D&D 5E (2014) [GUIDE] My Word Is My Sword: The Paladin Guide

[Nephilm X]

No, I'd much rather have the ability to no-sell damage DEX spells and abilities like fireballs and breath attacks, than an extra 8~16 HP between short rests.

 

[Gladius Legis]

No, I'd much rather have the ability to no-sell damage DEX spells and abilities like fireballs and breath attacks, than an extra 8~16 HP between short rests.

1) Unless you're fighting a bunch of mages and dragons every day, I don't see how that's universally more beneficial.
2) It's 8~16 HP to everybody in the party, not just you.
3) Your DEX save, even with Aura of Protection, scales poorly. Your DEX is probably 10, and you're not taking Resilient for DEX, which would be a waste, so your DEX save at most will be +5. Most likely it'll be lower, because you're probably not going to have 20 CHA until high teen levels. Against DCs like 17 from the breath of a Young Red Dragon (CR 10), you're not going to be making that save too often in the first place. And the Shield Master DEX save bonus only applies when you're the only one targeted, so that won't help you, either.

EDIT: I'll use said Young Red Dragon's breath (56 damage, DC 17 save), vs. hypothetical Paladin with 16 CHA, 10 DEX (+3 DEX save):

w/ Shield Master = .65*56 = 36.4
w/o Shield Master = Above, + .35*28 = +9.8 difference

That 9.8 difference is less than a Lv. 7 Paladin with 16 CHA gets, just to himself, from Inspiring Leader.

 

[Nephilm X]

1) Because mages and dragons and ray shooters and nasty DEX traps are precisely the kind of scary challenges you want to be tough against, as they're the ones that push your limits.
2) And everyone who is expecting to take damage should be building their own defenses beyond a little bit of HP that goes away between fights.
3) Haste gives advantage on DEX saves. Also, if I was doing a SM build I'd actually go for 14 DEX and nab gloves and belts.

 

[Gladius Legis]

This is 5e, where building a character on the assumption that you're going to get a magic item is really not something you should be doing ...

 

[Nephilm X]

Depends on the DM or *cough* AL.

Keyword is "if", though.

 

[Benny89]

So my goal is to look at the non-prebuffed damage potential of 2 different paladin builds at level 13 after 2 rounds of combat. All damage will be weighted with accuracy. Criticals are being ignored. Smites will be applied. Haste and VOE will be cast the first turn.

One build has PAM and GWM with a glaive/halberd and GWF that only affects weapon damage. The other has PAM only and a spear with duelist. Both have a +1 weapon

vs_AC
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

PAM_Only
164
164
164
163
161
159
155
151
147
141

GWM+PAM
205
200
195
189
181
173
164
154
142
130

Summary: After factoring in smites PAM only wins nova damage over 2 rounds vs AC 19,20. PAM+GWM wins vs AC less than 18. At 15 AC PAM only does about 20 damage less than GWM on the 2 round nova including buffs which is about 11% lower.

Nice. This is what I was looking for. Around AC 17 the all pros of Spear hexadin build wins over raw dmg of GWM build. And usually the biggest bad guys (smite mode target) have good or very good AC. At around 17 AC the difference in Nova starts to be minimal and gap is shrinking from there.

This also confirms what I was thinking. That its more optimal to go Spear Shield before level 12/13 and take GWM At either 12/13 lvl ASI or even at 16/17. Before that it seems that its just not as benficial (though still valid and great build) due to low accuracy on lower levels.

I think I will stick to Spear n Shield Hexadin till 13 level and then see if GWM will be worth for me.

Again not saying PAM GWM is bad in any way but on my case where I am solo melee front line who needs most optimized option I think Hexadin wins. Not much dmg loss and a lot of other gains.

 

[Yunru]

Well the good news is that it's changes subtly from the tweet to the compendium (which now means it's official).
Now you have to take the Attack action first, but there's no mention of having to finish it.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well the good news is that it's changes subtly from the tweet to the compendium (which now means it's official).
Now you have to take the Attack action first, but there's no mention of having to finish it.

Wrong thread?

 

[Yunru]

Wrong thread?

Nope.

 

[FrogReaver]

Nope.

Then you might want to actually elaborate so the comment makes sense to those that have no clue what you are talking about or it’s significance to this thread.