actually hold your bolts. Oh and no dagger for any melee instances, or priced components for any other spells. Chromatic Orb, Identify etc.? Maybe by level 4.

And then there's the whole, you have no money to buy food or lodging?

Oh and when you're bottoming out on gold before the game have even started, then the wealth progression is going to be really harsh for that character compared to everyone else.

The only way this is feasible is if you handwave the spellbook cost, and that's a big stretch in favor of the caster that can't be reasonably made in a general statement.



Not sure why a Wizard would justify the expense of using a light xbow. You need to pay for bolts periodically, on top of the expense of getting it in the first place. And for what, a measly +1 damage bonus over Firebolt, but a whopping -2 to hit in comparison (presuming your starting Int is 18 and your Dex is 14, so you're not a one hit wonder with a 13 Con?)

But hey, at least that Wizard has a ranged attack, amirite? The poor 2014 Pally gets some javelins, or maybe hand axes if they're emulating the party Ranger. Woo! The 2024 Pally can smite at range (until WotC realizes the wording is wrong and nerfs it back out) - Halfling Pallys with Light Xbows for the Wizard to borrow from, brilliant!

To be fair, Dexadins, or any Paladins that just don't dump Dex, don't have such a hard time with this, and Tasha's added the option to grab ranged cantrips like Toll the Dead.

[Theodoxus]

To be fair, Dexadins, or any Paladins that just don't dump Dex, don't have such a hard time with this, and Tasha's added the option to grab ranged cantrips like Toll the Dead.

True. But it does kind of break the traditional image of the Knight in Shining Armor using Protection and the Shield Master feat to protect the party from the big bad red dragon... like my Brave little hobbit halfling would, after handing his xbow to the party wizard.:smallwink:

[diplomancer]

True. But it does kind of break the traditional image of the Knight in Shining Armor using Protection and the Shield Master feat to protect the party from the big bad red dragon... like my Brave little hobbit halfling would, after handing his xbow to the party wizard.:smallwink:

And which Crossbow is that? Not a Medium one, for sure.


You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

(a) a martial weapon and a shield or (b) two martial weapons
(a) five javelins or (b) any simple melee weapon
(a) a priest’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack
Chain mail and a holy symbol

[Theodoxus]

And which Crossbow is that? Not a Medium one, for sure.

Well, given he has a feat, he's at least 4th level, so probably one he bought at some point. /shrug.

[diplomancer]

Well, given he has a feat, he's at least 4th level, so probably one he bought at some point. /shrug.

Let the Wizard buy his own crossbow then, you should be saving money for the Full Plate.

[Eldariel]

Let the Wizard buy his own crossbow then, you should be saving money for the Full Plate.

It doesn't delay Full Plate at all; the point of borrowing money is that you'll pay it back the first treasure you get. The whole point is that 25gp is a very small sum of money (some backgrounds start with that much) and it's not likely to be an issue - it certainly does not make much of a difference nor is it the reason to pick a martial class on Tier 1. A armor costing 200gp is a different story; that's not something people can trivially afford for some levels. It's just really, really unlikely for a game to be such that a Wizard couldn't afford Light Crossbow on start if they want it.


Not sure why a Wizard would justify the expense of using a light xbow. You need to pay for bolts periodically, on top of the expense of getting it in the first place. And for what, a measly +1 damage bonus over Firebolt, but a whopping -2 to hit in comparison (presuming your starting Int is 18 and your Dex is 14, so you're not a one hit wonder with a 13 Con?)

I wouldn't bother starting with 18 Int. I'd say 16 Int 16 Dex is better because Initiative, AC, said Dextrip, Stealth are all pretty big survivability increases on low levels and that frees up your feat to pick up Alert or Lucky or something that helps you go first, avoiding many kinds of problems and giving you the opportunity to position preferentially and disable enemies.

