Sell me on devotion paladin. Or any non-vengeance paladin, for that matter.

[Hyena]

So, recently we've finished our previous campaign, the Silver Age, where I was playing an (evil) Life Cleric - it was an overall decent, if somewhat frustrating mechanically experience (for a lot of reasons, the main one being 15 minute adventuring day that resulted in my heals being only useful once in a while, when an overpowered boss goes nova), but our DM seems to have learned from a lot of his mistakes, and now he starts a new campaign, the Dark Age. Since I don't want to play a support class anymore, but I still didn't fully satisfy my need to play religious nutjobs, my logical choice for a new class was paladin.

This system, however, has all those subclasses and man, I'm conflicted. The vengeance paladin is stupidly powerful - it has a stompy channel divinity that allows him to go Hulk on a boss, his oath spells are both unique and powerful, and it's capstone is ridiculous. The issue, however, is that I don't want to play a borderline evil, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" Punisher-type paladin - I want to play some sort of a good guy, which leaves me with Devotion and Ancients. Ancients is some Green Knight sort of character, and his abilities feel very underwhelming - and while Devotion is marginally better, I simply don't see how it compares to Vengeance. It's channel divinity feels worse, it's capstone feels worse and half of his spells are already on his spell list.

Am I missing something? Or are vengeance paladins really the best option?

[Santra]

Oath of the Ancients paladin. When you want to trivialize caster enemies starting at level 7.

Resistance against damage from spells plus the cha bonus to saves means your party will want to stay within 10 feet of you at all times.

I mean sure they have the worst channel divinities of all the paladin sub-classes but that aura makes up for it. Also their capstone is pretty amazing.

[Tarvil]

The issue, however, is that I don't want to play a borderline evil, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" Punisher-type paladin - I want to play some sort of a good guy, which leaves me with Devotion and Ancients.

Oath of Vengeance isn't about stomping innocent to get bad guy. I would say, doing things like this qualify you to Oathbreaker path. You can lie, you should be merciless, but you still have to help innocent, you can't just slay them for greater good.

Mechanically, I would say, Oaths are equal in term of power. Vengeance Paladin has some cool spells, like Hold Person/Monster/Haste and dedication for killing one target, but Devotion and Ancients Paladins have powerful Auras, and they are more flexible IMO.

[Sigreid]

Three paladins show up at a festival.

Oath of Devotion: "Evil is always drawn to such places of joy, we must be vigilant"
Oath of Vengeance: "You're right about evil being drawn, it must be found and punished!"
Oath of Ancients: "You two are jerks. I'm going to get an ale, some good food, enjoy some music and dance and remind myself of what we struggle against the darkness for."

[R.Shackleford]

Pick any of the three and then have two allies pick the other two. You will get to see all in action and your auras stack so a good time will be had by all.

Vengeance and Ancients are my two favorite, Devotion is still good though.

I've always felt that Devotion is a bit too Cleric for me, but both are pretty much one class broken into two.

[Mjolnirbear]

Three paladins show up at a festival.

Oath of Devotion: "Evil is always drawn to such places of joy, we must be vigilant"
Oath of Vengeance: "You're right about evil being drawn, it must be found and punished!"
Oath of Ancients: "You two are jerks. I'm going to get an ale, some good food, enjoy some music and dance and remind myself of what we struggle against the darkness for."


This. This wins the internet for the day. Also exactly how i play my OoA pally.

[Dimolyth]

Mechanically, Oath of Emnity is equal to Blessed Weapon of devotion palladin. Devotion guys have attack boost against anyone - but that boost is their Cha, up to +5. Vengeance guys have attack boost equal +5 (advantage), but against only one enemy. Then, devotion is better in support, vengeance is better in damage.
That makes devotion palladin is stronger against hordes or a couple of powerful opponents. Vengeance palladin is best in focusing power and against BBEG. Ancient palladin is most efficient against casters.
They are balanced one against other if your DM uses equally all three kinds of enemies. Still, each of them is decent in any situation.
Therefore is mainly a player`s decision, which battle he want to rock. And it is also oath-dependent fluff.
If it is cool for you to be vengeance palladin mechanicaly - just play it. I saw a neutral good gnome - vengeance palladin, who was the most optimistic and joyfull member of the party at roleplaying, unless she was actually facing evil. And even then, it was much more of "spider-man" style of joking and yelling instead of "batman" style of silence and fear. Yeah, she pursued the evildoers and killed them hard.

[R.Shackleford]

This. This wins the internet for the day. Also exactly how i play my OoA pally.

Hold your horses, the day is still young, reddit is just waking up.

[MadBear]

If you take the gwf feat, then devotions charisma to attack will be a great help. (If someone's cast bless, even better)

[Mjolnirbear]

Also there are other reasons to play a class than because it's OP.

As for your cleric, it's one of the more supportive classes but by no means is it a pure healing class. With bard and paladin and short rest HD spending healing is a distant second to your primary role, which could be buffs-debuffs or retribution.

My group has a bard and a pally. Typically there is only healing when one of us drops below 10 hp. We're three players doing mines and so far no one has died. We were level 3 when we killed the dragon--we had one extra player that day (abjuration mage which is our third and moon druid) and my pally was the only one to drop to zero HP--and it was the fall from killing the dragon that did it, not the dragon itself.

[KorvinStarmast]

Am I missing something? Or are vengeance paladins really the best option?
Yes. You are, by obsessing over mechanics, pretty much missing the point of a paladin's role in a party, which is as party leader or party advocate/team adhesion agent. When looking at the Devotion Paladin, remember that It Isn't All About You, it's about your party and the ability to make the party succeed. Since you are high charisma and quite possibly the party face, leading the party to success is part of why you are adventuring: fighting evil is what you are called to, not just "going through the motions to oppose evil." That doesn't mean bossing people around: it means leadership by example and by actively making the party better. Role Playing. (Plus, the aura buffs help your whole party, as noted in other responses).


Since I don't want to play a support class anymore, but I still didn't fully satisfy my need to play religious nutjobs, my logical choice for a new class was paladin. If your take on Paladins is "religious nut job," you are already on the road to fail.


Three paladins show up at a festival.

Oath of Devotion: "Evil is always drawn to such places of joy, we must be vigilant"
Oath of Vengeance: "You're right about evil being drawn, it must be found and punished!"
Oath of Ancients: "You two are jerks. I'm going to get an ale, some good food, enjoy some music and dance and remind myself of what we struggle against the darkness for."
Heh, this is almost worth a t-shirt. Have you contacted Think Geek or Snorgtees? :)

[Sigreid]

Yes. You are, by obsessing over mechanics, pretty much missing the point of a paladin's role in a party, which is as party leader or party advocate/team adhesion agent. When looking at the Devotion Paladin, remember that It Isn't All About You, it's about your party and the ability to make the party succeed. Since you are high charisma and quite possibly the party face, leading the party to success is part of why you are adventuring: fighting evil is what you are called to, not just "going through the motions to oppose evil." That doesn't mean bossing people around: it means leadership by example and by actively making the party better. Role Playing. (Plus, the aura buffs help your whole party, as noted in other responses).

If your take on Paladins is "religious nut job," you are already on the road to fail.


Heh, this is almost worth a t-shirt. Have you contacted Think Geek or Snorgtees? :)

Thanks, and I haven't. It's a bit wordy for a t-shirt imo.

[kaoskonfety]

At a glance I'm going with "do you want to play a Devotion Paladin?"

Raw damage: I'm pretty sure Vengeance comes out ahead, Devotion is closer to the old paladin: damage isn't the point; you are still GOOD at it, but you are the parties edge, buffing everyone without even really trying, your presence alone boosting your allies resolve.

If you really want a 'sell' on Devotion thats not number crunch based I've dug this "oath" out of Morrowind and used it for a paladin oath back in 3rd, Drop the references to Vivec and its pure RP gold for a paladin in the Lawful and Neutral Good vein (and Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Good to a lesser extent).

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/saryonis-manuscript

I'm not copying the whole thing here due to uncertainty re: copyright stuff but give it a once over.

I want to play a paladin again now...

