D&D 5E [GUIDE] My Word Is My Sword: The Paladin Guide

[slaughterj]

Paladins can switch spells. So if you know your fighting a green dragon, then yes, you can prepare it for the day, but your likely going to drop it for the next.

Many days you can run into foes with poison though. I am presently playing a 6th level Devotion Paladin, who already gets oath spells of Lesser Restoration and Zone of Truth, and there are limited second level spells of value otherwise. I take Aid, and you don't need Find Steed every day, so I am including Protection from Poison with some frequency just in case.

I am also using Shield of Faith regularly, because the first round I am using a standard action to charge up the sword with the devotion power, so then I use the bonus action to cast Shield of Faith, and then use Shield Master for bonus thereafter. And because the Shield Master uses the bonus, I am not particularly interested in any of the smite spells that use it as they take bonus actions to cast and eat up concentration slots even if you immediately hit, just seems better to add them as smite damage. Further, Shield of Faith has worked out to be about a 2nd level Cure Wounds cast in advance as a bonus action for the amount of damage it has saved on average from those swings that miss by 1-2 points.

While Bless is great, since the devotion takes a round already, I do not often see myself spending a second action to set up Bless as well, though perhaps Bless can be a backup to use the first round when there is a second combat before a short rest and the devotion power has not recharged (which is extremely rare as we are playing Red Hand of Doom and it is a lot of once a day scenarios with overland travel).

 

[Dersu]

I am currently playing a paladin in a campaign with friends. I chose the Oath of vengeance as it offers some really unique interactions and options for battlefield control and mobility.

The feature on the Vengeance list that doesn't seem to get a lot of attention is Relentless Avenger. At first it seems like a cool way to chase anyone that would try to escape your martial prowess; But since it triggers off of opportunity attacks, any feats or abilities that expand on when OA's happen also expands when the Relentless Avenger movement can occur.

Like for example the Polearm Mastery feat. Now instead of waiting for a creature to leave your reach, you can react the moment they enter it. This turns Relentless Avenger into a powerful defensive maneuver. A creature enters your reach, you swing and hit it with the polearm mastery reaction attack, and now can move half your speed away from or past the creature that just triggered you.

Also the sentinel feat, which has been touted as an incredible partner to the above polearm mastery feat, has it's own tricks. Not only do your OA's now stop an assailant dead in it's tracks, you are also granted an OA if you are within 5 feat of a hostile creature and they attack someone other than you. This lets you get up close and personal with a beast and then reposition if they attempt to get at your squishier allies.

All of these Relentless Avenger moves are free from triggering hostile OA's. So they can be used to get into an enemy's back line to threaten their ranged support.

Combine these options with misty step, abjure enemy, compelled duel, and haste and you have a very durable character that can control when and where they engage the enemy. Overall I really like how this build is playing out right now, it makes me feel like a divinely powered, heavily armored, warrior monk.

 

[Dersu]

*double post*

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Nice document, and a fun read. Your comments on Wrathful Smite were a real eye-opener for me. I can't believe I never realized before what a great synergy that is.

I do have a couple of quick comments, if you don't mind the input:

You list Aura of Vitality as gold, and it is, so much so that the existence of Aura of Vitality makes most smites actually pretty bad. It is a rare fight when inflicting 18 points of damage with a 3rd level smite is better than healing 70 (or 140, or 240) points of damage after combat. The only real exception is when you're dealing with a single big bad enemy with a huge AoE effect, like a Meteor Swarm or dragon breath in an enclosed area.

Aura of Vitality is sometimes worth starting early, during combat, as a sort of quasi-Heavy Armor Master/Heroism effect which also heals unconscious allies as a bonus action.

A general look at all the classes will show you that the class’ 5th level is where a MASSIVE power jump occurs, particularly offensively. Warrior-type classes get their Extra Attack at that level. Full spellcaster classes get 3rd-level spells, the first real powerful level of spells. For Rogues, that’s when Sneak Attack really starts taking off. While all classes have their other major and significant levels, Lv. 5 is the first and most important of them all.

Ergo, if you’re going for a multiclass build of any sort, your first goal is to hit Lv. 5 in one class ASAP, likely your major. Pretty much without exception. Which means if you’re starting and majoring as a Paladin, you want to be a Paladin 5 and get Extra Attack before you even think of branching out.