[Dork_Forge]

It doesn't delay Full Plate at all; the point of borrowing money is that you'll pay it back the first treasure you get. The whole point is that 25gp is a very small sum of money (some backgrounds start with that much) and it's not likely to be an issue - it certainly does not make much of a difference nor is it the reason to pick a martial class on Tier 1. A armor costing 200gp is a different story; that's not something people can trivially afford for some levels. It's just really, really unlikely for a game to be such that a Wizard couldn't afford Light Crossbow on start if they want it.


Out of all the PHB backgrounds only one has that much gold, the Noble, which is barely enough to buy a crossbow and not enough to buy bolts.

Small amounts of money matter a lot early on in game, spending every last dime means no cost of living, no recasting (if there's even an initial cast) of Find Familiar.

There's no good reason to handwave it to the Wizard's benefit, and there's no real reason for multiple PCs to help the Wizard fund it at level 1.

As for whether or not 26GP is a lot for level 1, let's see:

- In lost mines the characters are doing an escort job that would pay out 10GP each.

- The entire 'Goblin Arrows' section provides (converting to GP) 21 GP 5SP in cash and a Jade frog worth 40GP. If the party go out of their way to go and get a wagon, they could potentially get another 50GP. Assuming a party of 4 split evenly, then entire payout for level 1 is 15GP 3SP and some copper. Only if they go the extra mile would they earn enough for a crossbow and bolts, and that would consume pretty much an entire level's worth of monetary treasure.

Maybe Lost mines is just stingy!

- In Dragon of IceSpire peak the PCs level up every time they do a quest, up to level 3. Two out of three quests pay 50GP, one pays 25GP. 'Dwarven Excavation' has 50GP worth of treasure easy to find, and 150GP that could easily be missed. So if they get the easy loot then a 4 way split means crossbow no bolts. Gnomengarde deals treasure exclusively in items, which you're not turning around and selling in Phandalin. Umbrage Hill pays the least and offers nothing but ways to spend money. Result: Yeah, 25 GP is still a lot of money.

- What about an adventure in a city, that revolves around money? Dragonheist: 10GP each up front, 26GP 7SP 2d6 CP in easy treasure, a whopping 800GP in potential treasure, but again, easy to miss and high risk. Oh and it's possible they'll have to pay 25GP transfer tax on the quest reward. Result: Yeah, 25 GP is still a lot of money.

So is it affordable? A perfect run on an adventure, getting treasure that's hidden or inconvenient/not obvious, can result in a payout that could afford it, but it looks like it's likely to cost the entire level's loot, if they even make that much. Meanwhile, it's actually easier to spend money on stuff that will help out, like health potions or other gear, or save up for more expensive things, like armor upgrades. Oh and the whole spell component thing, Find Familiar is so great after all, right?

Or, Wizards could just play like Wizards, they might be able to comfortably afford a weapon to play sub-par martial by level 4.

[diplomancer]

It doesn't delay Full Plate at all; the point of borrowing money is that you'll pay it back the first treasure you get. The whole point is that 25gp is a very small sum of money (some backgrounds start with that much) and it's not likely to be an issue - it certainly does not make much of a difference nor is it the reason to pick a martial class on Tier 1. A armor costing 200gp is a different story; that's not something people can trivially afford for some levels. It's just really, really unlikely for a game to be such that a Wizard couldn't afford Light Crossbow on start if they want it.


Who was it that said "one should pick martials because Wizards can't afford Crossbows at level 1"? It wasn't me. I always say one should pick what one wants to play. What I DID say is that Wizards don't start with a Crossbow and are not guaranteed to have one at level 1 or even, in some games, at level 2, though very probably they can have it by level 3. Which is true. Which makes their at-will damage at that level(s) considerably worse than martials. Which is also true.

And your answer (apart from the strawmanning I've pointed out right now) is to handwave it away and say "it's just really, really unlikely for a game to be such that a Wizard couldn't afford Light Crossbow on start if they want it." Even after I've said that my almost universal experience (with several different DMs across several different countries) has been for them to say "everyone gets regular starting equipment". Could I start badgering my DM then to buy a Medium Crossbow for my Wizard? I could, I guess, and I might even succeed; but I'd also be marking myself as the sort of annoying player the DM needs to keep an eye on, which I prefer not to do.

