D&D 5E Paladin: Why Are They Often Considered Highly Powerful?

[Mistwell]

But, [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION], I'm not sure that too many people are saying this is an issue. Paladins are really good at what they do. Not particularly over powered, just really good. Which, IMO, tends to shine a lot of light on classes that might not be as good as they possibly should be.

Think about it this way. If paladins were really as good as that, wouldn't we see a lot more of them being played? On the WotC surveys, Pally's came in 5th, behind the "core 4". The FiveThirtyEight poll puts paladins in 6th place, again behind the core 4 and barbarians (although barbarians might have made the list simply due to alphabetical order). [MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION]'s polls about class satisfaction found here peg Paladins as one of the two classes with the most satisfied customers.

Combine all that and you have a lot of very happy players who apparently like the class they chose. Compare to say, (again, sorry) fighter players where 30% say they weren't very happy, (only Sorcerer and Ranger players score higher here) and it's pretty easy to see why people point fingers at paladins as the problem.

I am not going to get into the fighter issue. But sure, if it's not an issue that's fine. I am more mentioning I see it mentioned here at ENWorld a lot. Which may well not be representative of the game in general...but it's representative of posts I see here. So it seemed a fair thing to ask about.

I've gotten a lot of good answers though.

 

[Hussar]

I am not going to get into the fighter issue. But sure, if it's not an issue that's fine. I am more mentioning I see it mentioned here at ENWorld a lot. Which may well not be representative of the game in general...but it's representative of posts I see here. So it seemed a fair thing to ask about.

I've gotten a lot of good answers though.

Oh, I can certainly see where people are coming from. As was mentioned, paladins are just good at a lot of things. It's one of the few classes that can truthfully claim to be able to meaningfully contribute in all three pillars equally. It's on par with any of the combat classes, on par with skill classes when it comes to the social pillar, and, given that a paladin likely has a decent strength and wisdom score, pretty darn good at exploration too. As a secondary healer, a paladin is very good.

About the only area a paladin probably has problems with is the sneaky stuff. Well, since paladins aren't expected to sneak anywhere, no one really cares about that. Athletics is a class skill, so, it's reasonable that most paladins are proficient in it, making them quite capable of climbing/swimming whatnot. Persuasion is also a class skill, so, that's got social stuff covered (never minding things like Detection abilities).

It's a class with no obvious omissions. There are few situations in most games where the paladin isn't at the very least sharing the spotlight if not standing dead set in the middle of it. Which, I think, can lead people to the opinion that the class is over powered.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

This does not match my experience, at all. For 35 years of playing, in a variety of games and groups, we'e never ever commonly known approximate hit points, and certainly not within 5% of their hit points. If that's how your games go, cool, but it's nothing like my experience.

In my experience, the DM at least says something when the enemy is likely to drop from the next hit. I like to give a little more information than that, personally, but I know that's just me. It probably goes back to how the DM chooses to narrate damage in the first place.

Our experiences vary wildly. I have no idea if my experience is representative or not. But, I am betting you don't know either. I am certainly not the only person who has mentioned the overkill issue. Many others here have mentioned it, though that also doesn't make it representative of anything.

On the other hand, landing the killing blow on a tough monster is worth a disproportionate amount of glory relative to other damage dealt, so the fact that you might lose half of the damage to overkill is kind of forgotten in all the excitement of having slain the boss.

 

[smbakeresq]

This does not match my experience, at all. For 35 years of playing, in a variety of games and groups, we'e never ever commonly known approximate hit points, and certainly not within 5% of their hit points. If that's how your games go, cool, but it's nothing like my experience.



Our experiences vary wildly. I have no idea if my experience is representative or not. But, I am betting you don't know either. I am certainly not the only person who has mentioned the overkill issue. Many others here have mentioned it, though that also doesn't make it representative of anything.