[Citan]

So, recently we've finished our previous campaign, the Silver Age, where I was playing an (evil) Life Cleric - it was an overall decent, if somewhat frustrating mechanically experience (for a lot of reasons, the main one being 15 minute adventuring day that resulted in my heals being only useful once in a while, when an overpowered boss goes nova), but our DM seems to have learned from a lot of his mistakes, and now he starts a new campaign, the Dark Age. Since I don't want to play a support class anymore, but I still didn't fully satisfy my need to play religious nutjobs, my logical choice for a new class was paladin.

This system, however, has all those subclasses and man, I'm conflicted. The vengeance paladin is stupidly powerful - it has a stompy channel divinity that allows him to go Hulk on a boss, his oath spells are both unique and powerful, and it's capstone is ridiculous. The issue, however, is that I don't want to play a borderline evil, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" Punisher-type paladin - I want to play some sort of a good guy, which leaves me with Devotion and Ancients. Ancients is some Green Knight sort of character, and his abilities feel very underwhelming - and while Devotion is marginally better, I simply don't see how it compares to Vengeance. It's channel divinity feels worse, it's capstone feels worse and half of his spells are already on his spell list.

Am I missing something? Or are vengeance paladins really the best option?

Hi!

Well, yes, you really really missed many things. The short answer has been given already (excerpt, not whole post) :)


Mechanically, Oath of Emnity is equal to Blessed Weapon of devotion palladin. Then, devotion is better in support, vengeance is better in damage.

That makes devotion palladin is stronger against hordes or a couple of powerful opponents.
Vengeance palladin is best in focusing power and against BBEG. Ancient palladin is most efficient against casters.

They are balanced one against other if your DM uses equally all three kinds of enemies. Still, each of them is decent in any situation.
Therefore is mainly a player`s decision, which battle he want to rock. And it is also oath-dependent fluff.
If it is cool for you to be vengeance palladin mechanicaly - just play it. I saw a neutral good gnome - vengeance palladin, who was the most optimistic and joyfull member of the party at roleplaying, unless she was actually facing evil. And even then, it was much more of "spider-man" style of joking and yelling instead of "batman" style of silence and fear. Yeah, she pursued the evildoers and killed them hard.
That's basically the gist of it. Now for a few additional notes...

1. Mechanically, if you go GWM for the -5/+10, Devotion Paladin is better: beyond personal preference between "hitting because medium roll is augmented" and "hitting because I made two rolls, one normal but not enough, one very lucky", it's very easy to get advantage against an enemy when working as a team (or even alone with some preparation). Getting a +5 on an attack roll isn't. Also, it works with all weapons (welcome bow to weaken enemy at range while closing distance, maybe with Sharpshooter) and against all enemies.
AND, it doesn't take Concentration, so you can stack it with Elemental Weapon or Bless for example to gain evermore reliability and damage.
Beyond that, the Devotion prepared spells make you a natural healer, so it's a bit of a waste of memory if you already have one dedicated healer.

2. Ancients is very good, because versatile: Aura is OP (half damage against spells \o/) and its spells are all useful (Moonbeam for range area damage, Misty step for emergencies, Ensnaring strike for another mean of control). And capstone (should you ever reach it) is one of the best of all classes imo (spells as a bonus action? Luv it. Disadvantage for creatures against spells? Extremely powerful. Auto-regen? You are (nearly ?) as resilient as a Barbarian. :)

3. Vengeance is the best if only you really plan on playing the BBEG striker role or solo fighter, since it's totally self-dependent for offense (Aura for advantage, can cast Haste himself for crowds, Hunter's Mark for single targets).

So, really, all three are very good, choose mainly depending on a) your character concept/background, b) the role you want to play as main in the party.

My two cents. :)

[JellyPooga]

Personally, I'm underwhelmed by both Devotion and Vengeance Paladins compared to Ancients.

Devotion Paladins have an underwhelming spell list and everything it gets above 3rd level is...not good, to put it mildly. Aura of Devotion might be good when it comes up, but how often does any PC come under the effects of Charm anyway? Purity of Spirit is pretty good, but comes online very late, by which time it's effects are not so pronounced as when you have access to that spell anyway (whether from your own list or a party-members). Your capstone as a Devotion Paladin is ok; great against pesky mooks and if you can drag a fight out for an extended period, but I'm not impressed by it.

Vengeance Paladins have a great spell list and Channel Divinity options at 3rd, but again, above that, it all starts to look a bit weak. Reactionary movement at 7th, reactionary attack at 15th...haven't you got anything better to do with your Reaction by that time? Capstone is a freakin' fly speed...if you haven't got one of those by that time, you're playing the game wrong!

The Oath of Ancients Paladin, on the other hand, is only underwhelming at 3rd. Nature's Wrath and Turn the Faithless are not great uses for Channel Divinity compared to the other two Oaths, neither are Ensnaring Strike or Speak with Animals great bonus spells. Take a look further up the line, though; 5th Misty Step, 7th "Blaster spells are inconsequential chaff", 9th Protection from Energy, 13th Stoneskin, 15th "Don't friggin' die 1/day". The capstone is simply full of awesome; the only source of 3ed Fast Healing in the game (to my knowledge), Quicken Spell 1/round and enemies have (effective) -5 to Saves against your spells. Beats a fly speed or a cantrip plus minor damage any day of the week.

[MaxWilson]

This system, however, has all those subclasses and man, I'm conflicted. The vengeance paladin is stupidly powerful - it has a stompy channel divinity that allows him to go Hulk on a boss, his oath spells are both unique and powerful, and it's capstone is ridiculous. The issue, however, is that I don't want to play a borderline evil, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" Punisher-type paladin - I want to play some sort of a good guy, which leaves me with Devotion and Ancients. Ancients is some Green Knight sort of character, and his abilities feel very underwhelming - and while Devotion is marginally better, I simply don't see how it compares to Vengeance. It's channel divinity feels worse, it's capstone feels worse and half of his spells are already on his spell list.

Am I missing something? Or are vengeance paladins really the best option?

Speaking for myself, from the perspective of someone who would multiclass to Sorcerer anyway after level 9 at the latest:

1.) Paladin of Devotion's vow has the best flavor, hands-down. I have no desire to play a Paladin of Vengeance and little more than that in Paladin of the Ancients.

2.) Paladin of Devotion's Sacred Weapon stacks with advantage (e.g. from Web or Faerie Fire or Mounted Combatant any of a number of other sources) and the vow of enmity doesn't. Nor is Oath of Vengeance usable after your first enemy goes down. And Sacred Weapons turns your weapon magic, for double damage to wraiths/banshees/etc., whereas the vow of enmity does not. Vow of enmity is superior only in action economy.

3.) Paladin of Devotion gets access to the fantastic, bonus action, no-concentration Sanctuary spell. (Even better when Twinned by a Palasorc.)

4.) Turn Undead is a sweet, sweet Channel Divinity option that can save your bacon in a deadly fight, e.g. against 4 Banshees. It's about as good as Wall of Force for divide-and-conquer, but it takes no concentration. Less vital if you have a cleric in the party.

5.) Better aura. Immunity to charm not only helps against monsters, it lets you drop Hypnotic Pattern on yourself with impunity.

[djreynolds]

The oath of Ancients, it just has a cool flavor to it. It comes off as druidic warrior. The guy the druids turn to when the forest is burnt.

I imagine a guy with like a whalebone spear and tortoise shell shield. Yes this archetype seems to rob some of the ranger, barbarian, and druid flavor. But it's cool.

They say an angel guards the Garden of Eden, this is the person. Very "non shall pass."

You're adventures would have you on a mission to sanctify some area, rid a holy grove of its new inhabitance, or cleanse the forest. But you're not out for vengeance or justice, but really to reset the balance. You could have to reset the balance in a big way.

Very mother nature's avatar, you might be pruning trees and causing floods. Saving horned owls and releasing plagues.

Your DM, I'm unsure if there are modules out there, would have to draw something up so you would really feel the part. Perhaps he could have you defending a forest from everyday humans or sacking a city's leaders that are spoiling an area. Something that requires a little more than ranger or druid could bring to bear, pardon the pun, and perhaps is beyond or needs saving.

[R.Shackleford]

The oath of Ancients, it just has a cool flavor to it. It comes off as druidic warrior. The guy the druids turn to when the forest is burnt.

I imagine a guy with like a whalebone spear and tortoise shell shield. Yes this archetype seems to rob some of the ranger, barbarian, and druid flavor. But it's cool.

They say an angel guards the Garden of Eden, this is the person. Very "non shall pass."

