Sacrosanct
Legend
Clearly this is a worse paladin. Obviously so, because he's not using GWM. What a gimp. Why would he ever use a shield? Offense DPR is always better. He deserves to die.
Building a worse Paladin
- Thread starter Gladius Legis
- Start date
BookBarbarian
Expert Long Rester
Well, whatever the reason was, I'm glad we have another thread to mock paladins in.
I suppose I could make a worse one by using Find Steed to find two halves of a coconut.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Dammit! I was saving that one for the Knight of the Flying Circus sub-class!
JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
Apparently this thread isn't actually for the purpose of actually discussing paladins, so I will spin my wheels and do just that.
I ran a campaign staring within a month of 5e coming out and lasting until early this year. The 5 man party consisted of an abjurer wizard, an arcane trickster, a vengeance paladin, and two others PC slots filled by various adventurers due to character deaths and retirements). I had a couple problems with the paladin as far as party balance went.
1. The paladin usually dealt 50-60% of all the damage done by the party in most battle. The ONLY other PC that came close to being able to match that was one of the monk builds, and that came at the expense of any sort of defense for that monk. Some of this disparity was the smite ability (Usable multiple times a round and never wasted by declaring before an attack roll), but also was the combination of the GWF enhancing feats.
2. The +6 to every save made around me buff is much stronger than "bounded accuracy" says it should be.
3. Oaths, breaking oaths, and the consequences. There aren't many situations where the vengeance paladin is forced into interesting choices due to his oath. Is it attacking me? Has it attacked someone? Is it thinking of attacking at some point in the future? Vengeance!
My suggestions for a "fairer" paladin...
Leave divine smite alone, except only allow it versus particular foes. No divine smiting a bear that's attacking you because you ventured into its cave. Similarly use the same "targeting guidelines" for the ongoing spells that smite. Finally, make the paladins aura save bonus slowly increase based on level and not an immediate +6 because you maxed out your CHA.
I ran a campaign staring within a month of 5e coming out and lasting until early this year. The 5 man party consisted of an abjurer wizard, an arcane trickster, a vengeance paladin, and two others PC slots filled by various adventurers due to character deaths and retirements). I had a couple problems with the paladin as far as party balance went.
1. The paladin usually dealt 50-60% of all the damage done by the party in most battle. The ONLY other PC that came close to being able to match that was one of the monk builds, and that came at the expense of any sort of defense for that monk. Some of this disparity was the smite ability (Usable multiple times a round and never wasted by declaring before an attack roll), but also was the combination of the GWF enhancing feats.
2. The +6 to every save made around me buff is much stronger than "bounded accuracy" says it should be.
3. Oaths, breaking oaths, and the consequences. There aren't many situations where the vengeance paladin is forced into interesting choices due to his oath. Is it attacking me? Has it attacked someone? Is it thinking of attacking at some point in the future? Vengeance!
My suggestions for a "fairer" paladin...
Leave divine smite alone, except only allow it versus particular foes. No divine smiting a bear that's attacking you because you ventured into its cave. Similarly use the same "targeting guidelines" for the ongoing spells that smite. Finally, make the paladins aura save bonus slowly increase based on level and not an immediate +6 because you maxed out your CHA.
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