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

Garthanos · Mar 16, 2020

Fanaelialae said:
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

Evidence seems to be that people usually have far fewer encounters per day...to what extent they are increasing the difficulty or whatever its harder to tell but a class dependent on short rest resources will get less bang for their bucks in what might be the most common play environment.

I suspect actually that people are not comparing to other daily resource classes.

Stalker0 · Mar 16, 2020

A 20 cha Paladin with their aura completely changes the math on saving throw encounter difficulty. My party has waltzed through fights when lots of saves because of it.

mare they the top? Probably not. Do I think they are the top fighting class? I do

Weiley31 · Mar 16, 2020

Gladius Legis said:
Eh, I don't think the steed needs to be buffed. Something you get from one memorized spell + one spell slot should have more limitations than an entire subclass' key feature.

Mostly I was just pointing out that the steed does indeed have those limitations. And that's OK.

MOAR HORSEPOWER!!!

Worrgrendel · Mar 16, 2020

Stalker0 said:
A 20 cha Paladin with their aura completely changes the math on saving throw encounter difficulty. My party has waltzed through fights when lots of saves because of it.

mare they the top? Probably not. Do I think they are the top fighting class? I do

For the vast majority of their career (level 6 - 17), the paladin's aura is only a 10 ft radius. I have got to say, as a DM who ran a campaign to level 17 that included a paladin, if you let the group fight in a 10 ft radius cluster around the paladin on a regular basis, and do not punish them for that, then that is absolutely on the DM. Spread fights out or AOE the bejeesus out of them when they do turtle up. Even multiple fireballs with save for half will whittle a party down quickly.

Minigiant · Mar 16, 2020

Worrgrendel said:
For the vast majority of their career (level 6 - 17), the paladin's aura is only a 10 ft radius. I have got to say, as a DM who ran a campaign to level 17 that included a paladin, if you let the group fight in a 10 ft radius cluster around the paladin on a regular basis, and do not punish them for that, then that is absolutely on the DM. Spread fights out or AOE the bejeesus out of them when they do turtle up. Even multiple fireballs with save for half will whittle a party down quickly.

Well again.

A lot of that comes down to D&D and many DMs heavily focusing on big slow melee HP sacks as foes. Even many "spellcasting monsters" Wade into melee combat for long periods of time.

This benefits paladins who can nova these giants while holding their own cleaning up mobs of goblins. Especially when you actually dungeon crawl and have fights with limited space and foes.

TwoSix · Mar 16, 2020

Worrgrendel said:
For the vast majority of their career (level 6 - 17), the paladin's aura is only a 10 ft radius. I have got to say, as a DM who ran a campaign to level 17 that included a paladin, if you let the group fight in a 10 ft radius cluster around the paladin on a regular basis, and do not punish them for that, then that is absolutely on the DM. Spread fights out or AOE the bejeesus out of them when they do turtle up. Even multiple fireballs with save for half will whittle a party down quickly.

Yea, I agree. It's very nice personally for the paladin, but as a group buff, it's heavily dependent on making tactical decisions to benefit from it, and those decisions usually have some negatives attached to them.

Lidgar · Mar 16, 2020

TwoSix said:
Yea, I agree. It's very nice personally for the paladin, but as a group buff, it's heavily dependent on making tactical decisions to benefit from it, and those decisions usually have some negatives attached to them.

Maybe. But as Minigiant said, the 10' radius is pretty strong in a dungeon crawl environment, which my gaming group does a lot of.

Also, what are the typical tactics for attacking clusters of PC's? IME, AOE spells/abilities: the very thing that most often allows saving throw for half damage.

In any case, even it is just the paladin that most often benefits from aura, having a single Super PC that makes most saves AND is a nova damage dealer AND can heal on whim...

TwoSix · Mar 16, 2020

Lidgar said:
Maybe. But as Minigiant said, the 10' radius is pretty strong in a dungeon crawl environment, which my gaming group does a lot of.

Also, what are the typical tactics for attacking clusters of PC's? IME, AOE spells/abilities: the very thing that most often allows saving throw for half damage.

In any case, even it is just the paladin that most often benefits from aura, having a single Super PC that makes most saves AND is a nova damage dealer AND can heal on whim...

Oh, absolutely it's situation-dependent. My groups don't do many dungeon crawls or scenarios in tight spaces, so for me, it hasn't come up very much.

As for the cluster of PCs, I look at it the other way; the best way to avoid a fireball is to stand far apart so that no one bothers to cast a fireball on you. Clustering around the paladin just makes a generally poor tactical decision (grouping up tightly) into a less bad but still bad decision, unless single target but strong save effects are being deployed.

Minigiant · Mar 16, 2020

Paladin is just greatly helped by the nostalgic tone of 5e.

Most of the monsters from level 1-10 are sacks of hp. Some have some sort of ranged attack but rarely are those remarkable. There are very few casters. The Mage monster is CR 6 with only 40 HP. It'll rarely get out it's 3 fireballs and 1COC before death. And it is so high in CR that by the time a DM can add a monster than can tank for it without TPK, most campaigns are over.

That's before you get into short days and bungeon crawling.

Everything is coming up Paladin on the 5e slot machine.

Fenris-77 · Mar 16, 2020

If you want to run sacks of HPs as a DM that's up to you. The lower tier encounters don't have to play like that. The Paladin is, for example, awful at range. Smart tactical play on the part of the monsters changes a lot. Oh look, a Paladin, lets pepper him with arrows until he stops moving....

A lot of games seem to be run as 'monsters fight until they're dead' without a lot of additional thought put in. That's bad for draining resources, it's bad for challenging the players, and it's generally bad for the overall enjoyment level of the game. I'm not point the finger at anyone in this thread, just making a general observation.

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

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

Stalker0

Legend

Weiley31

Legend

Worrgrendel

Explorer

Minigiant

Legend

TwoSix

Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer

Lidgar

Gongfarmer

TwoSix

Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer

Minigiant

Legend

Fenris-77

Small God of the Dozens

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