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

[FrogReaver]

[MENTION=6983731]Benny89[/MENTION] I don't think you understand the math or theory behind most the default optimization suggestions.

A paladin self-casting haste on himself is vastly overrated.
A paladin using GWM is vastly overrated.

The biggest reasons are
#1 Damage Now vs Damage Later
#2 GWM's -5/+10 benefit is only really good when accuracy can be fixed some way. Paladins lack a non-action dependent universal accuracy fix. They do have bless but refer to #1 for why that isn't really a great idea. Vengance Paladins have their channel divinity but that only works on a single enemy once per short rest. PAM is more universally applicable and for many enemies it has a similar impact to GWM.

 

[Blue]

@Benny89 I don't think you understand the math or theory behind most the default optimization suggestions.

A paladin self-casting haste on himself is vastly overrated.
A paladin using GWM is vastly overrated.

The biggest reasons are
#1 Damage Now vs Damage Later
#2 GWM's -5/+10 benefit is only really good when accuracy can be fixed some way. Paladins lack a non-action dependent universal accuracy fix. They do have bless but refer to #1 for why that isn't really a great idea. Vengance Paladins have their channel divinity but that only works on a single enemy once per short rest. PAM is more universally applicable and for many enemies it has a similar impact to GWM.

While I don't agree with his findings in places, @Benny89 has a decent grasp. If the hit/crit percentages were the same they could be safely ignored - he missed that step. That's just a mistake, not a cardinal sin.

And pure anecdotal, but in SKT our vHuman Vengance Paladin with a 2H weapon and GWM was a real MVP when it came to damage. Of course, he was often blessed and hasted, and with giants there was little lost to overkill. And we also got to the point where the sorc could twin greater invis on his for constant advantage to really boost GWM +10, and the crits made divine strike more common like any paladin, but also enabled the bonus action attack.

 

[Benny89]

@Benny89 I don't think you understand the math or theory behind most the default optimization suggestions.

A paladin self-casting haste on himself is vastly overrated.
A paladin using GWM is vastly overrated.

The biggest reasons are
#1 Damage Now vs Damage Later
#2 GWM's -5/+10 benefit is only really good when accuracy can be fixed some way. Paladins lack a non-action dependent universal accuracy fix. They do have bless but refer to #1 for why that isn't really a great idea. Vengance Paladins have their channel divinity but that only works on a single enemy once per short rest. PAM is more universally applicable and for many enemies it has a similar impact to GWM.

EDIT: I stand corrected about Bless. My apologize for my mistake.

However it still doesn't change my mind that Damage Later is better if you have harder encounters and they don't end in 1-2 turns.

Rule of Thumb: the more turns fight last- the more GWM will outperform non-GWM PAM build on Paladin.

Yes it is Damage Now vs Damage Later but if you have enough higher Damage and your fights are no 1-turn ez-mode fights (if they are there is no point in optimization anyway) that higher damage will overperform lower damage the more turns you fight. Losing ONE bonus action, ONE bonus attack for having much higher DPR and Nova in next turns is very fair trade-off.

As for Channel Dinivity and Haste - you use that on Boss/Big Threat anyway so you said nothing new. Who waste VoE on something else? Haste + VoE again will overperform lower damage in next turn vs non-Haste non-GWM build.

I also showed you that we could easly NOT cast Haste on Boss fight and we would still outdamage non-GWM PAM even with 1 less attack.

I speak from experience playing tier 3 as Vengeance Paladin.

It's also a matter of your DM. If your DM throws at you Bosses that can be killed in 1 turn from just smites alone or encounters during day that can be end in 2 turns- then I tell you this: there is no point in optimizing builds anyway because everything will die anyway.

When I had 4th level as Vengeance Paladin I had one-on-one duel with CR9 Assassin and I killed that assassin in 4 or 5 turns. I had 2 HP left, used all my full Lay Down Hands and lived because I got good save throw vs Poison. Without GWM He would kill me because even will burning all Smites - it was barely enough damage. And those are the types of encounters my party face.