You're adventures would have you on a mission to sanctify some area, rid a holy grove of its new inhabitance, or cleanse the forest. But you're not out for vengeance or justice, but really to reset the balance. You could have to reset the balance in a big way.

Very mother nature's avatar, you might be pruning trees and causing floods. Saving horned owls and releasing plagues.

Your DM, I'm unsure if there are modules out there, would have to draw something up so you would really feel the part. Perhaps he could have you defending a forest from everyday humans or sacking a city's leaders that are spoiling an area. Something that requires a little more than ranger or druid could bring to bear, pardon the pun, and perhaps is beyond or needs saving.

I was hoping they brought the Warden from 4e, they did a decent enough job mechanically with the Ancient Paladin.

If they could get some wildshape...

[Hawkstar]

Ancients is cool. I even like that ensnaring Channel Divinity. It pairs well with polearms "I can stab you but you can't stab me!"

[Pex]

For my League Paladin I just picked the Oath that fit the character. He's a Paladin of Ilmater whose philosophy is to bring suffering to those who cause suffering so that they may cause suffering no more. Whether they repent or cease to exist, same difference. Vengeance was calling.

[ruy343]

Am I missing something? Or are vengeance paladins really the best option?

Has your question been answered yet? I mean, it has, but are you satisfied yet? If not, allow me to provide my not-entirely-unsolicited opinion on the subject:

The devotion and ancients paladins are good team players; the vengeance paladin isn't as good at it, but you can choose whatever spells you want really, so that's not really a solid comparison (aside from the auras that the other two get, which are truly all about teamwork).

When you look at the archetype spells for each of them (and for each class really), you'll get one spell from other class lists on occasion. What sets vengeance paladin apart from the others is the "Hunter's Mark" spell. This is handy for damage and tracking down foes. In fact, when reviewing their features, you'll note that the vengeance paladin as a cross between Ranger and Paladin, prizing mobility and powerful strikes to single targets. This is in contrast to the devotion paladin, which is more akin to a cross with a life cleric, and the ancients paladin, which is crossed with a different variety of cleric (of course, this is up to your interpretation).

With regards to roleplaying, the vengeance archetype is fun if you want to play a Miko Miyasaki character all about tracking down the bad guys. Other paladins have different goals, and their abilities help you reach those, just as the ranger hybridization of the vengeance paladin helps you get track down your enemies.

[Breltar]

I was hoping they brought the Warden from 4e, they did a decent enough job mechanically with the Ancient Paladin.

If they could get some wildshape...

That's when you multiclass to druid :D.

I had a player that took magic initiate as a human ancient paladin and took druid cantrips, one of them was thorn whip and it worked rather well for him in that controller style. (he also took druidcraft and fog cloud)

Pretty neat paladin archetype IMO and one that is often overlooked for the batman vengeance oath.

[R.Shackleford]

That's when you multiclass to druid :D.

I had a player that took magic initiate as a human ancient paladin and took druid cantrips, one of them was thorn whip and it worked rather well for him in that controller style. (he also took druidcraft and fog cloud)

Pretty neat paladin archetype IMO and one that is often overlooked for the batman vengeance oath.

I absolutely hate this multiclass system. It causes so many problems that it isn't even funny, every time you make something you have to be so careful it doesn't multiclass too strong, so instead of making specifically what you want you have to tip toe on glass.

I'll do it, but I would rather just have a Paladin subclass that gave the Paladin some wildshaping.

:)

Druid/Paladin is pretty MAD but I'm sure it can be done.

[djreynolds]

I absolutely hate this multiclass system. It causes so many problems that it isn't even funny, every time you make something you have to be so careful it doesn't multiclass too strong, so instead of making specifically what you want you have to tip toe on glass.

I'll do it, but I would rather just have a Paladin subclass that gave the Paladin some wildshaping.

:)

Druid/Paladin is pretty MAD but I'm sure it can be done.

I agree, but I like the separation of abilities that define certain classes.

I like the sacrifice it takes to multiclass.

That said, could a powered down diluted polymorph spell to like an elemental or plant be something. Its a 4th level druid/wizard spell

[Citan]

I absolutely hate this multiclass system. It causes so many problems that it isn't even funny, every time you make something you have to be so careful it doesn't multiclass too strong, so instead of making specifically what you want you have to tip toe on glass.

I'll do it, but I would rather just have a Paladin subclass that gave the Paladin some wildshaping.

:)

Druid/Paladin is pretty MAD but I'm sure it can be done.
It can be done indeed in viable ways, although with some sacrifices obviously. :)
1. Either main WIS then DEX/CON, use a Quarterstaff with Shillelagh, "dump" STR/CHA: you'll be either using Druid goodies for offense, either smiting in melee. It can still be good, especially with Polearm feat, and nice to fluff. Oath of the Ancients would be the obvious choice fluff-wise, but Vengeance can be nice too.

2. "Dump" WIS and main CHA and either STR (if DM accepts you still wear metal armor) or DEX for character stat. You'll be mainly a Paladin which can wildshape (which also means having a high STR is not so important since you'll be as beast most of the time). And since you can (IIRC) smite as beast because these are considered weapon attacks, AND you can still concentrate on spells cast before WS, this way is also pretty decent efficiency-wise.

Have fun :)

[Strill]

Mechanically, Oath of Emnity is equal to Blessed Weapon of devotion palladin. Devotion guys have attack boost against anyone - but that boost is their Cha, up to +5. Vengeance guys have attack boost equal +5 (advantage), but against only one enemy. Then, devotion is better in support, vengeance is better in damage.Advantage is only equal to +5 if you have a 50% chance to hit. In any other situation, it's worth less.

[Socko525]

Am I missing something? Or are vengeance paladins really the best option?

Half damage from all spells is a pretty solid point in favor of OotA Paladin.

[Dimers]

Vengeance guys have attack boost equal +5 (advantage) ...


Advantage is only equal to +5 if you have a 50% chance to hit. In any other situation, it's worth less.

Advantage adds 3.125 to the average roll, not 5. Advantage makes more difference -- more chance of changing a miss to a hit -- if your chances are poor to begin with. And advantage also improves your crit chance, almost doubling it from 5% to 9.75%.

[Strill]

Advantage adds 3.125 to the average roll, not 5. Advantage makes more difference -- more chance of changing a miss to a hit -- if your chances are poor to begin with. And advantage also improves your crit chance, almost doubling it from 5% to 9.75%.
Do you understand how advantage works? Advantage's effectiveness depends on your chance to hit. At 50% chance to hit, it increases to 75%, i.e. the equivalent of +5. At any other chance to hit, advantage is worth less. The "average roll" you're referring to is not an average roll in practice, it's a roll where all chances to hit are equally likely, which is completely unrealistic.

If your chances to hit are between 20% and 80%, then Advantage will give you at least a +3 to hit. If your chances to hit are higher or lower than that, Advantage will give you a lesser benefit.

[Ralanr]

This. This wins the internet for the day. Also exactly how i play my OoA pally.

"Oath of the Ancients: For when you don't want a stick shoved firmly up your rectum."

[Dimers]

Do you understand how advantage works? Advantage's effectiveness depends on your chance to hit. At 50% chance to hit, it increases to 75%, i.e. the equivalent of +5. At any other chance to hit, advantage is worth less. The "average roll" you're referring to is not an average roll in practice, it's a roll where all chances to hit are equally likely, which is completely unrealistic.

If your chances to hit are between 20% and 80%, then Advantage will give you at least a +3 to hit. If your chances to hit are higher or lower than that, Advantage will give you a lesser benefit.

For a single roll at exactly 50% chance, you're correct. I feel it's more useful to look at many rolls over a broad spectrum of comparative AC and attack bonus. ("If you're having a DM who only gives you combats with an AC you hit half the time, I feel sorry for you, son -- I got 99 problems, but freakish uniformity ain't one." :smalltongue:) And Advantage gives the biggest relative change when hitting is difficult. E.g. if your chance to hit goes from 50% to 75%, that's effectively a 50% boost in your chance, but if your chance to hit goes from 15% to 27.75%, that's an 85% boost in your chance.

[Roderick_BR]

Oath of Vengeance isn't about stomping innocent to get bad guy. I would say, doing things like this qualify you to Oathbreaker path. You can lie, you should be merciless, but you still have to help innocent, you can't just slay them for greater good.