[Eldariel]

Who was it that said "one should pick martials because Wizards can't afford Crossbows at level 1"? It wasn't me. I always say one should pick what one wants to play. What I DID say is that Wizards don't start with a Crossbow and are not guaranteed to have one at level 1 or even, in some games, at level 2, though very probably they can have it by level 3. Which is true. Which makes their at-will damage at that level(s) considerably worse than martials. Which is also true.

And your answer (apart from the strawmanning I've pointed out right now) is to handwave it away and say "it's just really, really unlikely for a game to be such that a Wizard couldn't afford Light Crossbow on start if they want it." Even after I've said that my almost universal experience (with several different DMs across several different countries) has been for them to say "everyone gets regular starting equipment". Could I start badgering my DM then to buy a Medium Crossbow for my Wizard? I could, I guess, and I might even succeed; but I'd also be marking myself as the sort of annoying player the DM needs to keep an eye on, which I prefer not to do.

I'm saying it takes a very special set of circumstances to prevent a character from buying a 25gp item on level 1 if they want to. Sure, some DMs may rule you can't do anything before the start of the game (which makes no sense since the starting gear has to come from somewhere), but going with starting wealths and backgrounds, it's not an overwhelming investment resource-wise. It's an investment, sure. It's something you can't do multiples of in addition to everything else, sure. But it is something you should be able to do, through one means or another.

[diplomancer]

I'm saying it takes a very special set of circumstances to prevent a character from buying a 25gp item on level 1 if they want to. Sure, some DMs may rule you can't do anything before the start of the game (which makes no sense since the starting gear has to come from somewhere), but going with starting wealths and backgrounds, it's not that difficult. It's an investment, sure. It's something you can't do multiples of in addition to everything else, sure. But it is something you should be able to do, through one means or another.

If you're borrowing from other players, that extra damage is not the Wizard's, as I've pointed out before. (why is another PC lending money-quite a lot of what he currently has, actually- to perfect strangers, by the way? And is your Wizard the sort of character who's always approaching strangers and asking to borrow some gold? Or when you play a wizard you always take care that there is at least one player in the party who's willing to be your old time friend just so he can lend you the necessary gold?),

And if you're getting the Scholar's Pack just so you can sell it (assuming the DM let's you do it in the first place- what the rules actually say about that is "Normally, you can sell your treasures and trinkets when you return to a town or other settlement, provided that you can find buyers and merchants interested in your loot. - not guaranteed at all in a small village for a book of lore) congratulations: you've just marked your character as the guy who would sell a book of lore to have a tiny mechanical advantage at Level 1. I think were I to DM, I'd probably be sadistic enough to make that decision cost you, in a moment of much higher stakes.Maybe make it a whole side quest of trying to track the book down.

Definitely not a good trade, in my opinion.

[Frogreaver]

I'm not into the whole crossbow question, but here's what I know

At level 1 a Fighter can start with at least 16 AC (18 with a shield).
He will have 13 hp.
He can bonus action heal every short rest for 1d10+1 hp.
He can hit die heal for 1d10+3 hp
He will have a Fighting Style


At level 1 a Wizard can start with 13 AC (16 dex).
He will have 8 hp if doing so (14 con).
He can hit die heal for 1d6+2
He will have 2 spell slots.


Even if the Wizard and Fighter do similar damage due to a Wizard at level 1 getting a light crossbow and having 16 dex, the HP, AC and hp recovery values are so heavily weighted in the Fighters favor that there's just no way for the level 1 wizard to keep up. Mage Armor can match the AC for 8 hours in the day, but that takes you down to a single spell slot. Find familiar can help offset the fighting style, but is very expensive for level 1 because you don't just have to buy the initial casting, you also need to pay for the potential recastings up front before you start your adventure. Underestimate and you'll still be without your familiar without much of the journey. Overestimate and you spend alot of gold early that wasn't needed. That 10gp you take into account might quickly become 30-40gp if you buy the materials to recast it with 2-3 times over the adventure - and even 2-3 recastings is no guarantee you'll consistently have it up to help on attacks. It's interesting that the needed upfront recasting cost never gets factored in.