Also if you say Haste is overrated - your fights are not challanging enough. I can't imaginge fighting vs Bosses I face in at my table without extra AC, speed, action and attack and advantage on DEX saves (STR Paladin have poor DEX saves) because I literrally have to use all of that to beat encounter most of the time. My DM doesn't care about default CRs in DnD (adn that is good, because players scale way faster than monsters) and give us much higher CRs than we should be facing and that is where higher damage comes on top and losing 1 turn for setup/casting etc. is more beneficial. Also you seem to have mind set of fights as some sort of fights in cage where opponents (monster and players) goes in, referee says fight starts, they roll initiative and only then they can start fight. Unless it's an ambush situation - you can pre-cast Haste in 8/10 times before fight starts, at least that is my experience. Unless all your encounters are "suddenlly a wild encounter has appeared! You have to defend yourself" which is not my experience from playing RPGs.

Now this is why I prefer Damage Later vs Damage Now as in my games- fights don't end in 2 turns. Unless at your table your typical "Boss" when you are level 20 have less than 300 HP (then I don't know why to even care about optimizing...) and you can nuke it in first turn with just PAM + Smites.. However if that boss have 700HP you will fight it for probably more (considering more stuff going around) than 2 turns which is where GWM will come on top. 3 turns you will be a lot of dmg behind GWM build.

GWM will also vastly outperform non-GWM PAM build in fights vs hordes as usually hordes are low AC low HP enemies. GWM will allow for much faster clear up vs those too and as we know- hordes are issue for Paladins due to lack of AOE options. However being able to kill 1 enemy in horde in 1 or 2 attacks and killing 2-3 enemies per turn vs killing 1 per turn is a big benefit for Paladin.

It's like playing Bladurs Gate 2 solo at Easy mode vs playing it at Insane. On Easy mode you can just go in with armor and slash enemies and don't care. Build doesn't matter. On Insane however you will spend your first turn or even few to cast defensive spells etc. because otherwise you will be dead. This is not wasted turn- this is needed as longer you fight- you get more benefits from extra steps you have taken. Casting Haste + VoE in first turn to be able to oblitarate enemies in next turn more easly is not a big loss. And if you are able to pre-cast Haste before fight- it's then a pure advantange. It's roleplay game, not cRPG simulator.

 

[Benny89]

I think you're leaving chance out hit out of these calculations. If they were all the same chance to hit it would all wash out but when you need to take into consideration the -5 part of -5/+10 it makes a big difference in the expected DPR.

I won't go in into full math here but for the sake of argument let's say that even with VoE you miss 50% of time. No, you won't miss that often, I know, but let's say you will:

Quaterstaff/Spear + Shield (if you don't know Spear in errate was brought to PAM list) : Average 59 per turn.

Glaive + GWM: average 97 per turn. Both have the same crit chance as you attack the same amount of time.

So 59 average dmg vs 97/2=48,5 dmg.

So even if we would miss HALF time with PAM+GWM assuming we would hit EVERY time withy Spear/Quater + Shield build= we lose 11,5 dmg per turn.

50% misses are absolutely not accurate at all, but even in that scenario GWM is not much behind. Let's say we would miss 30% of time with GWM and hit every time again with Spear + Shield:

97 - 29,1 = 67,9 average damage vs 59 damage. Still ahead even if we miss flat 30% vs hitting every time (which is also not the case).

Also if we wanted to get even more into math we would have to calculate enemy AC vs Proficiency bonus because:

The lower AC - the more GWM is superier. The higher AC: the more GWM is inconsistent. However again- even at 50% of misses = it's not a big DPR difference.

Then we would also have to add VoE into action and high possiblity of having +1, +2 and +3 weapon.


If someone is interested in exact AC thershold at which you should always use GWM vs non using it, here is proper thread with math formula inside: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?472938-Great-Weapon-Mastery-How-to-5-10-Like-a-Pro

But I will paste a Quote from this thread just to point something:

"Example

• My 4th level Paladin's attack bonus is +6
• With my greatsword, the damage is 2d6+4, which is an average damage of 11. However, since I have the Great Weapon Fighting style, this increases to 12.33
• Plugging 6 and 12.33 into the formula, I get a max AC threshold of 15.835. If my target's AC is 15 or less, I should power attack
  
• My party Cleric likes to cast Bless, which bumps my attack bonus up to 8.5 (on average) resulting in a max AC threshold of 18.335. If I'm Blessed, I should power attack if the target's AC is 18 or less"

So as you can see even without Bless and VoE on level 4 - you should use GWM on max 15 AC enemies. Add Bless to it- we bring it up to AC 18. How many enemies you face on your typical CR scenario on level 4 with AC more that 18? If you are interested in whole math behind it etc. please visit thread as author is much smarter person than me when it comes to math.