Mechanically, I would say, Oaths are equal in term of power. Vengeance Paladin has some cool spells, like Hold Person/Monster/Haste and dedication for killing one target, but Devotion and Ancients Paladins have powerful Auras, and they are more flexible IMO.
In fact, the vengeance oath is actually the opposite. You are not allowed to let harm come to innocents as a result of your actions. But once you are done saving everyone, and/or repairing any collateral damage, the villain'll have hell to pay.

[1Forge]

I think the main different between devotion and vengence paladins is that vengence paladins gives...well vengence they seek out the evil and make sure they don't have a second chance to harm innocents. Devotion on the other hand (while they'd still seek out greater evils) remain more devoted to the protection of the innocent individual. So a vengence paladin might be a navy seal while a devotion paladin is the ship that stays behind. Or like a hunting party vs a town garrison. Or detectives vs average cops. One seeks out the other is more reactionary. #paladin4life

[MaxWilson]

I think the main different between devotion and vengence paladins is that vengence paladins gives...well vengence they seek out the evil and make sure they don't have a second chance to harm innocents. Devotion on the other hand (while they'd still seek out greater evils) remain more devoted to the protection of the innocent individual. So a vengence paladin might be a navy seal while a devotion paladin is the ship that stays behind. Or like a hunting party vs a town garrison. Or detectives vs average cops. One seeks out the other is more reactionary. #paladin4life

Here's my attempt at characterizing the difference:

* Paladin of Devotion is focused on character and living a life of virtue. The end doesn't justify the means, and as long as you did what was true and right you can have faith that all things will come out okay in the end. Doesn't have to be sectarian but works really well as a religious monotheist because then he can believe that someone (e.g. the DM) really will right all wrongs eventually. Michael Carpenter from the Dresden Files is a paradigm of a Paladin of Devotion.

* Paladin of Vengeance is very concerned with the ends. He's what you would get if you sucked all the faith out of the Paladin of Devotion and replaced it with a conviction that there is evil in the world, and "there is nobody who is going to correct it but me." Works really well as a humanistic atheist. Nathaniel Cade could, maybe, be a paradigm of a Paladin of Devotion. Perhaps a better example would be Patrick Carrera from A Desert Called Peace. (Spoiler: at the end of the second book he stealth-nukes the Yithrabi Mecca-equivalent, killing millions of innocents including families he knew and children he'd once dangled on his knee, and frames the al-Qaeda-equivalent to make it look like they blew themselves up while trying to create a nuke; it kills millions of people but it works to completely dry up their support and prevent them from getting more real nukes; Carrera feels horrible about it and has constant nightmares but would do it again.)

[PoeticDwarf]

Oath of the Ancients paladin. When you want to trivialize caster enemies starting at level 7.

Resistance against damage from spells plus the cha bonus to saves means your party will want to stay within 10 feet of you at all times.

I mean sure they have the worst channel divinities of all the paladin sub-classes but that aura makes up for it. Also their capstone is pretty amazing.

This is a big point, about the devotion, it has its nice things but I agree vengeance is in most situations the best one. I don't think you mean oathbreaker with any non-vengeance paladin because, yeah, oathbreaker. Extra damage and undead friends.

Why can't the ranger be undead, time for an undead companion (zombie or skeleton).

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

For a single roll at exactly 50% chance, you're correct. I feel it's more useful to look at many rolls over a broad spectrum of comparative AC and attack bonus. ("If you're having a DM who only gives you combats with an AC you hit half the time, I feel sorry for you, son -- I got 99 problems, but freakish uniformity ain't one." :smalltongue:) And Advantage gives the biggest relative change when hitting is difficult. E.g. if your chance to hit goes from 50% to 75%, that's effectively a 50% boost in your chance, but if your chance to hit goes from 15% to 27.75%, that's an 85% boost in your chance.Changing to relative increases doesn't mean much, since +5's relative boost is also larger for lower chances to hit. Here's the direct comparison of +5 and advantage in chance to hit, given some base chance to hit (given bounded accuracy):



Normal hit%
With +5
With Advantage


.05
.3
.0975


.1
.35
.19


.15
.4
.2775


.2
.45
.36


.25
.5
.4375


.3
.55
.51


.35
.6
.5775


.4
.65
.64


.45
.7
.6975


.5
.75
.75


.55
.8
.7975


.6
.85
.84


.65
.9
.8775


.7
.95
.91


.75
.95
.9375


.8
.95
.96


.85
.95
.9775


.9
.95
.99


.95
.95
.9975

As we can see, Advantage only gets better once you start violating BA (which makes more sense if you're getting a whopping +5).

Of course, this whole comparison may be moot, since for some reason we're assuming the Paladin is going to max Charisma out of the gate. With things like Polearm Master, Sentinel, and +2STR to consider. You'll see that advantage is much more competitive when you compare it to a +3 charisma.

[Dimolyth]

[/table]As we can see, Advantage only gets better once you start violating BA (which makes more sense if you're getting a whopping +5).

Of course, this whole comparison may be moot, since for some reason we're assuming the Paladin is going to max Charisma out of the gate. With things like Polearm Master, Sentinel, and +2STR to consider. You'll see that advantage is much more competitive when you compare it to a +3 charisma.

Sacred Weapon is limited by paladin`s Cha score and duration.
Oath of Emnity is limited by duration an inability to switch the target.
These two drawbacks define style of play for paladin characters and effective tactics against them.

Against vengeful paladin - dominate his ally to attack him and stay out of his reach.
Against devoted one - eliminate allies and force him alone with conjuration/evocation spells.
Against ancient one - make sure there are enough berserkers/brutes/foottroopers/archers - whatever non-magic enemies.
Against oathbreaker... burn his undead allies first.

[TrollCapAmerica]

I think ots important to note that the Paladin is very much a class built around supporting its allies as much as it is for stomping faces. Even if your a Vengeance Paladin you still have a pretty sweet aura and the same base spell list as the others.

Each Paladin is great but depending on party compositions and the campaign thier strengths might be more pronounced. A Vengence Paladin loses a lot of steam if he doesn't have a BBEG or at least elite mook to focus on just like Aura of Wardening becomes less cool if you dont face spellcasters a lot or you have an Abjurer in the party.

A Devotion Pally could be an awesome tank with Purity of Spirit if you face a lot the right creatures or with an Illusionist in the party doing that Hypnotic Pattern trick mentioned above. An OoA Pally would be awesome when everyone can rally around him while mooning enemy spellcasters and still fighting effectively. A Vengence Pally woyld work best with a party that ensures he can get to his target and maybe with a melee buddy that took GWF instead of Resilient (Wis) because he knows your charging the enemy together

I think all the Pally archetypes are great but more than most classes they dont work in a vacuum andthat needs to be noted

[Cactus King]

Am I missing something? Or are vengeance paladins really the best option?

Devotion Paladins cannot miss, well they technically can but it's unlikely. Sacred weapon allows you to add your CHA to your to hit bonus, and bless adds an extra D4 onto that. I'm currently running a Lv. 5 Devotion Paladin, and my average attack roll is a 24 (10.5+5+3+2.5+3). At a certain point it may seem superfluous to add extra buffs to your to hit, but if you use the Great Weapon Master feat you get an average of 19 on your to hit, and an average of 31 damage per attack with a first level smite.

All in all Devotion paladins are damage monsters that pump out some of (if not THE) biggest most consistent damage in the game without the need for auxiliary magic items.

[Yagyujubei]

as far as total contribution to the part ancients is the best choice by a mile imho...the aura is so insanely overpowered. If you just wanna do a ton of damage though there really isnt a reason to go anything aside from vengeance or maybe oathbreaker

[Malifice]

Oath of Vengeance isn't about stomping innocent to get bad guy. I would say, doing things like this qualify you to Oathbreaker path. You can lie, you should be merciless, but you still have to help innocent, you can't just slay them for greater good.

My LE vengance paladin disagrees with you.

He is totally down with merciless torture, pogroms, genocide and tyranny.

'By any means'.

As long as it helps him achieve a 'greater good'. The 'greater good' in this case being the destruction of all other religions of Faerun, including (especially) so called 'good' religions like the LG Church of Torm.

Hail Bane!

[Eric Diaz]

Advantage adds 3.125 to the average roll, not 5. Advantage makes more difference -- more chance of changing a miss to a hit -- if your chances are poor to begin with. And advantage also improves your crit chance, almost doubling it from 5% to 9.75%.