TLDR, level 1 heavily Favors Fighters over Wizards.

Looking at the other martials: Barbarians have high hp and 2x per day rage. Monks get strong damage at level 1 (quarterstaff + martial arts), but don't have a strong AC/HP advantage. Rogues have strong damage compared to wizards at level 1 as well, though they only have slightly more AC than the non-mage armored wizard.

In short, most martials typically either have a strong hp/ac advantage or strong damage advantage over the wizard - and the wizard just doesn't have enough slots to compensate.

Now that's level 1. A level 2 a Wizard with a strong sublcass that focuses on boosting the defensive capabilities of the wizard starts to look much better especially when coupled with another slot, arcane recovery and more gold for find familiar recastings. Something like an abjuration wizard or a bladesinger or even warmage really stand out here.

Fighter at level 2 get action surge, which is great! It basically means the fighters turn can more or less match or exceed a wizards turn at this level (most the time). It comes back on short rest so it's comparable to the slot and arcane recovery a wizard gained It's just wizards subclass means they gained alot more. However, Fighters started with such a large headstart that wizards gaining more doesn't necessarily mean they are better here.

Then there's level 3. Wizards get alot more spells, arcane recovery improves, and level 2 spells like web or shatter become accessible. Though, Fighters if picking a strong subclass get a ton here as well. Battlemaster with manuevers really stands out here as well. At this point the rest structure of the adventuring day really starts dictating which performs better. If enough short rests are obtained the fighter looks really strong still and probably pulls out ahead, if not the Wizard starts to look superior.

Now fighters do better with early feats than wizard - so variant humans really make martials in general shine early. Crossbow Expert, Heavy Armor Master, Polearm Master are just so strong. There's still good wizard feats but they don't have quite the direct impact on combat power that those do.

Moving back more toward the thread title. Paladins (if no feat) will be best off starting out using 2 shortswords and taking the defensive style at level 2. #1 more attacks mean more chance for crit smites. #2 more attacks means you are typically better off at dealing with lower hp opponents like goblins. #3 If you need to kill fast, a smite even on the offhand attacks has a good chance of 1 shot killing many foes at this level. The Paladin still likely has the better mix of AC/HP/HP Recovery than the wizard. The at will damage of the paladin is a little better (and a thrown javelin is still solid ranged damage in tier 1). The wizard has more resources, but in terms of action economy, smite is better than magic missile as it doesn't take your action and causes similar enough damage (9/18 on crit vs 10.5). To me, all this points toward the paladin at level 2 being at least the equal, if not better than the wizard.

At level 3 it's really about what the Paladin subclass offers, which is mostly the channel divinity. For the most part these are usually as good or better than level 1 spell effects.

For me that places Paladins and Wizards very close. Though a good starting feat via variant human for the Paladin is typically more valuable in tier 1 than whatever feat the wizard might take with a variant human.

I'm really struggling to see the caster supremacy in tier 1.

[diplomancer]

I'm really struggling to see the caster supremacy in tier 1.

They have spells, you see. SPELLS. And martials don't. QED.

[Samayu]

Why are we talking about wizards with crossbows, when they have cantrips?

[Frogreaver]

Why are we talking about wizards with crossbows, when they have cantrips?

Cause the crossbow let's them get closer to equal to martial damage. Firebolt is 5.5. A light crossbow might be 7.5 with 16 dex.

[Thunderous Mojo]

You praise Expeditious Retreat? It's a fraction of Uncanny Dodge,…..

This is a fallacious argument. Mini vans are not worthless due to the existence of better classes of automobiles. Chain Mail is not worthless due to the existence of plate.

