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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nephilm X" data-source="post: 7553401" data-attributes="member: 6983866">@FR1. Death comes from failing Death Saving Throws. Dropping to 0 HP every so often happens and is normal, you just make sure to have a Healing Word handy or pick players up before they expire. A little bit more wiggle room on your starting HP bars is nice but it's more important to decide the course of the battle before people start dropping.As for why not Paladin? That's because the class wants Strength, Charisma, Constitution, and Feats. Everything it's expected to do scales off three stats and severely benefits from feats. Sorcerer and Bard on the other hand, played straight as casters, only care about maxing their CHA and keeping concentration with War Caster and/or Resilient(CON). That's it.Inspiring Leader is a general feat - anyone with 13+ CHA can grab it and hand out the party-wide benefits, so why take it on the class that already has half a dozen other excellent things it wants to take to be better at its job?2. Yeah, as an individual member of the party, it's unlikely you'll be the party's sole source of damage (though in the chaos of combat it's happened to me more than once). However, not everyone deals damage the same, and this comes down to party class composition and how they're are building or playing.Let's say you have a "balanced" 5 man party: Paladin, Cleric, Archer, Wizard, Bard. Of those, save for specific Magical Secrets Bards are bad at individual target damage, Wizards likewise unless they're nuking. Clerics are middling. So over half the focus damage, that which takes down baddies so that they stop hitting back, and which deals with big scary enemies, is going to be coming from the Archer and the Paladin. That's a big proportion of damage falling onto the Paladin's shoulders, for when damage is called upon as the best tool for the job (ie Legendary Resistance enemies). How good you're at it matters.OTOH if you're a Paladin in a party with 3 semi-competent fighters and barbarians, then sure build for Charisma and make everyone better. That's perfectly valid.However, in regards to personal defensive abilities, the truth is that, even if they sometimes last longer, fights are usually decided in the first 4 rounds if not earlier. Ergo, you only need build to be reasonably sure you can fight through and contribute as much as you can for those 4 turns - there is such a thing as building too defensive. Attrition is a losing proposition from a gameplay perspective, as not only does it prolong combat in real time and thus eats the from the session budget, but also the system in general disproportionately increases offense ability vs defense for similar expenditure of resources and 'character options'. Player Characters are glass cannons and the rocket tag is real - the system math just ends up working out that way, and punishes you for going against the grain.3. No, no: I did the analysis while factoring in smites. It really *is* that big of a difference. And the party having 30% higher DPR is huge. I think damage is actually really under-appreciated as a tool in a party's arsenal, given how much it can widen the range of threats having it allows you to take on while standing a decent chance of succeeding. Damage ends fights. Every round longer a fight lasts, every other turn an enemy gets, is a chance a nasty ability will be used against you, or a party member will drop Concentration, or a party member will decide "actually, we're losing" and turn tail, or another spell you'll have to (or they'll feel they need to) spend to maintain the battle under control. It matters.And yeah HAM is nice early... after 5, though?Protection, though, is garbage through and through. You only get one reaction. It imposes disadvantage on single enemy attack per round. I'm firmly convinced it's a development artifact back when the game didn't have Extra Attack/Multi-Attack and everything scaled off higher damage die.</blockquote>

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