 

[FrogReaver]

While I don't agree with his findings in places, @Benny89 has a decent grasp. If the hit/crit percentages were the same they could be safely ignored - he missed that step. That's just a mistake, not a cardinal sin.

And pure anecdotal, but in SKT our vHuman Vengance Paladin with a 2H weapon and GWM was a real MVP when it came to damage. Of course, he was often blessed and hasted, and with giants there was little lost to overkill. And we also got to the point where the sorc could twin greater invis on his for constant advantage to really boost GWM +10, and the crits made divine strike more common like any paladin, but also enabled the bonus action attack.

He thinks bless is a bonus action
He doesn’t understand why damage now is better than damage later
He think 100% chance to hit without GWM -5/+10 makes for a good comparison
He doesn’t factor in the extra str you could have instead of GWM into any of his comparisons.

That’s just the easy to spot problematic notions from his last 2 posts. You still think he has a good grasp on it?

 

[smbakeresq]

True.

Secondly of course GWM is better against low AC enemies AND enemies you can only hit on a 20. Power Attack in all its forms has always been that way.

Third, let me lobby for my version of GWM feat. I replace the first part, the -5/+10, allowing players to choose to subtract up to their proficiency bonus for an equal damage bonus if using a weapon in one hand, a 1.5x bonus if one hand weapon used in two hands, or 2x bonus if two handed weapon. This allows feat to grow with PC, allows anyone to take feat as the second part applies to any weapon, and makes the feat used more, all of those things are good for the players.

The more players get to use feats without having to reference a math cheat sheet at the table is a good thing.

 

[Benny89]

He thinks bless is a bonus action
He doesn’t understand why damage now is better than damage later
He think 100% chance to hit without GWM -5/+10 makes for a good comparison
He doesn’t factor in the extra str you could have instead of GWM into any of his comparisons.

That’s just the easy to spot problematic notions from his last 2 posts. You still think he has a good grasp on it?

You are correct with Bless, that is my mistake. We made houserule for it to be bonus action and I had it for so long I totally missed that. I stand corrected.

But you can check my posts above about GWM vs non-GWM chance to hit. And I also listed a thread which shows you how to calculate GWM AC threshold where you should use it or not.

Even at 30% misses vs 100% hits the GWM outdamages non-GWM PAM when it comes to DPR.

The more players get to use feats without having to reference a math cheat sheet at the table is a good thing.

I agree with that. I wish SS and GWM were more flexible in usage than what they are in RAW.

There is also another big thing which is Hasted Steed/Greater Steed with Mounted Combatant feat:

Not only you have reach with Glaive and you have 540 feet movement on Hasted Steed per turn but you also have perma-advantage vs Small and Medium creatures.

This also suddenly makes GWM a must pick because you have advantage on everything that is not Large and bigger, and for those you can use VoE.

Hasted Pegasus Mounted Combatant Vengeance Paladin is one of most broken builds in 5e.


On the other hand: let's say we don't take GWM feat. I would still use 2h weapon for two reasons:

1. Reach- 10 feet vs 5 is big advantage in many fights
2. RAW Great Weapon Fighting style- if your table uses pure RAW and allow Smites to be rerolled with GWF - I would prefer to use 2h on Paladin. If your DM does not allow Smite rerolls- then yeah, 2h without GWM suddenly becomes less attractive.
3. Sentinel - honestly if I didn't take GWM then I would 100% take Sentinel - it synergize with PAM + Relentless Avenger + Reach too well on vengeance paladin.

I also think we pretty much argue on apples vs oranges.

We also have to remember that Vengeance Paladin players does not play solo. What if he has Druid and Cleric on their team and Cleric spams Bless in Fights and Druids loves to use Fearie Fire often? Then GWM suddenly becomes so much better.

