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.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Neither please.

Basically they wanted more OP stuff, and things that were already OP to be left OP.

 

[Wolfpack48]

See, you claim they are "just worse" but... are they? Like, take a step back and look at this holistically.

Level 1:

• Lay On Hands is now a Bonus action to use. This is a major buff to the utility of this feature.
• Spellcasting now starts at level 1, instead of level 2. This is a pretty nice buff actually.
• Divine Smite is now useable at level 1, this is a buff
• Weapon Mastery is entirely new, and entirely a buff.

Level 2:

• Paladins have access to all Fighting Styles, this is a buff
• Paladins get a free Divine Smite once per day, this is a buff. Having it constantly prepared is neutral.
• Notably, every Smite spell was improved and buffed

Level 3:

• Loss of Divine Health, but looking at Lay on Hands it is possible that Disease has been removed entirely from the game. Neutral
• Divine Sense is now a Channel Divinity option, but it lasts longer instead of needing to be used every turn. It is also a bonus action to use, so you can sense the evil, then attack the evil. Overall, I'd call it a buff.
• Channel Divinity has double the number of uses and restores all of them on a short rest, upgrading to three per short rest at later levels. This is a massive buff.
• Devotion's Sacred Weapon moved from an action to activating as part of an attack, massive buff.
• Vengeance Vow of Enmity moved from a bonus action to activating as part of an attack, buff
• Ancient's Nature's Wrath went from a single target within 10 ft, who can save with dex or strength, to every target you choose within 15 ft and must use strength. Massive buff
• The Turn abilities for Devotion and Ancients got wrapped into the Abjure Foes, technically a nerf to those two subclasses, but better for the other subclasses. minor nerf at worst to the class.

Levels 4 and 5:
- Almost no changes, except for a free preparation and once daily casting of an improved Find Steed Spell that also wraps in Greater Find Steed without the need to prepare a different spell. Big Buff.

All of their capstones got shifted to being bonus actions which is a sizeable buff, Glory's aura got a massive buff, ancient's aura arguably was nerfed, Devotion's aura got a buff...

So, frankly, yes the Divine Smite specifically got a nerf. But on just about every single other aspect of the Paladin they were BUFFED. You also can't discount things like Cure Wounds getting a much needed buff, and other spells being tweaked and improved.

So, to claim that the paladin is just a worse version of itself... you would have to be claiming that delivering Divine Smites and literally no other ability was the entire point of the entire class. And if that is true.... then whoo boy, yeah, Divine Smite needed to be reigned in. Because it was overshadowing literally the entire class.

Sounds like a min-maxer got cut off by the bartender to me.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Sounds like a min-maxer got cut off by the bartender to me.

Nerfing Divine Smite to only once per turn is like being cut off by the bartender - completely warranted and everyone who isn't drunk saw it coming a mile away.

Making it counterspellable and requiring a bonus action is like being thrown in prison for a DUI even though you walked to the bar - completely overkill and not remotely warranted. This is the reason so many people are complaining, NOT because they nerfed the overpowered nova damage.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

And I don't see how you go through a 10 room dungeon and don't have 15 rounds of combat.

And that ultimately is likely why Divine Smite got nerfed.

Because there are a lot of tables running Dungeons and Dragons without the Dungeons.

5e and D&D historically is a resource management game. If you only run ~2 encounters per adventuring day, the 5e paladin and all the full casters are busted.

Why do we care about forcing game into a style of play no one is using, just because it's "historic" or "tradition"?

Considering they considered making eldritch blast and hunter's mark class exclusive and then backed off of it, WotC might consider poachability a feature, not a bug.

They should have at least made hunter's mark class exclusive.

That's the point.

That's why the subreddits, YouTubers, podcasters, and bloggers are mad.

They preferred abuse.

The way I see it, 5e's biggest problem is martial-caster disparity. For me half-casters are martials far more than they are casters, especially with how Paladin basically burns down their spell slots for smites. This specific move feels like it's taking something that was specific to a martial half-caster and making it something full casters can get, which WILL increase the gap and make casters even more above martials. It's a nerf that effectively tells the players they were wrong to have fun playing anything but full caster.

 

[FrogReaver]

Nerfing Divine Smite to only once per turn is like being cut off by the bartender - completely warranted and everyone who isn't drunk saw it coming a mile away.

Making it counterspellable and requiring a bonus action is like being thrown in prison for a DUI even though you walked to the bar - completely overkill and not remotely warranted. This is the reason so many people are complaining, NOT because they nerfed the overpowered nova damage.

So, how do you propose to keep someone from divine smiting and laying on hands on the same turn?

 

[Minigiant]

So, how do you propose to keep someone from divine smiting and laying on hands on the same turn?

Exactly.

If there is a

Spell Smite
and a
Not spell Smite.

That's 2 smites a turn.

 

[SteveC]

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.

They don't do the same thing for the rest of the day because they don't have the spell slots to do it. What you're saying is that a Paladin can do a whole bucket of damage once a day. Okay, that's fine. What do they do the rest of the day for all the other encounters? Middle of the road damage. And the characters who are optimized to do damage over time consistently do their thing. And the spell casters do theirs, and so on. The fact that a Paladin (or any other character) can do a lot of burst damage once or twice a day is how the class is intended to operate.

I read a ton of optimizers guides for character building, and I love reading Treantmonk as an example. He did a rating of all the classes and subclasses in the game, and none of the Paladin subclasses made S tier. The classes that did were the Cleric, the Druid, and the Wizard. The fact that the Paladin can do a lot of damage once a day is certainly nice (and a skilled Paladin marshals that out over the day), but does it make the class make other classes obsolete for damage purposes? Certainly not that I've seen. The fact that the Paladin is doing moderate damage for most of the day and then can spike once or twice is hardly making the DM's day miserable.

 

[mellored]

The fact that the Paladin can do a lot of damage once a day is certainly nice (and a skilled Paladin marshals that out over the day), but does it make the class make other classes obsolete for damage purposes? Certainly not that I've seen. The fact that the Paladin is doing moderate damage for most of the day and then can spike once or twice is hardly making the DM's day miserable.

If your talking nova optimization, you take paladin just to get smite, and go to a caster with multi-attack (Valor bard) to get slots to power it. Snag polearm master and possibly haste if you can pre-cast it.

Now you can smite 3-4 times each battle, for 3 encounters.

All of that is gone with a bonus action.

 

[FrogReaver]

Exactly.

If there is a

Spell Smite
and a
Not spell Smite.

That's 2 smites a turn.

Proposed solution would limit to one divine smite or smite spell per turn. IMO Bonus action isn’t needed to prevent anything there, it’s needed so you can’t smite and take other big bonus actions the same turn.

 

[FrogReaver]

Out of curiosity, was the bonus action divine smite spell in the playtest packet?