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]

Did it though? Like... if they were bad spells, why not just remove them and use the spaces to diversify some other caster? Are you afraid of hurting the Smite Spells' feeling or something? Even in Universe it's not alive! Why the insistence that Paladins should use those other, inferior, options? Why is the 'solution' to nerf the one people like and not buffing the ones they don't like?

Because paladin's smite. And more options is more fun. Divine Smite was pure damage, nothing else, and objectively superior to every other option. Which made it boring. So boring to the point where the main thing people considered was saving their smites ONLY for critical hits to get even more damage.

Now, there are options with utility.

And why is it a bad thing that Paladins uses the class feature WotC gave them? Why the need to make Paladins 'actually cast spells'? Will the game break if someone decides not to engage with the mighty spell list?

Why bother having a spell list if you never use it? Sure, maybe you liked only using Divine Smite. Other people might be like "hey, I can now deal with an invisible enemy by smiting the invisibility off of them" and like that. Why are you so upset that people are getting more options now?

 

[Gladius Legis]

And why is it a bad thing that Paladins uses the class feature WotC gave them? Why the need to make Paladins 'actually cast spells'? Will the game break if someone decides not to engage with the mighty spell list?

I mean, to play devil's advocate, spellcasting is also a class feature.

 

[Undrave]

I mean, to play devil's advocate, spellcasting is also a class feature.

True, true, I mostly meant in combat.

 

[Oofta]

I mean, to play devil's advocate, spellcasting is also a class feature.

In addition, smites were always "spells but not spells" since they used a spell slot. It was always kind of a weird implementation. I can understand requiring a bonus action causing an issue even if it doesn't bother me but making it a spell? I just don't see much of an issue.

 

[occam]

So Polearm Mastery is pretty much a trap for Paladins at this point. Same for TWF. You want to keep your bonus action for your smite so you can't take options that give you more of those because you won't be using them as often as someone who doesn't have smite so it's pretty much a subpar option.

If you're saving your slots to smite on crits, then you'll only be using your PA/TWF bonus actions... 95% as often as anyone else. Calling them traps seems excessive.

 

[Stalker0]

In addition, smites were always "spells but not spells" since they used a spell slot.

Yep its always been a weird middle ground. I mean take the old ancient's aura (aka resistance to spell damage), does a smite count because it consumed a spell slot?

does an anti-magic field stop smits from working? I mean they aren't a spell....but kind of a spell.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Mearls once said that bonus actions were a bad idea because it felt like if you weren't using it, you were ripping yourself off for potential power. He thought they should be eliminated. I used to agree with him on this, but I feel more and more he was looking at the problem from the wrong angle. The fact that something as potent as smite could be used freely (as long as you had the slots to fuel it) and combined so well with other actions a paladin could use to nova shows the BA should be used as a balancing option. D&D combat is weirdly swingy and it's very easy to end dramatic battles before the fight begins and that has likewise led to HP bag monster design. A powerful foe like a vampire cannot withstand a paladin doing 100 points of radiant damage in a single turn. At a certain point, something as potent as 5d8 radiant damage (double on a crit) needs to cost you other tactical advantage.

This is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure BAs live up to this. Like, a simpler thing for Smite would be to give it a "Once per Round (or Turn, if you want to give them a little bit more ability" limit which would still limit things while allowing them to use their tools with their class feature.

I'm generally not on the side of BAs, but I think there might be value there if you were to make it a sort of "Class Action", something where you could make it so that certain features that are keyed off actions would use that action, so that you were doing stuff that mattered to your class with it. This idea is very underbaked (I'm just sort of thinking of it off the top of my head) but if you did that and just had the more mundane old uses for BA (like off-hand attacks) consolidated as special additions to regular Actions ("Hey, if you have off-hand weapon you get one attack for your Attack Action with that weapon!"), that might be something interesting? It might also be something that allows you to balance power combos by making it more difficult to use certain class features together or something. I dunno, just sort of spitballing.

IMO, having different types of actions, as well a different levels of spells, forces you to do different things.

Otherwise you could easily end up spamming your best move over and over.

In Pathfinder 2 for instance, you get 3 actions. Sounds simple, but then they needed to add in a clunky penalty for attacking multiple times. And many turns are still doing a 2 action "main" move + 1 action "bonus" move.

lol, it's not really "clunky" given how simple it is. It really helps that non-magical strikes are very strong individually, even at higher levels, so you don't need to balance the weakness of strikes against, say, scaling cantrips by trying to hand out attacks like candy. Also allows martials to do fun stuff like "Trip, then attack" out of the box instead of having to wait until they get two attacks to do it.

And you really miss the point of the system when you say "Well, it's just a 'Two-Action' thing and then a 'One-Action' thing", because with everything defined in the same currency means that you can do a whole bunch of different combos with it. There's no argument to whether or not I can cast a Bonus Action spell as an Action or anything like that, no need to care about if I can cast a Spell then a Bonus Action spell; if you have the actions, it's okay.

 

[mellored]

Also allows martials to do fun stuff like "Trip, then attack" out of the box instead of having to wait until they get two attacks to do it.

Trip, then attack with a -5 penalty is kinda clunky.

Don't get me wrong, I'd be happy to play a PF2 game. But you still need extra rules to prevent spamming the same thing.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Trip, then attack with a -5 penalty is kinda clunky.

Don't get me wrong, I'd be happy to play a PF2 game. But you still need extra rules to prevent spamming the same thing.

Nah, Trip, then attack with a -3 Penalty because someone on the ground is Off-guard.

I dunno, I feel like MAP is one of the really easy things to pick up and I don't really think it's "clunky", any more than a +5 to AC for Cover can be. It's a simple thing, and with MAP it makes for a bunch of different strategies to try and minimize or get around it like the Trip/Attack I just outlined or using Agile weapons to lessen it. Clunky is... like, I dunno, poisons in PF2.

Credit to where it's due: 5E weapon masteries seem like they are in a better place then they were at the start of the playtest where it was all "Make a save" nightmares. Still not sure I'd want to do a bunch of attacks with them, but at the same time they are much more intelligently integrated. Even like what they did with Nick and Light weapons, though I think (in general) they should have just made that a light weapon thing.

 

[Weiley31]

I still think that Paladins should've gotten a once per long rest, free casting of their Oath Spells. If ya want to use em again after that, then ya fork over a Spell slot. This would still allow Paladins to Smite, but they at least would be get some spell action on.