A Rogue that uses Uncanny Dodge to Dash as a Bonus Action is not garnering any more value from that Bonus Action Dash than a Wizard that uses Expeditious Retreat.

Speaking solely for myself, stylistically I enjoy posts that focus on a few arguments instead of posts that try to voluminously list all the possible arguments.

I wind up skipping those long posts; too much chaff to wheat ratio to make parsing the wall of text, personally worthwhile.

How did this Thread wind up being a Martials vs Spellcasters in T1 battle?

[diplomancer]

How did this Thread wind up being a Martials vs Spellcasters in T1 battle?

Because when we were comparing Paladins to other Martials in Tier 1 (after I explained to the OP that Paladins are not very good in Tier 1, and that might explain his views, since his character died in early Tier 2), someone jumped in to say martials drool and casters rule, so comparing Paladins to other martials was "meh".

[Thunderous Mojo]

Hmm..Paladins might be considered to have a rough 1st level, (other classes have a worse 1st level in my opinion), but the class as a whole has a steady advancement curve.

Blessed Warrior is a nice option for a Paladin’s Fighting Style selection.
Post TCoE, a Polly’s 2nd level received a slight boost for more Fighting Style options.
Paladin Oaths are generally fairly well designed, and thus advancement to 3rd level is fairly good in general for a Paladin.

T1 Paladins seem solid to me, overall.

[Frogreaver]

Hmm..Paladins might be considered to have a rough 1st level, (other classes have a worse 1st level in my opinion), but the class as a whole has a steady advancement curve.

Blessed Warrior is a nice option for a Paladin’s Fighting Style selection.
Post TCoE, a Polly’s 2nd level received a slight boost for more Fighting Style options.
Paladin Oaths are generally fairly well designed, and thus advancement to 3rd level is fairly good in general for a Paladin.

T1 Paladins seem solid to me, overall.

Blessed Warrior is better in tier 2. It's pretty terrible in tier 1. Javelins work fine when you only have a single attack. And even then the damage difference between blessed warrior cantrip attack and a javelin on a str based paladin is fairly small in tier 2. Depending on your charisma the javelin might even edge it out. Tier 3+ is where the cantrip attack starts really mattering.

3rd level for a Paladin is solid, they get a spell slot, a channel divinity and potentially a few decent spell options.

I wouldn't say Paladins are weak in T1, but I'd tend toward rating fighters over them in T1 - at least the better subclass fighters. Subclass matters a ton on the fighter in T1, it matters much less on the Paladin in T1.

[diplomancer]

Blessed Warrior is better in tier 2. It's pretty terrible in tier 1. Javelins work fine when you only have a single attack. And even then the damage difference between blessed warrior cantrip attack and a javelin on a str based paladin is fairly small in tier 2. Depending on your charisma the javelin might even edge it out. Tier 3+ is where the cantrip attack starts really mattering.

3rd level for a Paladin is solid, they get a spell slot, a channel divinity and potentially a few decent spell options.

I wouldn't say Paladins are weak in T1, but I'd tend toward rating fighters over them in T1 - at least the better subclass fighters. Subclass matters a ton on the fighter in T1, it matters much less on the Paladin in T1.

Mind you, I didn't say they were weak or worthless in Tier 1; I said that they are worse than Fighters (and maybe other martials that fulfill similar party roles), and also weaker, relatively, than they are once they hit Tier 2 (where they jump to maybe the best Class in the game at level 6, and even already at level 5 the combination of Extra Attack+biggest spell "jump"+Find Steed makes them suddenly quite good ).

[Dork_Forge]

This is a fallacious argument. Mini vans are not worthless due to the existence of better classes of automobiles. Chain Mail is not worthless due to the existence of plate.

A Rogue that uses Uncanny Dodge to Dash as a Bonus Action is not garnering any more value from that Bonus Action Dash than a Wizard that uses Expeditious Retreat.

