D&D 5E What are your experiences playing paladins/rangers?

Saelorn said:

So you did. I guess I just didn't notice, since their stats were so low.

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CHA 16 and CON 14 are pretty typical of a Lv. 6 Paladin, actually. You'd have to have rolled considerably better than average to get higher than that at that level.

WhosAChaoticGoodBoy said:

I'm stoked to play a paladin or ranger someday ...

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I didn't really enjoy the PHB ranger that much. The revised one looks better, if a little front-heavy at the moment, but I haven't actually played it (or seen it in play).

I have played a paladin, though, and I really enjoyed it. She was a half-elven bastard who'd lived the high life before taking up the Oath of the Ancients. Her immunity of disease and vow to spread the happiness around came in handy more than a few times, if you get my meaning.

In terms of her spellcasting, I did find it difficult to find a niche for her, what with the party having a tempest cleric already. I was certainly able to make a difference with regards to healing, what with Lay on Hands and Aura of Life. I think I mostly used my spell slots on smites, though ... and even then, I didn't smite all the time. I mostly waited until I got a crit, so I could double the smite dice. (I ended up with a moonblade with the vorpal property, and towards the end of the campaign, the party druid regularly cast foresight on me.)

I love playing Paladin. Even at level 3 I feel like I have versatility between Lay on Hands and a few spells, each of which can become a Smite. Plus I almost always go Variant Human so I usually have a trick like Sentinel or Mage Slayer up my sleeve. It's probably my favorite class.

My Ancient Paladin was the party tank. Plate + Shield + careful positioning = weeping DM !
I've pulled a few tricks, you just have to look in your "toolbox" and pull something unexpected out.

- Moonbeam in a tunnel creates a bottleneck the enemies have to go through (so stand just right there) or take damage going around you / through the Moonbeam.
- Get a Whip and block the whole boulevard via its reach and Attack of Opportunity. (Not strictly legal but the DM let me roll with it because usually _I_ was the guy looking up rules questions.)
- Save a drowning ally: jump in the lake wearing Plate Armor and a 50-foot rope tied around your chestplate. Make sure the biggest strongest guy(s) have a tight grip on the other end. Lay on Hands the drowning ally 1 HP at a time to extend their Death Saves long enough for your friends to get you back to the surface.
- Challenge a fleeing foe long enough for the party Wizard to Fireball the area in front of you.
- Save your Smites until you are facing an incorporeal undead, then surprise the heck out of your DM.
- Jump off a building's roof and try to land on some unsuspecting sod below you.
- Set up a Zone of Truth inside a tent (or whatever) just before the group interrogates a captured foe. Put a big pretty rug on the floor over the Zone. So they don't know it's there.
- Pick a flavorful Deity, and talk with your DM about getting small favors in exchange for good works. The Red Knight, minor goddess of strategy, comes to mind.
- When you get in trouble with the local police, show them your Holy Symbol, look ashamed of yourself, and ask if it would be possible to atone before the gods instead of going to jail.
- In a fight, be the center of attention and get yourself surrounded by all the foes, so the Rogue / whoever can sneak to the far side of the map and do the job that is the REAL purpose of the escapade. When your allies signal success, Disengage and flee in the opposite direction - maybe drawing the foes after you.

Saelorn said:

In general, compared to full-casters who hardly ever run out of spell slots, paladins run out of spell slots much more quickly. Which is to say, I've never seen anyone run out of spells in a day, aside from a paladin who smites with every hit.

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Six encounters per day at 5 rounds per encounter adds up to around 30 combat rounds per Long rest.

Anyone blatting slots each round is going to struggle pretty badly, and run out very fast indeed.

Flamestrike said:

Six encounters per day at 5 rounds per encounter adds up to around 30 combat rounds per Long rest.

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And if PCs routinely (or ever) faced thirty rounds of combat in a day, then that limit might come up.

I have seen it happen twice, over the course of ~60 sessions. The first time, the party was level 1, and there was no full spellcaster in the group anyway. The second time, the party was level 16, and I think the wizard might have actually gotten pretty low on spell slots by the end of it.

I have a fancy half elf paladin 6 / sorceror 10, and love the metamagic / curing options. distance, quickened or twinned curing; I've saved the day a few times by combining a lay on hands with a quickened cure wounds. A dual smite attack gives her (if she hits) 10d8+2d6+6 damage with her staff of the magi, and she can follow up with a quickened spell or a misty step away, or whatever...this boils down to effectively casting 3 spells per round as she uses 3 spell slots per round max--and yes, this does burn up thse spell slots pretty quickly when used.
If I read the RAW right, she cannot quicken any spells from the staff, as activating the staff's charges costs an action.

Saelorn said:

And if PCs routinely (or ever) faced thirty rounds of combat in a day, then that limit might come up.

I have seen it happen twice, over the course of ~60 sessions. The first time, the party was level 1, and there was no full spellcaster in the group anyway. The second time, the party was level 16, and I think the wizard might have actually gotten pretty low on spell slots by the end of it.

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Understood but youre playing against the games expectations.

A standard adventuring day is supposed to feature multiple encounters and explicitly 2-3 short rests.

Certainly the game I DM sticks to around 6 encounters per long rest with enough time for 2 short rests.

Flamestrike said:

Understood but youre playing against the games expectations.

A standard adventuring day is supposed to feature multiple encounters and explicitly 2-3 short rests.

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Even if that was a theoretical expectation of the designers - which it may well have been - that doesn't mean it's a realistic one. If there's some way of making things play out that way, then I'm not sure how you're supposed to do so, at least without cheating.

How do you contrive the expected number of encounters in a day? What if the players do something different, and talk their way through an encounter that you expect them to fight?

What the designers expect has no impact on the game that is actually played. If they really wanted the game to play out in certain ways, then they should have included rules in order to make it happen. Since they did not, their expectations are irrelevant.

Saelorn said:

Even if that was a theoretical expectation of the designers - which it may well have been - that doesn't mean it's a realistic one. If there's some way of making things play out that way, then I'm not sure how you're supposed to do so, at least without cheating.

How do you contrive the expected number of encounters in a day?

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Time critical quests. Such as:

• Find a cure for the plague by time x or else the villagers die.
• The BBEG has captured the Princess and intends to sacrifice her at midnight releasing a powerful Demon.
• The bandits will only be in the dungeon for another 24 hours and then they move: taking the MacGuffin with them.
• The NPC who has hired you to recover the MacGuffin needs it in three days time so he can present to the King on his birthday.
• You have all been cursed by powerfull Specter. At midnight you all age 50 years unless you can recover the spectres remains, and give him a proper burial.
• The evil archmage has left his Tower and will return in the morning. What relics can you loot before he does so?
• Your NPC ally has been captured by Bandits. The main force returns in 12 hours time leaving you little time to rescue him from their evil clutches.
• You find yourself trapped in the dungeon. The ship that dropped you off here will leave in three days time marooning you if you cannot find the exit before then.

Etc.

Not only are time critical quests much more fun (It's totally boring to have all the time in the world to do whatever you want to do) they are also much more realistic. No one ever has all the time in the world to do what they want.

Especially not heroes in fiction.

I don't use this technique all the time of course. On other days I can enforce the longer adventure in day via a reactive environment (The BBEEG up and leaves, destroys the MacGuffin or takes it with him or hunts down the player characters or whatever).

Rare indeed is an adventuring day when neither happens. Where is the adventure in that?