Been playing since 1979, how do you not know through experience how much HP is left? You know from memory approximately how much HP everything has, either from reading the various books or from fighting them before. You see what damage your team is doing to it, your DM describes stuff to you “that was a big hit, it staggered him but you see the wound closing” type stuff. It’s like AC, when a 21 hits and an 18 missed you know the AC is 19,20 or 21.

I just don’t ever recall spike damage being wasted to great extent. Sure the 1 HP monster is when you roll that critical hit happens, but not often. I just don’t think “the spike damage or critical hit are not as effective as you think because a lot of the damage is overkill” is applicable as a negative on any build.


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[Xetheral]

One thing that I think most DM's neglect is how easy it is for a paladin to lose their powers due to violating their oath. It seems to be, in my experience, that most DM's don't even consider it in play at all. But if you look at the "Breaking Your Oath" section, it's intended that it's actually very easy to break your oath and lose your powers, but also quite easy to regain them.

I don't see anything in that sidebar about losing your powers for minor violations. As written, the atonement looks like a roleplaying element rather than a mechanical one.

Our experiences vary wildly. I have no idea if my experience is representative or not. But, I am betting you don't know either. I am certainly not the only person who has mentioned the overkill issue. Many others here have mentioned it, though that also doesn't make it representative of anything.

Don't forget that for many players overkill is fun for it's own sake, and at some tables it's useful too. As a DM I will narrate increasingly-epic death blows as the amount of overkill damage increases, and will take such displays into account when gauging enemy morale. Under the right circumstances, enough overkill can trigger a rout.

 

[BluejayJunior]

The idea is that they cant escape SG in a normal move. They can crawl to you and attack, or just stand up. I have never seen that on the on the record, where is that. If that's the ruling that's absurd, especially in it application with haste.

It's not a ruling, it's the rule. PHB page 190-191. Standing up from prone costs an amount of movement equal to half your speed. If your speed equals 30, it costs 15. If you speed equals 60 (because of Haste), it costs 30. It makes sense if you think of a round as unit of time. It takes time to stand up, so you can't move as far in the remaining time in the round.

 

[Mephista]

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[Jefe Bergenstein]

So the Paladin does nothing for 4 hours and then smashes the BBEG of the session? Sounds like spotlight control to me. I'd rather play the wizard laying waste to the hordes myself.

Fighters, barbarians, etc don't really "lay waste to the hordes" though. And it isnt like the paladin does nothing during that time compared to them, with his healing, good social skills, etc.

0 Damage from not being clumped is still better than half or quarter. Oh and Oath of the Ancients so no auto advantage on the BBEG either.

Odds of not catching 2 people in an AE are low, particularly in a dungeon. You may as well be taking quarter damage.

And when did she get that 20 Cha? Not at 7th when you first get the ability. At 8th? Then her Str is still at 16. 12th? Did she decide not to take GWM? 16th? Does a typical party even make it this far?

Half-elf with rolled stats says "hi". Even without it, they can easily have an 18 charisma and strength at 8th level. As noted, paladins benefit disproprtionately from higher stats over someone like a fighter, because their social stat is also a combat stat, and a party buffing one at that. The monk is MAD in that it needs those high stats to really keep pace. The paladin is just strong right out of the gate and great stats push it over the top.

 

[guachi]

I tried a paladin once. Wasn't to my taste either.

Under-seasoned?

 

[Ancalagon]

The short answer is that few games manage to sustain 6-8 challenging encounters per day, and paladins benefit more than any other class as you reduce the number of encounters.

Paladins can spend 2-3 spell slots per round on smiting (compared to the 1-2 spell slots that a wizard or cleric might spend, counting their reaction), but they are balanced around not having very many spell slots in total. Since many tables experience only 1-2 challenging encounters per day, the paladin is able to go all-out and easily overshadow everyone else. (The problem can be exacerbated further through multi-classing, but it's hard to fault the paladin class for that.)

I agree with your analysis. I consider the "need" for 6-8 encounters per day to "balance" the class to be one of the main weaknesses of 5e.

In our game the Paladin is indeed dominating. It's only in "dungeonish" environment where the player has to pull back a bit that he seems weaker.