That wasn't what I was saying though, I was replying to someone saying that martials 'only have at will' and that said at will 'sucks' whilst pointing to things like Expeditious Retreat, which is a fraction of the at will they just said was bad... I wasn't discounting ER, I was pointing out the argument makes no sense.


How did this Thread wind up being a Martials vs Spellcasters in T1 battle?

Because some users like to inject caster superiority into martial comparison.


Blessed Warrior is better in tier 2. It's pretty terrible in tier 1.

IMO one of the best uses of Blessed Warrior is nabbing Guidance with one of the two cantrips. But yeah, in Tier 1 a javelin toss can be more appealing than a cantrip.

[Thunderous Mojo]

That wasn't what I was saying though, I was replying to someone saying that martials 'only have at will' and that said at will 'sucks' whilst pointing to things like Expeditious Retreat, which is a fraction of the at will they just said was bad... I wasn't discounting ER, I was pointing out the argument makes no sense.

Thank you for the clarification.


IMO one of the best uses of Blessed Warrior is nabbing Guidance with one of the two cantrips. But yeah, in Tier 1 a javelin toss can be more appealing than a cantrip.

I agree with this. DPR is not the sole measure of effectiveness, and Guidance is very useful in creating a vibe of a sagacious and helpful figure.

Javelins are ok, but suffer from cover, and the practical consideration that one really can not carry that many javelins. Your character sheet might state “20 Javelins” but many people would look askance at that.

[diplomancer]

Javelins are ok, but suffer from cover, and the practical consideration that one really can not carry that many javelins. Your character sheet might state “20 Javelins” but many people would look askance at that.

But Javelins are not ammunition, and don't break on impact. It will be an odd fight where the 6 "standard issue" javelins are not enough.

[Frogreaver]

That wasn't what I was saying though, I was replying to someone saying that martials 'only have at will' and that said at will 'sucks' whilst pointing to things like Expeditious Retreat, which is a fraction of the at will they just said was bad... I wasn't discounting ER, I was pointing out the argument makes no sense.



Because some users like to inject caster superiority into martial comparison.



IMO one of the best uses of Blessed Warrior is nabbing Guidance with one of the two cantrips. But yeah, in Tier 1 a javelin toss can be more appealing than a cantrip.

IMO. If you don't already have a party member that can cast guidance then go for it. If you do then having a 2nd that can do so is mostly redundant.


Mind you, I didn't say they were weak or worthless in Tier 1; I said that they are worse than Fighters (and maybe other martials that fulfill similar party roles), and also weaker, relatively, than they are once they hit Tier 2 (where they jump to maybe the best Class in the game at level 6, and even already at level 5 the combination of Extra Attack+biggest spell "jump"+Find Steed makes them suddenly quite good ).

Then I think we are in agreement there.

[Thunderous Mojo]

But Javelins are not ammunition, and don't break on impact. It will be an odd fight where the 6 "standard issue" javelins are not enough.

That is quite campaign dependent. (Also carrying 6 Javelins is cumbersome in terms of real world capacity….might not be an issue for some ).

Squeezing through an air vent with six sticks that are approximately 8’ long each, seems like a great physical comedy skit.

Is 6 Javelins enough for an aerial chase/battle across the countryside?
Not really.

What about throwing javelins at a giant crocodile? If the croc swims away, the javelins could be lost.

This issue becomes even more fraught when magical javelins are involved. (Monk in one campaign constantly had to try to retrieve her +2 Javelin, after using it as a ranged weapon).

[Angelalex242]

Paladins should generally accept they're melee characters and maybe have a bow in case of extreme emergency. But a standard strength based paladin needs to be in his enemy's face. Even if you give him a Xenk sword.

[Arkhios]

Paladins should generally accept they're melee characters and maybe have a bow in case of extreme emergency. But a standard strength based paladin needs to be in his enemy's face. Even if you give him a Xenk sword.