A curiosity, why 3.125? I've got 3.5. (although the "real" average bonus is even higher, since most situations you'll face you need to roll something between 5 and 15, more or less...)

[TheUser]

In the context of a solo player the vengeance paladin is great, but it's a party based game!

Ancient Paladins get ensnaring strike, which makes them really good at pinning down foes and opening up to advantage for everyone else.

They also get Stoneskin later which makes them great tanks in the mid-late game.


Devotion Paladin's are actually some of the best Sharpshooter/GWM paladins because getting haste is something another caster can do, and getting advantage is easy (the two biggest strengths of vengeance paladin), but adding Charisma modifier to hit with any weapon is rather intense and when coupled with bless makes Devotion Paladins some of the best snipers out there (Fighter 1/Devotion Paladin 6/Arcane Trickster X = God-tier Sniper).

So in a small box the vengeance paladin looks great!
When you realize that there are boatloads of ways to spend your bonus action which compete with hunter's mark (free attacks, shoves, etc)
and loads of ways to gain advantage, and that other classes can haste you before even level 9, the vengeance paladin looks less awesome (it's still really good in tier 1).

[Mandragola]

I really like my vengeance paladin, but he does undoubtedly have disadvantages compared to devotion.

First up, you get two kinds of channel divinity. As a vengeance paladin there’s one that you’ll never use, which stops enemies from running away. Enemies hardly ever do, and even if they try it they quite often make their save. Better to just catch up to them with misty step and chop bits off them with your greatsword. Meanwhile devotion paladins get turn undead, which is awesome.

Oath of enmity and blessed weapon are kind of equal really. BW affects damage as well as hitting. OoE is just a bonus action, so your greatsword gets to work sooner.

I’m not going to try and defend the devotion paladin’s spell list. Vengeace gets much better stuff. The only thing is that for most of your career you’ll use spell slots for smites and heals, so it’s not that big a deal anyway… but I know I’d really miss misty step if I didn’t have it.

The 7th level vengeance ability is almost entirely useless. My paladin is level 13 now and I think I’ve used it twice. Enemies very rarely want to take AoOs from me (can’t think why!) and so they tend to withdraw if they want to get away. And even when you do get to do your little trick, you only move 15’ – which means they get away anyway.

To be fair, immunity to charm isn’t that big a deal either. Charm doesn’t happen all that often. But it does happen, and can mess people up. I’m pretty sure it would have more effect to make your party immune to domination, than to very occasionally get to move a little bit.

Purity of spirit though… holy ****! At level 15 (if you ever get there) a lot of the things you’re facing will be affected, and all their attacks against you will have disadvantage. That’s immense for late game. It’s far better than occasionally getting to hit something back.

I think a devotion paladin makes a good front-ranker. Go sword and board and take the +1AC fighting style. Get all the strength, con and charisma that you can. Or if you want to do lots of damage go for PAM.

Anyway in conclusion, devotion paladins are ok. The differences aren’t really all that big anyway. Even the ancients aura that everyone’s so excited about doesn’t come into effect as often as you’d imagine. Spellcaster monsters are actually pretty rare, and they often hit you with CC spells rather than direct damage, and let their minions chop you up.

[GraakosGraakos]

Let's pretend they're cops.

Devotion is the cop that works his beat for years to get detective, does everything by the book, and respects and loves the community he works for. He comforts the good and finds the criminals and he does it according to the regulations of the department. He's the captain of the department softball team, probably loved by his neighbors, and will probably run for city council eventually.

Vengeance is Riggs. Yes, he gets the job done, yes he catches the bad guy, but holy **** dude, could you not blow up the docks to get the sea hag underneath? It's going to take this village the rest of the season to rebuild it, and people are going to starve! Okay, yeah, you got the vampire spawn that were hunkered in the old silver mine, but did you have to collapse it to kill them? People rely on that to make money here. He's off book and he's sly about it. He'll lie to get confessions (yes all cops do this irl, but not in fiction). He'll steal evidence. And worst comes to worst, if he gets off on a technicality but he knows he did it, Smite Evil is Law-Chaos neutral.

Ancients is the cop that always buys donuts. He organizes parties. He's everybody's second best friend, and everyone's favorite guy in the office. This is the cop that talks to kids that are victims. He asks you out for drinks after every shift. Don't get it twisted, though. He's not soft. When he caught that ring of child predators, you should've seen the light in his eyes, dude. I think he would've locked the doors and burned it down if we wouldn't have shown up with back up when we did. He has a real sharp sense of morality. Fae, even. What's wrong is wrong and what's right is right and if you do right you should celebrate and if you do wrong...if you do wrong you should run.

That's how I always think of the different oaths. Mechanically, Ancients gives you crazy Auras, Devotion can be good at a more defensive or offensive play style, and Vengeance is all gas no brake.

[Citan]

Devotion Paladins cannot miss, well they technically can but it's unlikely. Sacred weapon allows you to add your CHA to your to hit bonus, and bless adds an extra D4 onto that. I'm currently running a Lv. 5 Devotion Paladin, and my average attack roll is a 24 (10.5+5+3+2.5+3). At a certain point it may seem superfluous to add extra buffs to your to hit, but if you use the Great Weapon Master feat you get an average of 19 on your to hit, and an average of 31 damage per attack with a first level smite.

All in all Devotion paladins are damage monsters that pump out some of (if not THE) biggest most consistent damage in the game without the need for auxiliary magic items.


In the context of a solo player the vengeance paladin is great, but it's a party based game!

Ancient Paladins get ensnaring strike, which makes them really good at pinning down foes and opening up to advantage for everyone else.

They also get Stoneskin later which makes them great tanks in the mid-late game.


Devotion Paladin's are actually some of the best Sharpshooter/GWM paladins because getting haste is something another caster can do, and getting advantage is easy (the two biggest strengths of vengeance paladin), but adding Charisma modifier to hit with any weapon is rather intense and when coupled with bless makes Devotion Paladins some of the best snipers out there (Fighter 1/Devotion Paladin 6/Arcane Trickster X = God-tier Sniper).

So in a small box the vengeance paladin looks great!
When you realize that there are boatloads of ways to spend your bonus action which compete with hunter's mark (free attacks, shoves, etc)
and loads of ways to gain advantage, and that other classes can haste you before even level 9, the vengeance paladin looks less awesome (it's still really good in tier 1).
This and this. Devotion's Sacred Weapon is more than largely worth the use of action (anyone reaaally annoyed by this could dip into Fighter for Action Surge anyways).

But really, each and every archetype of Paladin can be "the best" depending on party composition. :)
Devotion works specially well with an Enchanter (Fear, Hypnotic Pattern), Vengeance is great as a striker/off-tank with a Cleric (Warding Bond) or Fighter (Protection Style) around, Oathbreaker is stupidly good with a Necromancer pal, Ancients is... Well, equally great with any party I'd daresay, except parties full of Paladins (Aura of Warding), Bear Barbarians (resistance to all), high level Monks (Diamond's Soul) or Chain Warlocks (familiar's resistance). XD

[Corran]

The 7th level vengeance ability is almost entirely useless. My paladin is level 13 now and I think I’ve used it twice. Enemies very rarely want to take AoOs from me (can’t think why!) and so they tend to withdraw if they want to get away. And even when you do get to do your little trick, you only move 15’ – which means they get away anyway.

It gets better with PAM, and a bit better (potentially, depending on the situation) if you also have haste on (cause more movement). Theoritically, the most it can do is deny one melee enemy a turn (or have him fall back to his ranged attack, if any, or to another action, such as dash, dodge, etc), which is not that bad, but not amazing either. With PAM you get to use it more often, with haste it might matter more often.

Edit:

This and this. Devotion's Sacred Weapon is more than largely worth the use of action
Debatable. It depends on a lot of things, such as how many rounds will the combat last, your dpr, the enemy's or enemies' AC, their dpr and hit chance, etc. Even if we know all these stuff, it's not exactly a quick task to figure out how much value we squeezed out of it. And I still think that the most defining factor regarding sacred weapon's value, is its action economy cost, or lack of thereoff. Meaning that if you play with a DM who allows you activating before combat starts (I've seen it a few times), or if you are playing with a DM who pays a lot of attention to the environment (mainly to starting distances, but also flying enemies) and also you happened not to acquire a ranged attack (via multiclassing or feats) which under this second DM would really be advisable, then yes, sacred weapon does become superb. But otherwise, it's not bad by any means, but I dont think it's as easy to make certain claims of its value, at least I cannot (although I can say that I am not a huge fan of that ability).
ps: I find its situational value (magic property) hard to rate.


