D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook Reveal #3: "New Paladin"

"the paladin who, if they were in a movie, would ... have impossibly white teeth".


New Paladin preview: here are some notes, focusing on what's new and changes from the playtest materials. Last time we saw the Paladin was in Playtest 6 [=PT6 below].
See also this comparison at D&D Beyond (by someone who saw the video before it was streamed!)

OVERVIEW

• spellcasting starts at level 1, specifically called out as an advantage for multiclassing. (Same for Rangers).
• Lay on Hands and Weapon mastery at 1
• Paladin's smite at 2, along with fighting style.
• NEW: Paladin fighting style restriction is removed (all are available). You may forego fighting style to learn cantrips. [The option to get cantrips was given in Tasha's. They're letting us have it, but it's not called a "fighting style". I suspect this ties to the decision that fighting styles are feats now, and this would be weaker than magic initiate (which also gives a level 1 spell).]
• Paladin's smite gives you the spell Divine smite, with one free casting.
• channel divinity [CD]: uses increase: start with 2, plus 1 on a short rest.
• divine sense in CD option (as in PT6). duration lasts 10 minutes.
• Find steed spell at level 5, cast 1/day with no slot. Redesigned so that spell can be upcast, with a unique steed statblock. [This strongly implies that it's a class-specific spell, not on others' lists. Awesome. (Will a Lore Bard be able to select it? I hope so, and the discussion of spell lists (see below) makes me think they might, since identifying class-specific spells is harder.)]
• Abjure Foes a CD option (given at 9 in PT6)
• Auras are single things, with a single radius, that gain abilities/functionality (not separate auras as in 2014).

SUBCLASSES

Oath of Devotion.

• NEW: Sacred Weapon is part of the attack action. (PT required a Bonus action).
• Smite of Protection (level 15 in PT6)
• Holy Nimbus (level 20) is a bonus action (as in PT6).

Oath of Glory ("...this for me is the paladin who, if they were in a movie, would look at the camera, have impossibly white teeth, with a little sparkle on them as they smile")

• Peerless athlete lasts an hour (as in PT6)
• NEW: Aura of Alacrity affects allies if they enter your aura on their turn (they no longer need to start there)
• Oath of Glory has a new spell at level 17: Yolan's Regal Presence. Created by the Queen of the Elves, and makes others kneel before you and take psychic damage. [It's said that others can cast this spell too -- if right, then it's a 5th level spell and Clerics (likely) will be getting this at level 9. Perhaps he misspoke, and it's a class-specific spell.]

Oath of the Ancients

• Nature's wrath range "has been extended"
• Aura of Warding as in PT6 (resistance to Necrotic, Psychic, and Radiant)
• Undying Sentinel at 15 as in PT6 (you don't return with 1hp, but [?] 3x class level.

Oath of Vengeance

• NEW: Vow of Enmity part of attack action (not Bonus action); can transfer (as in PT6)
• NEW: Level 20 Avenging Angel activated as a Bonus Action, and lasts an hour (not 10 min as in PT6)

NEW RULES

• new area of effect: it's been there since 2014, but hasn't been named. It's for AOE that emanate from a character or monster -- the Emanation.
• new approach to spell lists. Spell list is part of the class description (as we saw with the Artificer). Entries give the school, whether it needs concentration, and required components. [I presume spell descriptions will still be at the back of the book: this is referring to the lists currently on PHB 207-11.]
• oath spell lists, patron spell lists, etc. have all been vetted and updated throughout.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah I actually remained surprised that at the end of the day, the most "broken" thing about the Paladin (the save aura), was untouched.

And by broken I mean, the most "anti-bounded accuracy" class feature probably in the game. It really does completely change the saving throw game.

I think because it is a purely defensive ability. Yes, it shuts down monsters, but the players feel good with the ability to prevent monster's from wrecking them. It is only really annoying to us DMs who want to land mind controls and other nasty effects (it also doesn't stop save for half spells very effectively, so damage is still on the table)

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I think because it is a purely defensive ability. Yes, it shuts down monsters, but the players feel good with the ability to prevent monster's from wrecking them. It is only really annoying to us DMs who want to land mind controls and other nasty effects (it also doesn't stop save for half spells very effectively, so damage is still on the table)

No, damage really wasn't on the table. On top of making saves a joke to pass, Ancients gave damage resistance to spells. So it quartered damage. I just gave up on that game and told them to narrate how awesomely and easily they won.

 

[Oofta]

I'm hardly the only person who isn't completely sanguine on 5.5, if that matters to you.

Nothing will ever be perfect. D&D aims for a broad appeal so of course it will be full of compromise.

But I stick with what I said. You're not contributing to a conversation if all you do is complain.

 

[SteveC]

Consider a mid level paladin, level 12 or so, who is dual-wielding longswords. That Paladin can deal 20d8+15 damage to a single target that is a Fiend or Undead. This is with regular longswords, no crits, and just swinging their weapons and smiting with 2 fourth and a third level slot. That is an average of 105 damage, and not impossible to hit 155 damage on a good series of rolls.

That is definitely a pile of damage. And what does the Paladin do in round two? My friend who pretty much entirely used their spell slots for Smite would have loved that. And they would have sulked for encounters two, three, and four.

A Paladin does amazing Nova damage. The one I'm gaming with right now has Elven Accuracy and only spends Smites on critical hits and that's fantastic. And the Rogue with Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter is pretty happy too. And the wizard caster (that's me) who casts Hypnotic Pattern is happy too. We can all enjoy the day and make the session work.

