New Player Paladin Optimization Advice

Hi there,

I'm brand new to this edition and I'm trying to figure out how to optimize my character. I'm trying to make a paladin battle turtle for my group. We're starting at level 1 but I've built up to 7. Let me know what I can do better?

Dragonborn Paladin of Bahaumut (Bronze)
Str 16
Dex 13
Con 12
Int 8
Wis 10
Cha 16

Fighting with warhammer and shield

At level 2 I take the protection style

At level 3 I dip for 1 level of fighter and take the tunnel fighter style

At level 4 I take my third level of paladin and choose my oath. I'm flip flopping between Oath of the crown and Oath of Devotion
Also at 4 I take the sentinel feat over the ability increase

Level 5&6 are both paladin and pretty self explanatory.

At 7 i am going to take a second level in fighter for the Action surge.

What am I missing to be an effective tank? What can I do better?
Any help is appreciated

First, unlike other editions, a "common sense" straight paladin build will be nice and strong. As a matter of fact, unlike some earlier editions where multiclassing was the way to go for an optimized build, 5e is a bit of the opposite - because ASIs are class-level and not character-level based and many features are held until 3rd or 5th, it's actually fairly easy to unintentionally gimp yourself with multiclassing compared to a standard straight-classes. (Not saying it's weak - just that it's on-par and makes it easier to mess up.)

Second, unlike recent editions, "tankiness" through enforced aggro is fairly poorly supported in 5e, it's hard to keep foes focused on you without some feats like Sentinel (to keep them on you) or Polearm Master (to guard an area). But those also mean that you want to get your ASIs at a normal pace (instead of delayed) which multiclassing would do.

This those in mind, if this is your first game I'd ditch multiclassing until you pick up the nice run of paladin goodies. 3rd gives you your cool subclass abilities, 4th gives an ASI, 5th gives extra attack, 6th and 7th both give auras, and 8th is your second ASI. Use one of those for a tank feat, the other for STR. Or take varient human and start with a feat and use those for both STR or for STR and CHR.

Also, protection style is usually considered one of the weaker fighting styles. It goes with your vision of

Oh, look in the stickied post for guides for all of the classes, including paladin.

I would go straight ancient paladin 7.

mellored said:

I would go straight ancient paladin 7.

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+2

Xian Rodd said:

Also at 4 I take the sentinel feat over the ability increase

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At level 5. ASI/feat is a feature of paladin 4.

I would just get tunnel fighter style at paladin 2 and not bother with fighter 1. Protection style is weak and competes with sentinel for reaction.

Would it be better then,to use a glaive instead? And get the polearm master feat? AC is lowered but stacked with thunderous smite at lvl 2 gives me a lot more attacks vs bbeg and it gives me a bit more protection vs hordes.

Polearm Master vs. Sentinel is about whether you want to control an area (Polearm Master) or an enemy (Sentinel). Both are effective in their own ways. The two together are incredible, though you have to wait until Lv. 8 minimum for that to happen, since you're not a Variant Human.

If you go Polearm Master, you don't need Thunderous Smite, since both use your bonus action.

Also quarterstaff + shield is an option for Polearm Master. No reach and less damage, but you keep your AC from the shield.

Of additional note - Tunnel Fighter takes a bonus action, so you can't use it and a good chunk of Polearm Mastery in the same turn. On the other hand, the second part of Polearm Master is explicitly an opportunity attack so it works great with it.

Bonus action use will also prevent using the Smite spells - you have Divine Smite which is pretty damage efficient, but lacks the nifty riders the Smite spells can also apply.

When you say battle turtle I'm interpreting somewhere between a tank and a damage dealer in my terminology and that seems on track with the rest of your wants. You seem to be leaning towards tankiness over damage with choices like protection and sentinel.

First thought I had was that if you want to use the tunnel fighter style you'll definitely need to check with your dm. My group is pretty lenient on unearthed arcana stuff and we don't even allow anything from the underdark ua.

So to start, welcome to 5e. It's a strange place but I hope you learn to love it as I have.
My posts are usually as organized as my thoughts so I'm just gonna rapid fire them at you.
Your Con is too low. I'm not sure if you rolled stats, did array, or point-buy to generate them but if you can you want a higher con for sure. Did you add your ratial dragon born stat bonuses? If so you have some overall low stats but that's ok. Paladins are pretty forgiving on stats. If you have to choose between a good cha and a good con I would suggest con. In 5e a large %age(up to 55% for paladins) of your max health is based on your con, regardless of your class. For you it's the difference in having 144hp or 244hp at level 20, that's a long way off but at level 10 it's 74 vs 114 (104 if you have a +4 con). Your Cha, while important for a paladin, is not often used. Since you have no cantrips and all of your leveled spells will do most of their effect even if your enemies pass the save, the difference between a high cha paladin and a medium cha paladin is pretty minimal. But having that huge pool of hp will let you protect your allies and not get dropped super quickly. You may even want to grab the Tough feat early for the huge spike in hp it gives you. Generally the +2 in Con is better but especially early the %difference tough can give you can push it over the top.