(anyone reaaally annoyed by this could dip into Fighter for Action Surge anyways).
But with this, I disagree. If sacred weapon was not worth the action before, it is still not worth it if you get action surge.
Actually, scratch that. Correcting my thoughts here, as I am writing them down. Getting action surge, might, or might not, push the value of sacred weapon above an acceptable limit, in that it translates to making the combat last for one extra round just for you, as far as the purposes of examining the value of scared weapon goes, as described above. I guess my first instict was shaped by the value I hold for a fighter dip for a paladin, which is low, IMO. But for a GWM devotion paly, it might be orth it (not sure). I just know that I would probably not choose to play a GWM devotion paly (but again, not 100% sure if it's not optimal).

Anyway, setting aside my confusing lines above (at least I managed to confuse myself), I guess one of the reasons I dont like sacred weapon, is that it hinders your spellcasting, in an indirect way. I mean, that I like to have my characters have a plan, which involves using a concentration spell from the first round, as to not lose eny time at all, regarding the when the effects of said spell kick in. And if I want to use sacred weapon, that means two whole turns without attacking (which is definitely not optimal, under the majority of all the possible scenarios). The alternative is to rely on bonus action concentration spells (only wrathful smite really impresses me), or not rely on concentration spells at all (which does not sound like a good plan to me). That's why, as I said above, I mostly judge sacred weapon, according to how lenient the DM is regarding its activation.

In the end, even if the numbers manage to add up (and it is understood by me, that sometimes they might, and some other times they might not, depending on a lot of factors, including the paladin build), spending an action not rolling any dice (or not doing something original that might not even require dice rolling; activating a power is not original), is definitely less fun, at least for me.

[Mandragola]

It gets better with PAM, and a bit better (potentially, depending on the situation) if you also have haste on (cause more movement). Theoritically, the most it can do is deny one melee enemy a turn (or have him fall back to his ranged attack, if any, or to another action, such as dash, dodge, etc), which is not that bad, but not amazing either. With PAM you get to use it more often, with haste it might matter more often.

Yeah true, the ability does get better if you have more ways to trigger an AoO. You could kite stuff around with PAM, which might be entertaining for a bit, and if you had sentinel as well then it would be a bit hilarious.

On the whole though, that would feel a bit like throwing good feats after a bad class feature.

Also, genuine question, has anyone ever seen a magical polearm in dnd? You come across staves from time to time but I've never seen a glaive or anything like that. I don't know of one in any of the published modules. To be fair, a devotion paladin cares a lot less about getting a magic weapon, as he doesn't really need one.

[Corran]

Yeah true, the ability does get better if you have more ways to trigger an AoO. You could kite stuff around with PAM, which might be entertaining for a bit, and if you had sentinel as well then it would be a bit hilarious.

On the whole though, that would feel a bit like throwing good feats after a bad class feature.

Also, genuine question, has anyone ever seen a magical polearm in dnd? You come across staves from time to time but I've never seen a glaive or anything like that. I don't know of one in any of the published modules. To be fair, a devotion paladin cares a lot less about getting a magic weapon, as he doesn't really need one.
I would say that PAM is a good feat for vengeance paladins, but I think we have done this discussion before. Definitely not throwing it because of relentless avenger, it just happens to profit in case you take PAM.

Also, true, with sentinel it becomes even better, yet I dont really like sentinel on vengeance (even if PAM is selected), because of soul of vengeance (which comes late, though).

As for magic weapons, I've never seen a single one, since we play very low magic (at least regarding items), so I am probably not the best person to answer this.

Apologies for/if going out of topic.

[Mandragola]

I think that the fact devotion paladins don't need magic weapons is relevant to this discussion. It's a clear benefit of that oath.

PAM is a good feat for a vengeance paladin (it's arguably an OP feat and pretty good for almost anyone strength-based) but in my view it's better for devotion. So if I was making a PAM paladin I'd probably have taken the devotion oath, rather than vengeance.

[Citan]

Debatable. It depends on a lot of things, such as how many rounds will the combat last, your dpr, the enemy's or enemies' AC, their dpr and hit chance, etc. Even if we know all these stuff, it's not exactly a quick task to figure out how much value we squeezed out of it. And I still think that the most defining factor regarding sacred weapon's value, is its action economy cost, or lack of thereoff.
I totally agree with that. ;)
But my experience as a player and DM strongly differs from what is regarded (without any reliable source by the way) as average parameters for a given encounter on the forum.
In particular about relative distance and number of rounds.

Most of encounters in my games last more than 5 rounds, environment usually provides many kind of options, and often meleers are not able to make contact on the first round. So really using Sacred Weapon is not a big deal because, well, Paladins have not many better things to do with it if they can't hit (unless, of course, you are tasked to be the party Bless-er).

It's also why I find Devotion better than Vengeance at low level as far as "duelist" role goes. Until Vengeance can get Haste, he's mostly screwed everytime nobody is within 30 feet, which happens often at the start of a fight (even in buildings, it's not rare having a room significantly larger than a 30 feet diameter): because his CD requires him to be very close. Once Haste is in play it's usually not a problem anymore though, if you put aside you do nearly the same thing as a Devotion Paladin, using your action to buff yourself (at least, with now double speed, there is a chance you can reach one enemy to make at least one weapon attack with the extra action).
Besides, Sacred Weapon is consistent whatever enemy you face, whereas Vengeance becomes plain worse once his dedicated foe is striked down.

Making Devotion more versatile in positioning and more generally fighting: even a high STR / low DEX Devotion Paladin can still contribute decent damage in a fight where long range is king, by using Sacred Weapon on a longbow. Obviously even better on a DEX Paladin.
From a broader point of view, a Vengeance always has to stick with his sworn foe until it's dead, so his movement options are limited. A Devotion can more easily switch targets depending on whether priority is killing a creature in particular, moving up to kill another that threatens a squishy, or just face-tank a swarm.

Of course, even Sacred Weapon won't help much if you have to completely change tactics and weaponry mid-fight though. ;)

[Mandragola]

For what it's worth, I don't find haste all that useful. It obviously has good benefits, but the fact it requires concentration, takes a round to cast and the awful penalty when it ends all count against it.

I actually tend to find that bless is the best use of my concentration "slot" even at level 13. Hitting and passing saving throws continues to be really useful at all levels and it only requires a level 1 spell slot.

A lot of the time I don't concentrate on anything though, so that I've got access to stuff like smite spells. These aren't really working too well though, so I'll probably just cast bless more in future.

[Citan]

Debatable. It depends on a lot of things, such as how many rounds will the combat last, your dpr, the enemy's or enemies' AC, their dpr and hit chance, etc. Even if we know all these stuff, it's not exactly a quick task to figure out how much value we squeezed out of it. And I still think that the most defining factor regarding sacred weapon's value, is its action economy cost, or lack of thereoff.

Also, while we can safely agree that because of action economy management, Sacred Weapon value increases with the number of rounds (and optionnally distance to hit the first creature) parameter(s)....

Honestly, even in encounters that you expect to be of a short duration, Sacred Weapon may still be worth it against high AC targets depending on your current CHA, or again lower AC targets because it makes GWM feature usable reliably.

Let's try some maths.

----
Imagine you just reached level 6, you used your first ASI to bump CHA because of Aura of Protection, spell DC and number of spell prepared. A point-buy optimized Devotion Paladin will have 16 STR and 18 CHA by that time (supposing variant Human for GWM), using a 2d6 weapon.
For the sake of addressing the supposed drawback of Sacred Weapon, we suppose there are several enemies immediately accessible to melee weapon attacks. One with 18 AC and unknown but expected high HP, others with 14 AC and expected HP between 15 and 20.
Case A: attacking 18 AC.
Case B: attacking 14 AC.
We will analyse three rounds of just plain attacks. Note that i'm too lazy to bring OA, smite spells and smiting in detail, although I'll speak about it later ^^. Also probabilities are slightly biaised since I don't know how to take the "20=natural hit" into account, but that doesn't change the comparison in itself. ;)

Attacking the 18 AC creature.
Case A1: directly attacking.
Paladin has +3+3=6 bonus to hit.
Against AC 18, has 45% chance to hit. With GWM feature, would drop to 20% so obviously won't do that.
So, on three rounds, you have 6 chances at attacking, each dealing around 10 damage and having 45% chance of success. Meaning that you could expect a bit less than half attacks succeeding (lets be nice and make it half).
So by the end of turn 3, you can expect an average 0,45*6*10=4,5*6=27.

