D&D 5E (2014) what would you play?

[DaveDash]

[MENTION=54629]pukunui[/MENTION] Well Paladins are a great class, and I find them fun. My group has one, and he makes all those nasty save effects pretty much a non-issue. Having that extra healing buffer is great too.

Try and pester your DM for a Javelin of Lightning or something though.

 

[PnPgamer]

Earlier was said paladin vs fighter, out of those two id go paladin, as there is never enough healing in a party, and paladin is the best class to do it.

One other tanky type is barbarian. Especially with bear totem, you get half damage practically out of EVERYTHING. Barbarians are notnecessarily savage, you can make a barbarian noble if you like. Tribe chieftain or even a king.

 

[pukunui]

[MENTION=54629]pukunui[/MENTION] Well Paladins are a great class, and I find them fun. My group has one, and he makes all those nasty save effects pretty much a non-issue. Having that extra healing buffer is great too.

Cool. What kind of paladin is the one in your group? Do the other PCs often benefit from his auras? I'm a bit concerned they won't benefit the others much since they only extend out by 10 feet. The guys in my group are old veterans so they're always wary of clustering together in case of fireballs.

Try and pester your DM for a Javelin of Lightning or something though.

He's actually letting me have a moonblade!

Earlier was said paladin vs fighter, out of those two id go paladin, as there is never enough healing in a party, and paladin is the best class to do it.

One other tanky type is barbarian. Especially with bear totem, you get half damage practically out of EVERYTHING. Barbarians are notnecessarily savage, you can make a barbarian noble if you like. Tribe chieftain or even a king.

Barbarians aren't really my thing, so I think paladin (with a bit of bard or warlock and possibly a level or two of fighter) will be what I go with!

 

[DaveDash]

Cool. What kind of paladin is the one in your group? Do the other PCs often benefit from his auras? I'm a bit concerned they won't benefit the others much since they only extend out by 10 feet. The guys in my group are old veterans so they're always wary of clustering together in case of fireballs.

He's actually letting me have a moonblade!

Barbarians aren't really my thing, so I think paladin (with a bit of bard or warlock and possibly a level or two of fighter) will be what I go with!

He is a level 13 Vengeance Paladin.

The group benefits greatly from his aura. There have been many times that aura has saved them from a hold person spell or something similar (far more deadly than a fireball, hitpoints are easily restored during a short rest).

Also tons of things cause fear, and that aura really shuts down fear as well.

He has plate +1, Javelin of Lightning, and medallion of thoughts. Moonblade is very nice for a 14th level character1

 

[pukunui]

Sounds good. I guess when that sort of thing comes up, I'll just have to tell everyone to get near me.

When I first joined this group, they were on the home stretch of a 1-30 4e campaign. My PC was a Valkyrie-like avenger. Part of me is curious to see how the vengeance paladin compares, but another part of me insists it's too soon and wants to try all the other things first. There are so many cool things in this edition!

 

[DaveDash]

Sounds good. I guess when that sort of thing comes up, I'll just have to tell everyone to get near me.

When I first joined this group, they were on the home stretch of a 1-30 4e campaign. My PC was a Valkyrie-like avenger. Part of me is curious to see how the vengeance paladin compares, but another part of me insists it's too soon and wants to try all the other things first. There are so many cool things in this edition!

They will learn pretty quickly to get in close

Vengeance gets some nice spells (elemental weapon, misty step, hold person, haste, etc).

 

[pukunui]

Moonblade is very nice for a 14th level character1

I know, right? He quite likes the fluff about it being a family heirloom thing, as do I. I could totally see it being similar to a 3e legacy weapon, where it grows in power as you level up - like maybe it has 5 runes on it or whatever, and as you go up in levels, you figure out how to activate them. Anyway, I don't know the exact configuration of the moonblade yet as the DM is on vacation, although I've indicated that I'd love for it to have the finesse property and that the elfshadow summoning property is pretty awesome too. The burst of light property would totally fit the Ancients paladin theme, since they're all about kindling and preserving the light. Right?

They will learn pretty quickly to get in close

They will have to unlearn to spread out to ward against fireballs and lightning bolts and such first.

Vengeance gets some nice spells (elemental weapon, misty step, hold person, haste, etc).

Yeah. Ancients paladin gets some cool stuff too, including misty step. How does the guy playing the paladin in your group juggle hunter's mark vs smite spells? They're all concentration, so if you've got hunter's mark up, you can't cast any of the smite spells (or any other concentration spell, for that matter, like crusader's mantle) without ending it.

 

[Pickles JG]

Paladin of Ancients/Lore bard seems a good thematic fit for a fey divine warrior.

I think you get good value out of both classes & by starting at 14 you miss out the awkward levelling part where you need to either specialise in one for a lot of levels or delay 5th/6th level key abilities.

By being DEX based you remain stealthy at a small cost in AC & can keep the minimum 13 STR. You lose a bit of the class based features of both classes especially the ones that scale with level (Lay on hands) but you have those features from both. You are essentially a Paladin with weak lay on hands & melee damage but better casting & skills.

Remember Bards get expertise was well as more skills which allows them to be good with a skill they do not have a very good stat in or to really excel at something else or bit of both.

I think Bard 6 Paladin 6 is a very solid base with 2 swing levels that could be in either or even something else (though I do think that is unlikely to be as productive).

 

[DaveDash]

I know, right? He quite likes the fluff about it being a family heirloom thing, as do I. I could totally see it being similar to a 3e legacy weapon, where it grows in power as you level up - like maybe it has 5 runes on it or whatever, and as you go up in levels, you figure out how to activate them. Anyway, I don't know the exact configuration of the moonblade yet as the DM is on vacation, although I've indicated that I'd love for it to have the finesse property and that the elfshadow summoning property is pretty awesome too. The burst of light property would totally fit the Ancients paladin theme, since they're all about kindling and preserving the light. Right?

They will have to unlearn to spread out to ward against fireballs and lightning bolts and such first.

Yeah. Ancients paladin gets some cool stuff too, including misty step. How does the guy playing the paladin in your group juggle hunter's mark vs smite spells? They're all concentration, so if you've got hunter's mark up, you can't cast any of the smite spells (or any other concentration spell, for that matter, like crusader's mantle) without ending it.

He uses more slots for smiting than the actual smite spells. He doesn't use the smite spells much at all. I (the DM) tried to convince him to take thunderous smite, but he wasn't so excited about letting off huge thunderclaps down in the underdark.
He has used hunters mark a few times though.

I quite like the idea of a moonblade legacy weapon. Very cool.

 

[Pickles JG]

Yeah. Ancients paladin gets some cool stuff too, including misty step. How does the guy playing the paladin in your group juggle hunter's mark vs smite spells? They're all concentration, so if you've got hunter's mark up, you can't cast any of the smite spells (or any other concentration spell, for that matter, like crusader's mantle) without ending it.

My mate's low level vengeance paladin has Polearm mastery so he struggles with bonus actions - rarely hunters marks anything. Misty Step is super fun but another bonus action. Also better at higher level where a level 2 slot is not so precious, especially MC into a full caster.

The smite spells seem a bit of a trap - they do less damage than raw smiting & you need to plan ahead a bit to use them (rather than procing on a hit) plus they mess with other concentration effects. Just Smiting seems good (well tbh to me a tiny bit broken, to the extent of the extra die of damage it does over 1d8 per level))