On to how to protect people. As people posted above, in 5e it's hard. They don't have many options to actually protect people baked into the system. And some of the ones they do, Protection fighting style, are pretty garbage. The style itself sounds good but it costs too much. It dictates that you have to be within 5' of them and have an open reaction and even then it only imposes disadvantage on the attack, not stopping it. As a paladin you have far better options available to you. The level 2 spell Warding Bond lets you take half of all damage that one of your party members takes. The materials can get expensive but it's usually pretty easy to talk each party member into pitching in to buy their own ring, that way you only have to buy one for yourself, then you can choose any of them that's in trouble, run over and give them half of your hp! The second option is in the Oath of the Crown subclass. I forget the name but it's the level 7 ability that lets you use your reaction to take all of the damage from a particular hit. You get to see everything about the attack before you decide to spend your reaction on it. It has no larger economy(like spell slots or sorcery points) and it only costs your reaction so remember to save your reaction if you think you'll need it. The main downside is that short range of 5'.

On to weapon choice. Paladin is an odd class in 5e in my opinion weapon wise because you get powerful spells(Divine Favor, Crusader's Mantle) and features(Divine Smite and Improved Divine Smite) that reward you for having as many attacks as possible, which screams two weapon fighting. However that's one of the few fighting styles they don't get. Despite that it is still my recommendation for you, if you grab the defensive style from Paladin and twf from a 1 level dip in fighter you end up only losing 1 ac vs using a shield and gain a ton of damage and versatility. As far as what to dual wield the best starting out is handaxes, 1d6 damage, decent thrown range and light, everything you could want. Later on it'd probably be good to grab the Dual Wielder feat for an extra ac(now you're even with shield users) and a one handed d8 weapon that strikes your fancy. Keep some handaxes for ranged options, paladin has precious few options for hitting further than 5' away. That begs the question of when to grab the level 1 in fighter, I would say at character level 3 or 6 depending on how bad you want extra attack and your first asi. By level 20 it would probably be good to get level 2 in fighter as action surge is one of the best features in the game but I would advise waiting until after level 11 paladin so you get improved divine smite asap. Hitting for 2d8+1d4+Str 3 times a turn is just too good to delay.

General tanking advice; If the baddies are hitting you, that's great. If they aren't hitting you, punish them for it. Since aggro is completely dm personality and context based it is perfectly likely that they could just ignore you. You want to make that as bad of a decision as possible for them. Warding bond is a great way to do this because it means they can't even focus down your ally efficiently. The other really good way is just to be a threat yourself. "Sure the Wizard can't take as much damage as me but if you don't attack me I'm just gonna cut you up on your way to him."

There's lots of good ways to do things. I have my own take on some of this advice.

Kithas said:

Your Con is too low. I'm not sure if you rolled stats, did array, or point-buy to generate them but if you can you want a higher con for sure. Did you add your ratial dragon born stat bonuses? If so you have some overall low stats but that's ok. Paladins are pretty forgiving on stats. If you have to choose between a good cha and a good con I would suggest con.

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CON doesn't do much for you at the low levels, so as long as you have a plan to advance it I would definitely put CHR before CON for a paladin. CHR gives goodies not just for yourself but is a force multiplier for your whole group with some features.

The place where you need to sacrifice your CHR for CON is if you want to take a lot of concentration spells (besides Smites, they get used same turn in most cases).

Kithas said:

On to weapon choice. Paladin is an odd class in 5e in my opinion weapon wise because you get powerful spells(Divine Favor, Crusader's Mantle) and features(Divine Smite and Improved Divine Smite) that reward you for having as many attacks as possible, which screams two weapon fighting.

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Additional attacks will add to your nova ability, but will either give up a shield for more tankiness, or two handed weapons for more damage over the course of a day. A paladin will never have enough spell slots to use one every time they want to Smite, two weapon fighting will just give you the opportunity to burn them faster - useful for that combat but that just means you'll be out sooner for later combats. Unless your DM is fond of only throwing a few encounters a day, in which case any long-rest-recharge lass will be overpowered.

Where extra attacks pull ahead is 11th where Improved Divine Smite kicks in. Of course, Polearm mastery will give you a higher base damage, reach, fit your tankiness, and give you a bonus action attack just like two weapon fighting.

A spell like Divine Favor adds 1d4 on a hit. It takes a little less then four hits to make it pull even with using that 1st level slot for a Divine Smite, and that assumes you don't lose concentration before then. It also takes up your bonus action to cast, and prevents you from casting any Smite spell (since they are also concentration).

Crusader's Mantle you won't get until 9th level paladin and helps your friends as well. It only takes 7 hits before it's even with using the slot for a Divine Smite, but with multiple PCs with extra attack in the aura it could work out be be more advantageous. At that level some other PCs will likely be around you anyway to benefit from your other auras.