Case A2: Sacred Weapon on first turn.
So on turn 1, no attack. But now your bonus to hit is +10.
On rounds 2 and 3, each of your attacks will have 65% chance to hit.
So you have 4 attacks remaining.
By the end of turn 3, you can expect and average of 0,65*4*10=6,5*4=26.
Or you could really try your luck and use GWM feature. Now you have only 40% chance to hit, but you'd deal an average 20 damage per attack.
So by the end of turn 3, you can expect an average of 0,40*4*20 = 4*4*2=32 damage.

See? If someone likes to play "reasonably" on their luck, just going with straight attacks is a good choice. In all other cases, using Sacred Weapon is the best choice, except...
- If your priority is to deal as much damage as soon as possible (meaning you won't use GWM benefit but instead use Divine Smite on the first hit, maybe even using your first weapon attack to Shove to get advantage).
- Or if you have an external way to boost your chance to hit without wanting to use GWM benefit (Cleric's Bless, caster imposing restrain/stun condition, Wolf Barbarian).

Now let's see case B: attacking AC 13 creatures

B1: straight attacks.
Against AC 14, you have 65% chance to hit on normal attacks, or 40% chance with GWM benefit.
Meaning that on each round, you can deal an average of either 0,65*2*10=13 or 0,40*2*20=16.
Depending on your luck on attacks and damage roll, you will manage, or not, to kill one enemy each round, so up to 3 enemies, but most probably only 2.

B2: Sacred Weapon
First turn you won't attack, meaning that that enemy you may have killed otherwise will get a turn.
But now, you have either 85% chance to hit normally, or 60% chance to hit with GWM benefit.
So, on each turn, you can expect to deal either 0,85*2*10= 19 or 0,60*2*20=24 damage on average.
Meaning you are basically pretty certain to kill one creature every round, with some luck on damage roll you could even one-shot a creature on a single weapon attack.

So, in the end, only with strong luck would the first Paladin manage to kill one creature on his first turn, thus reducing enemy forces. In any other case, going with Sacred Weapon first is the best choice.

----
Of course, this is a shallow theorycraft: beyond the help one could get from party which could make Sacred Weapon overkill, a Paladin can use divine smite to "rectify" an underwhelming attack and get the expected result (enemy down)...
At least when one still has slots for that. XD

Overall though, Sacred Weapon is a boost that is beneficial to whatever tactical decision you make down the road in any encounter. Unless it lasts only 2 rounds. XD

Plus, it makes your weapon magical. ;) While one could expect a 10+ character to have some nice magic weapon tailored for him in most games, at lower levels it really depends on the campaign and DM. ^^

[KorvinStarmast]

Vengeance is great as a striker/off-tank with a Cleric (Warding Bond) Yeah, did that in our first group, when Korvin(life cleric) died, and in our second group when I made a Tempest Cleric and my friend went with Vengeance Paladin a second time. (He liked the concept and the class). Warding Bond was nice for him to get in there and mix it up. (He was usually fighting next to a Bear Barbarian, and we had a rogue ... some nice synergy in all that.

[Citan]

Yeah, did that in our first group, when Korvin(life cleric) died, and in our second group when I made a Tempest Cleric and my friend went with Vengeance Paladin a second time. (He liked the concept and the class). Warding Bond was nice for him to get in there and mix it up. (He was usually fighting next to a Bear Barbarian, and we had a rogue ... some nice synergy in all that.
Whenever someone wants to make a multiclass character with Twin metamagic, my first reflex is "Twin Warding Bond!!"... Before realizing that it would make yourself take damage twice as fast. XD

I don't know if there could be a decent way to circumvent that "slight" drawback. XD Heroism doesn't scale (although you could upcast it on you and the warded allies, but 5hp per turn quickly becomes useless), False Life is not much better unless as Warlock invocation, I guess it could work if you have a decent way to make a cushion like with Long Death Monk (especially lvl 11 feature) or Fiend Warlock's feature, or Vampiric Touch spell...

Damn... Now I want to make this character concept work. XD
I note that nothing prevents any "resistance" or similar feature of the warding character to apply on the automatic damage... So I guess a Barbarian / Cleric / Sorcerer could work (putting aside the extreme MADness of course ^^).

[SharkForce]

devotion paladin sorcadin.

you get haste and misty step if you want still, first round you can use sacred weapon and quicken booming blade or greenflame blade so you still get an attack.

[Citan]

devotion paladin sorcadin.

you get haste and misty step if you want still, first round you can use sacred weapon and quicken booming blade or greenflame blade so you still get an attack.
Nice combo. :smallbiggrin:
Add a Champion 3 on top of that if you want to be ready for any situation (Quicken Haste, action Sacred Weapon, Haste Dash, Action Surge Booming Blade).

Okay, it's stupidly overkill, I know. XD

[SharkForce]

Nice combo. :smallbiggrin:
Add a Champion 3 on top of that if you want to be ready for any situation (Quicken Haste, action Sacred Weapon, Haste Dash, Action Surge Booming Blade).

Okay, it's stupidly overkill, I know. XD

tbh, if you're gonna dip 3 levels of fighter, even with paladin crit smites i'd go battlemaster.

[Sorlock Master]

It depends on what you want.

Vengence Paladins seek out the evil

Ancient Paladins protect people from Evil

Devotion Paladins Cleanse evil

Also keep in mind the easiet bump to attacks to get is advantage. So Vengence and its free advantage really isnt that appealing since with devotion you can get an extra +5 on top of advantage.

If you want to be a murder machine take 14 in devotion and 6 in Draconic Sorc. Pick Fire as your Damage and snag Green Flame Blade. Use quicken spell to cast GFB as a bonus action, and cleanse these wretched creatures with holy fire.

For the record you will do 3d8+2d6+20 damage if you use GWM with a Great Sword. Before you apply smite damage with a single attack. More if you use your higher slots to cast Elemental Weapon to get and additional 3d4 Fire damage and +3.

[sithlordnergal]

I have not played a Devotion Paladin, but I have played an Oath of the Ancients. Oath of the Ancients has the highest tanking abilities out of the paladins, some crowd control spells, and is the only Paladin Oath to get AoE spells.

For spells, you get Plant Growth, Moonbeam, Misty Step, and Ensnaring Strike, along with others but those are the big four. As for tanking abilities, you get the Cha Bonus to saves, Immunity to Fear, Resistance to all Spell damage, and Protection from Energy as a spell. So if you face a spell caster, you can knock the damage of their spell down to 1/8.

Also, they get Undying Sentinel, which lets you return to 1hp once per long rest if you get K.O.ed, plus anti-aging effects. And the level 20 capstone lets you regain hp every round, force disadvantage on saves vs your spells, and some other stuff. I don't have my book, so I forget everything it does.

[Nidgit]

I have not played a Devotion Paladin, but I have played an Oath of the Ancients. Oath of the Ancients has the highest tanking abilities out of the paladins, some crowd control spells, and is the only Paladin Oath to get AoE spells.

Not strictly true, since Devotion gets Flame Strike at Level 17. It's still worse than Ancients' Cone of Cold at the same level though.

Ancients' capstone also includes casting spells as bonus actions. It's pretty easily one of the best capstones of any class.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Aren't we forgetting about an Oath? Namely the Oath of the Crown (from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide).

I mean yes, technically, it's the weakest of the Oaths (IMHO), but it's got it's own specific niche, namely being on of the few classes in 5e with a "taunt" mechanic of sorts. And Unyielding Spirit (at 15th) is actually surprisingly nice.

[Citan]

tbh, if you're gonna dip 3 levels of fighter, even with paladin crit smites i'd go battlemaster.
To be honest too, that was my exact first intent... But then I just thought that Precision was overkill on such a character. Totally forgot about Trip Attack though, which is arguably much better. ;)
So yes I'd go with Battlemaster more than Champion indeed.