As a strength character a bow is actually rather poor choice for a back-up ranged weapon. I'd use javelins instead. They have a decent range compared to other thrown weapons (30/120), and to be honest, the damage die isn't everything (just a ~1 difference compared to most martial one-handed melee weapons). As a bonus, you can still use a shield when throwing javelins.

[Samayu]

You should totally be using eldritch blast for your paladin's ranged attack.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

You should totally be using eldritch blast for your paladin's ranged attack.

I don't really get how ranged attack is much of a consideration for Palys. I know you said at the outset that you liked to use spells for DS, so maybe that's part of the issue, and I suppose if your last one had EB to fall back on then you're used to that. But I've DMed and played at least a half dozen Paladins into tier 3 and it's never been a big enough issue at our table that anyone felt they needed to take the opportunity cost to build around improving ranged attacks. The little bit of extra damage you might get occasionally just wasn't worth it. If your subclass doesn't get Misty Step, taking something like Fey Touched seems way more impactful to help you get where you're built to be.

When you compare with a Str. based Fighter you've got huge advantages. Round 1 cast a concentration spell and close; even at level 2 you have options. By level 5 you've got a magical steed that improves mobility a lot; that steed also benefits from a lot of your good spells. If your game goes to level 13 you've got a flying steed with massive movement. And then there are magic items that might improve either movement or provide a ranged option.

[solidork]

I don't really get how ranged attack is much of a consideration for Palys. I know you said at the outset that you liked to use spells for DS, so maybe that's part of the issue, and I suppose if your last one had EB to fall back on then you're used to that. But I've DMed and played at least a half dozen Paladins into tier 3 and it's never been a big enough issue at our table that anyone felt they needed to take the opportunity cost to build around improving ranged attacks. The little bit of extra damage you might get occasionally just wasn't worth it. If your subclass doesn't get Misty Step, taking something like Fey Touched seems way more impactful to help you get where you're built to be.

When you compare with a Str. based Fighter you've got huge advantages. Round 1 cast a concentration spell and close; even at level 2 you have options. By level 5 you've got a magical steed that improves mobility a lot; that steed also benefits from a lot of your good spells. If your game goes to level 13 you've got a flying steed with massive movement. And then there are magic items that might improve either movement or provide a ranged option.

I think the joke was that as soon as you mention that you want to play a paladin in these parts, you've got a bunch of people telling you to add in Hexblade.

My personal anecdote on this general topic is that having Guiding Bolt on my Oath Spell list as a Glory Paladin has been way more impactful than I thought it would be. We had a combat recently where our flying PC members were trying to lead a sea monster away from our ship and ended up grappled and in serious trouble - I wouldn't have been able to do anything at all that fight without a decent ranged option.

[Samayu]

I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to put a ranged attack on paladin, but if you have added warlock, by all means, take Eldritch Blast - you won't regret it. It's as easy as grabbing some javelins but more effective. I had it and Grasp of Hadar in my battlefield control toolbox, and it was very effective.

Ranged attacks are often useful, whether it's a matter of being able to make an attack that first round when you're still running up to the enemy, or where there's no way to make a melee attack for the entire encounter. Throwing a javelin is better than, "I'll... concentrate on Bless?"

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to put a ranged attack on paladin, but if you have added warlock, by all means, take Eldritch Blast - you won't regret it. It's as easy as grabbing some javelins but more effective. I had it and Grasp of Hadar in my battlefield control toolbox, and it was very effective.

Ranged attacks are often useful, whether it's a matter of being able to make an attack that first round when you're still running up to the enemy, or where there's no way to make a melee attack for the entire encounter. Throwing a javelin is better than, "I'll... concentrate on Bless?"

I'll agree that if you're stuck for full encounters regularly outside of javelin range then sure it's worth building around, but that has never been the norm for us given Steed options. We did play through Ghosts of Saltmarsh and I added a lot of sea battles, so in that case it would have been worth the opportunity cost to pick up a cantrip if we had a Paly. Of course a Str based Fighter would have been even more hooped.