D&D 5E An Argument for Why Paladins are the Strongest Class in 5E D&D

Fanaelialae · Mar 16, 2020

Paladin is a great class. However, I wouldn't say it's the best except (perhaps) in a campaign where they are permitted to regularly go nova.

In a campaign where there are 6-8 encounters an adventuring day that won't be the case. In a campaign where the players think that there might be 6-8 encounters it also isn't an issue. It doesn't really make a difference whether the paladin expends all of their slots smiting over the course of a long day, or holds them in reserve because they aren't confident that more encounters are coming. As long as they aren't going nova, the class is solid but not over the top.

In any case, nova also favors full casters heavily (who also have far greater versatility), so I don't really agree that paladin is the strongest class. Maybe for a limited subset of levels, after they gain smite but before the full casters really come into their own. It's a very good class though, overall.

Coroc · Mar 16, 2020

To OP agree you did a good summary

Maxperson · Mar 16, 2020

Garthanos said:
What did the polls indicate people rarely do more than 3 and usually 2 or even 1 a day?

That's why you use the optional rule to make a long rest 7 days and a short rest 1 day. Then you don't have to have 6-8 encounters in a single day. You can do 2 on day 1, 1 on day 2, 0 on day 3, 3 on day 4, none on days 5 and 6, and 1 on day 7. Or any other combination of 6-8 that you want.

Minigiant · Mar 16, 2020

The weakness of Paladins in the past was that their Smites and their spells were too weak or few to leverage across the adventure day.

5e fixed that but combining and boosting both.

Lidgar · Mar 16, 2020

Aura, Aura, Aura!

Me hates itsss!

Seriously. I can put up with nova smites all day long. But the massive boost aura gives to saves seriously reduces the challenge of many encounters to a cake walk.

Garthanos · Mar 16, 2020

Maxperson said:
That's why you use the optional rule to make a long rest 7 days and a short rest 1 day. Then you don't have to have 6-8 encounters in a single day. You can do 2 on day 1, 1 on day 2, 0 on day 3, 3 on day 4, none on days 5 and 6, and 1 on day 7. Or any other combination of 6-8 that you want.

You could soup up the difficulty of individual battles too... Up to a point that works though not all the way down to one or two. I have some house rules that allow adjustments for that.

werecorpse · Mar 16, 2020

Imo the issue is how much better than other classes in their niche are they.

Imo a lot.

When 3e came out they had a strong lobby group, same as 5e

MonkeezOnFire · Mar 16, 2020

I think it's hard to compare classes that are meant to do different things as they help the party succeed in different ways. Is the paladin a stronger class than the wizard? I don't know. But when you compare the paladin to it's martial peers then I feel it does stand out.

The paladin is a "half caster" that ends up getting more than half of a fighter's ability to fight. Full weapon and armour proficiency, d10 hit die, and fighting style are granted. On top of that you add half of spellcasting progression and a dedicated healing resource and that's one strong class.

Their only major downside is lack of flexibility in fighting. They're very strongly pushed to melee weapons so they can't engage in ranged combat as effectively.

fearsomepirate · Mar 16, 2020

2 levels of Warlock, and the Paladin's got two slots that recharge on a short rest, can add Hex damage to his melee attacks on top of the smites, and is as potent at range as anybody else.

IMO Eldritch Blast should have been a class feature, but IMO isn't RAW.