A Paladin who multiclasses to Paladin 1/Sorcerer 1 or Warlock 1 and learns Booming Blade still gets a big boost in power at level 5, though. His Booming Blade now does 2d8+STR (plus 2d8 more if the enemy moves), inflicting up to 40% more damage than Extra Attack would have done anyway. Melee cantrips mitigate the opportunity cost of multiclassing early.

Also the sentinel feat, which has been touted as an incredible partner to the above polearm mastery feat, has it's own tricks. Not only do your OA's now stop an assailant dead in it's tracks, you are also granted an OA if you are within 5 feat of a hostile creature and they attack someone other than you. This lets you get up close and personal with a beast and then reposition if they attempt to get at your squishier allies.

Here's a bit of trivia: Sentinel does not actually stop anyone from bypassing you. It is always possible to get away from a Sentinel via Readied Move. Since Sentinel only drops your speed to 0 for the remainder of your turn, what you do is:

1.) Try to move past/around the Sentinel.
2.) If he misses you, go for the squishies.
3.) If he hits you, your speed drops to zero for the remainder of your turn. Ready an action to move towards the squishies as soon as anyone else takes a turn.
4.) On the next guy's turn, your speed is no longer zero and you now use your reaction to move towards a squishy.

Sentinel still has value in that it's preventing you from actually attacking on this turn, but he can't stop you from moving​.

 

[Kalanthas]

Here's a bit of trivia: Sentinel does not actually stop anyone from bypassing you. It is always possible to get away from a Sentinel via Readied Move. Since Sentinel only drops your speed to 0 for the remainder of your turn, what you do is:

1.) Try to move past/around the Sentinel.
2.) If he misses you, go for the squishies.
3.) If he hits you, your speed drops to zero for the remainder of your turn. Ready an action to move towards the squishies as soon as anyone else takes a turn.
4.) On the next guy's turn, your speed is no longer zero and you now use your reaction to move towards a squishy.

Sentinel still has value in that it's preventing you from actually attacking on this turn, but he can't stop you from moving​.

Really? Can you ready an action that involves movement before your next turn if you don't have any left?

 

[Dersu]

When you ready an action it is occurring on a turn that is not your own. The sentinel feat drops your speed to 0 for the rest of that turn. The trick to get past a person with sentinel would technically work, but it's usefulness is of dubious value.

If you manage to make it past the person with sentinel, you've consumed your action on your turn and your reaction to do it. So even if you land in the lap of the enemy mage, they can simply walk away from you with no consequence, and next turn the character with sentinel can walk up to you again forcing you to deal with their OA all over again.

It might be good to outright escape and run away from someone with sentinel. But even if you readied the dash action, the person with sentinel could dash and catch up to you provided they have the same or greater speed than you, which forces the whole sentinel OA situation again.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Added Magic Initiate to the feats. Especially with the SCAG out, that second cantrip after Eldritch Blast can be used for something nice, too, like Green-Flame Blade or Sword Burst.

 

[Quartz]

Excellent document. Can I suggest you expand it in two ways:

1. Expand the spell critiques to consider scrolls that the Paladin may use or scribe.

2. Expand the feat critique to consider characters who always take feats instead of ASIs.

 

[Yunru]

I don't get why Tieflings are rated so low when they can bow be pratically identical to Aaracorca which are light blue.

Wait no, they get more than Aaracorca, although a slower fly speed.

 

[slaughterj]

Aura of Vitality is sometimes worth starting early, during combat, as a sort of quasi-Heavy Armor Master/Heroism effect which also heals unconscious allies as a bonus action.

A Paladin is likely only going to have around +5 to CON saves (+2 from CON, +3 from CHA bonus) for making concentration checks, but is likely to get hit regularly (high AC will mitigate some, but given the volume of attacks directed, some will still hit), triggering at a minimum DC 10 Concentration check (often higher by the time you are level 9 and can cast Aura of Vitality, due to higher damage of foes at that level), meaning at least a 20% chance of losing the spell. Plus it takes an action to cast. So I would rarely consider casting it in combat, much less early in combat, given you might well get nothing more out of it than using your full action to cast and bonus action to activate to heal the equivalent of a Healing Word for one round, and then lose it in the next round or two from failed Concentration check.