What changes anything is how many combats you have, with how many foes, and with how many HP each of those foes have. And I guess the assumption is that you're going to have few enough combats where you don't run out of spells. With the use of slots you've described, you get to do your thing once a day.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think because it is a purely defensive ability. Yes, it shuts down monsters, but the players feel good with the ability to prevent monster's from wrecking them. It is only really annoying to us DMs who want to land mind controls and other nasty effects (it also doesn't stop save for half spells very effectively, so damage is still on the table)

Yeah, and since when has the annoyance of DMs been a factor in what makes it into the books?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nothing will ever be perfect. D&D aims for a broad appeal so of course it will be full of compromise.

But I stick with what I said. You're not contributing to a conversation if all you do is complain.

What would you like me to say? For me, Level Up is by far the best version of the 5e ruleset available. Their fixes for issues I have with WotC 5e are better for than what I've seen of 5.5, which in many cases is moving in the opposite direction from what I want. Their version of paladin (herald) works better for me than this 5.5 paladin appears to. The combat maneuver system addresses the martial caster issue better for me than WotC has ever done. The exploration system, the spell fixes, the monsters (my word the monsters) are all superior IMO. I'm still sore about how WotC handles the IP it owns but largely didn't create, but otherwise, Level Up is just 5e for me.

That said, they sometimes even now make some stuff I think is worth paying for. I recently bought the Book of Many Things, and Planescape was surprisingly good.

There. That at least is not entirely complaints.

 

[FrogReaver]

It is completely fair that some people enjoy playing the class in terms of just simple damage dealing. And I agree that a look at the adventuring day is likely a discussion worth having. But I will also say that limiting the paladin to a single smite per turn isn't just addressing the adventuring day. It also addresses the "bag of hitpoints" problem.

Many times people analyzed the paladin's damage, and it was noted as being one of the highest single-target damage dealers in the game. The thing that often held it back simply being that they would run out of resources, but that doesn't address everything.

Consider a mid level paladin, level 12 or so, who is dual-wielding longswords. That Paladin can deal 20d8+15 damage to a single target that is a Fiend or Undead. This is with regular longswords, no crits, and just swinging their weapons and smiting with 2 fourth and a third level slot. That is an average of 105 damage, and not impossible to hit 155 damage on a good series of rolls.

Looking at the Fiends? Even CR 22 fiends are losing 50% of their health to that. Go down to the level these paladins are at, with CR 13 or 15 fiends, and you are dealing 85% or more of their hp in that single round of combat. Which I won't deny feels awesome.. but it means if I want to have a boss monster last more than a single round, then I need to double their HP if a paladin was on the team. I even had a game once where we were in a rather difficult fight with a Demilich, and afterwards I asked the paladin player why they didn't Divine Smite. The reason, they said, is that they wanted the fight to last more than a single round, and if they had used Divine Smite, it would have destroyed the boss almost instantly.

And this was a uniquely paladin effect. Maybe a Battlemaster with Action Surge dumping everything into a single round of combat could get close to this, but the fighter or barbarian in general cannot spike this high. Which is a problem for climatic fights at the end of the day. So I think there were a lot of levels of consideration given to this change.

Slight nit to pick but a variant human Battlemaster fighter by level 6 with GWM and Lucky feats along with precision and trip attack maneuvers can do 99.2 DPR in a no-prebuff Nova round. No magic weapon. Just a standard AC enemy giving you a base chance to hit of 60% before GWM or precision attack.

Note - I mean true DPR and not average damage if everything hits (which is what I think you calculated for the Paladin).

 

[Chaosmancer]

No, damage really wasn't on the table. On top of making saves a joke to pass, Ancients gave damage resistance to spells. So it quartered damage. I just gave up on that game and told them to narrate how awesomely and easily they won.

And the Ancient's aura was changed, but the Aura of Protection was not. That follows with what I was saying.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That is definitely a pile of damage. And what does the Paladin do in round two? My friend who pretty much entirely used their spell slots for Smite would have loved that. And they would have sulked for encounters two, three, and four.

A Paladin does amazing Nova damage. The one I'm gaming with right now has Elven Accuracy and only spends Smites on critical hits and that's fantastic. And the Rogue with Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter is pretty happy too. And the wizard caster (that's me) who casts Hypnotic Pattern is happy too. We can all enjoy the day and make the session work.

What changes anything is how many combats you have, with how many foes, and with how many HP each of those foes have. And I guess the assumption is that you're going to have few enough combats where you don't run out of spells. With the use of slots you've described, you get to do your thing once a day.

What do they do Round 2? Almost the same thing.

But you've completely missed the point by saying that the player would be sulking encounters two, three or four. They do this on encounter 5. That's the point I'm making. Everyone expects a climatic final encounter, a strongest fight at the end of the day, so the Paladin saves their spell slots for that fight.

And so sure, they only do it once per day, but they do it in the single most impactful fight of the day.... and leave a crater where that fights challenge was planned. Because the players may be silly enough to open every day going full hog until they run out of steam, but far more commonly they make sure to keep 3 to 5 spell slots in reserve to END the day with that move. And so, as a result of that, bosses end up with inflated HP totals, because they have to survive at least one round of everyone unloading. And paladins were the biggest offenders on that front.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Slight nit to pick but a variant human Battlemaster fighter by level 6 with GWM and Lucky feats along with precision and trip attack maneuvers can do 99.2 DPR in a no-prebuff Nova round. No magic weapon. Just a standard AC enemy giving you a base chance to hit of 60% before GWM or precision attack.

Note - I mean true DPR and not average damage if everything hits (which is what I think you calculated for the Paladin).

Yeah, I just rough calculated the average if everything hits.