Aren't we forgetting about an Oath? Namely the Oath of the Crown (from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide).

I mean yes, technically, it's the weakest of the Oaths (IMHO), but it's got it's own specific niche, namely being on of the few classes in 5e with a "taunt" mechanic of sorts. And Unyielding Spirit (at 15th) is actually surprisingly nice.
Don't know for others but as for me, I indeed forgot about it at the time.
Disagree on the fact it's technically the weakest. You could easily dispute it to Vengeance honestly except for capstone.

But in fact I don't see any one being weaker than other, they just each cater to different priorities. Oath of the Crown is by bounds and leaps much better than any other for a tank. Everything you get screams "come at me, leave my bros" and make you damnely good at aggroing. :)

[Kuulvheysoon]

To be honest too, that was my exact first intent... But then I just thought that Precision was overkill on such a character. Totally forgot about Trip Attack though, which is arguably much better. ;)
So yes I'd go with Battlemaster more than Champion indeed.


Don't know for others but as for me, I indeed forgot about it at the time.
Disagree on the fact it's technically the weakest. You could easily dispute it to Vengeance honestly except for capstone.

But in fact I don't see any one being weaker than other, they just each cater to different priorities. Oath of the Crown is by bounds and leaps much better than any other for a tank. Everything you get screams "come at me, leave my bros" and make you damnely good at aggroing. :)

Oh, I like the Oath of the Crown quite well and good, but it wouldn't really be "fair" to evaluate it without the capstone, especially given as how much there's been talk of the Oath of Ancient's capstone. And that's the thing that really pushes it down, I feel. Now, if we're discounting the capstone, I'd definitely place it above Vengeance.

[mephnick]

Oath of the Crown gets Spirit Guardians which automatically makes it one of the stronger Oaths.

[Zanthy1]

I am currently a vengeance pally and love it. /in combat I single out the BBEG while my party deals with the adds. Really good at messing up 1 dude.

[alchahest]

I really hope something resembling the paladin of conquest hits in Xanathar's. It's not a perfect expression of the idea, but I love the idea of someone striding onto the field of battle and just scaring the living **** out of the rank and files.

[EvilAnagram]

Oath of the Crown gets Spirit Guardians which automatically makes it one of the stronger Oaths.

SG is pretty damn fun, but I still love that Ancients aura. It's one of the more powerful abilities, period, and if you can find a way to get advantage on spell saves you are essentially immune to harmful magic.

[Asmotherion]

I won't bother on Devotion; I hate that stuff too. Too Shiny, and Fluffy for my taste. :P

Ancients has a Great LV 7 Ability if you are in a High Magic Campain or a campain were you expect to see a lot of Casters. In general, my Sorcerer/Warlock/Paladin Multiclass was Ancients (a Paladin of Bahamut) as I felt a magical protection felt more "right" to the character.

Other than that, Oathbreaker, if your DM lets you, again with some Sorcerer or Warlock Multiclassing, could do some wonders. You have a small army that is less mooky than the actual Necromancer's. If you Have a Necromancer in the party, I think (not sure) you can buff his undead as well as long as they are in your aura(?), so the more the merrier I guess?

I wouldn't touch the Crown thingy, sounds cool at first, but that's where the coolness ends: the name.

Still, for a more generalist, tuned up for smiting, pure Paladin with no multiclassing or Dipping, yeah, Vengence is probably the best option.


Now, each sub-class is a couple of things; how you whant to interpreat it, and what the DM allows. For example, on the above example, I decided to go for this character:

My Father was an Ancient Dragon, so Old, that he Quallifies for a Patron. At some point, I was fighting some followers of Tiamat, and I was mortally wounded. My father saved my life by sharing half his heart with me (Dragonheart, I know, right? :P ). This is, how I became a Warlock. I also was born with Sorcerer powers.

The Dm decided to Allow this, and Latter, allowed a variation of the Ancients Vow to fit the lore of Bahamut. Game Mechanics should not Influence Rp mechanics Imo, at least not unless there is a good reason. For example, I always found silly that Paladin was a class reserved for Good-Aligned Characters, since there are Evil Deities. It opens up the Arguement that Warlocks should always be Evil, and then some. Some Evil, non-oathbreaker Oaths should have been avalable, and since there are none, I think one should view the oaths only as mechanics and suggestion, and if they don't fit the campain needs, build new oaths as they need them :)

[DracoKnight]

SG is pretty damn fun, but I still love that Ancients aura. It's one of the more powerful abilities, period, and if you can find a way to get advantage on spell saves you are essentially immune to harmful magic.

Yuan-Ti Pureblood Oath of the Ancients Paladin, or dip 3 Warlock for Pact of the Chain. But Yuan-To gives Magic Resistance at 1st level, so there's that. Take the Mage Slayer feat and you wreck all casters.

As a side note: now that Eladrin get +1 CHA as an option, I kinda want to actually make that popular Fey Knight build (Ancients Pally 7/Archfey Warlock X)

[Citan]

Yuan-Ti Pureblood Oath of the Ancients Paladin, or dip 3 Warlock for Pact of the Chain. But Yuan-To gives Magic Resistance at 1st level, so there's that. Take the Mage Slayer feat and you wreck all casters.

As a side note: now that Eladrin get +1 CHA as an option, I kinda want to actually make that popular Fey Knight build (Ancients Pally 7/Archfey Warlock X)
Hey, first time I hear about that, seems kinda OP race. XD
Could you please tell me where it comes from? Volo's, I suppose (only book I never saw)?

[Zanthy1]

Hey, first time I hear about that, seems kinda OP race. XD
Could you please tell me where it comes from? Volo's, I suppose (only book I never saw)?

The Yuan-ti Pureblood is in Volo's yes. They get magic resistance at 1st level, which makes them pretty awesome and some other cool minor abilities. The new Eladrin is in the most recent UA.

[KorvinStarmast]

Hey, first time I hear about that, seems kinda OP race. XD
Could you please tell me where it comes from? Volo's, I suppose (only book I never saw)? It is from Volo's and is not allowed in AL play. (IMO, Tortles should likewise not be AL eligible, but that milk is now spilled).

[Naanomi]

It is from Volo's and is not allowed in AL play. (IMO, Tortles should likewise not be AL eligible, but that milk is now spilled).
Purebloods are allowed in adventure's league; they just have to be members of the Lord's Alliance; and Volos counts as your +1 Book

One of my 'regular' groups has a Pureblood Ancients Paladin dedicated to Jaizardin and playing up the 'tempt people to do evil to test their purity' angle of his cult

[KorvinStarmast]

Purebloods are allowed in adventure's league; they just have to be members of the Lord's Alliance; and Volos counts as your +1 Book Ah, that's right, the faction restriction. Thanks for the correction.

[JPicasso]

Our devotion pally swings a toy lightsaber around to make that noise when he powers up his greatsword. Few have a schwartz so big! :smile:

What other reason do you need?
+3(CHA) to hit compliments his GWF and GWM nicely.

[Dimers]

A curiosity, why 3.125? I've got 3.5. (although the "real" average bonus is even higher, since most situations you'll face you need to roll something between 5 and 15, more or less...)

Interesting. I wrote that post just over two years ago. This burst of revival is more "thread True Resurrection" than thread necromancy. :smallamused:

Make a table of the 400 possible combinations of two twenty-sided dice, each entry being the higher of the two rolls. Add up the 400 values, then divide by 400. The result is 13.625, which is 3.125 higher than the average for a single roll. *shrug* :smallconfused: Not a number I would've expected, but it is what it is.

[Psikerlord]

Paladins are borderline OP, not least because smite has no action cost and is stupid good when applied to a crit. You can choose any paladin and you'll be extremely effective.

[mephnick]

Paladins are borderline OP, not least because smite has no action cost and is stupid good when applied to a crit. You can choose any paladin and you'll be extremely effective.

It is weird Smite has no action cost when literally every other ability that works like Smite is a bonus action..

[Naanomi]

It is weird Smite has no action cost when literally every other ability that works like Smite is a bonus action..
The Smite-boosting spells take a bonus action, I think the intent was for them to stack and make costly novas

[mephnick]

The Smite-boosting spells take a bonus action, I think the intent was for them to stack and make costly novas

Huh, I never even thought of stacking them. That makes some sense.

[Castaras]

Mod of the Apocalypse: Closed for thread necromancy.