What if their party Wizard plays more like support and cast Haste in big fights on their Vengeance Paladin?

What if DM likes to throw higher CR enemies at party than what CR table says?

Since this is not cRPG there are always tons of factors that you can't just put to math.

I give example of my party. We have Hexblade Warlock who wanted to run around with Darkness + Devilsight combo. Since almost every encounter we face have enemy caster- in 9/10 times one Daylight spell (or Dispell) ends his whole combo.

So on paper when you talk about optimization- the combo looks good, math is behind it. However in gameplay scenario it might be totally useless.

 

[Gladius Legis]

@Benny89 I don't think you understand the math or theory behind most the default optimization suggestions.

A paladin self-casting haste on himself is vastly overrated.
A paladin using GWM is vastly overrated.

The biggest reasons are
#1 Damage Now vs Damage Later
#2 GWM's -5/+10 benefit is only really good when accuracy can be fixed some way. Paladins lack a non-action dependent universal accuracy fix. They do have bless but refer to #1 for why that isn't really a great idea. Vengance Paladins have their channel divinity but that only works on a single enemy once per short rest. PAM is more universally applicable and for many enemies it has a similar impact to GWM.

#1 is typically true, however, using that 3rd-level slot on Haste with GWM + VoE tends to make up the equivalent-level Smite damage within the first two rounds. All you have to do is hit with one hasted GWM + VoE attack doing 22 damage and you're already ahead of the 18 the Smite gives you. That's much quicker than the other examples often cited in the damage now/damage later comparison (e.g. Divine Favor, Hunter's Mark). So Haste is still likely to be worth its spell slot vs. a Smite.

Also as for #2, you only ever, at most, get three 3rd-level spell slots to cast Haste with, which is about the number of times you can expect to use VoE in a typical adventuring day. Which probably means you're only casting it in a battle where you'd use VoE, anyway.

 

[Benny89]

#1 is typically true, however, using that 3rd-level slot on Haste with GWM + VoE tends to make up the equivalent-level Smite damage within the first two rounds. All you have to do is hit with one hasted GWM + VoE attack doing 22 damage and you're already ahead of the 18 the Smite gives you. That's much quicker than the other examples often cited in the damage now/damage later comparison (e.g. Divine Favor, Hunter's Mark). So Haste is still likely to be worth its spell slot vs. a Smite.

Also as for #2, you only ever, at most, get three 3rd-level spell slots to cast Haste with, which is about the number of times you can expect to use VoE in a typical adventuring day. Which probably means you're only casting it in a battle where you'd use VoE, anyway.

Not only that but Haste is not only just extra attack, but also +2 AC, Advantage on Dex saves (many damage spells/cone attacks/breath etc.) and 60 feet movement speed. I think FrogReaver highly underestimate all those benefits in fight. And also as I said- in typical real-life gameplay at table, not on excel sheets- you are able many times to pre-cast Haste before fight due to simple roleplay reason/attack planning/approaching enemy ground/dialogue option etc.

Not to mention we only think in terms of that one-big bad guy. But many times you have get through smaller enemies first (which might also be challanging foes) or who said there is only one big guy? Haste lasts 1 minute so 10 turns. That is 10 turns of not only smitting Boss enemy, but also attacking additional time other enemies in encounter, bonus AC vs range foes defensing their boss, 2x movement speed equal to normal dash thanks to which you can chase enemies, get to your ally to help them or use Hands on them, better usage of Relentless Avenger due to 30 free movement speed, moving from enemy to enemy without wasting turn because of movement speed.

Real-life gameplay at table is not turn-based computer game. I think to many people treat optimized builds here as some sort of PvP 1v1 simulations where everything is set in stone. That is not how table RPG works.

 

[Nephilm X]

I won't go in into full math here but for the sake of argument let's say that even with VoE you miss 50% of time. No, you won't miss that often, I know, but let's say you will:

*snip*

My friend, I linked you an anydice damage calculator so you can quickly and easily test and share your scenarios without pulling assumptions such as this out of thin air.

Verbose arguments go nowhere when substantiated by dubious napkin math