This is considerably not true in my opinion. As soon as they Wild Shape, they turn into a creature of a very low CR even at their maximum (warlocks get familiars of a similar challenge, which they can summon for free), and while druids do get more average hit points because of Wild Shape, they get far lower average attack damage when they use it, and they can't even cast spells while in Wild Shape.
At higher levels, there are spells that do what druids do and are potentially less costing.
Druids are good, but they're not the OP overblown the way lots of people ramble about them. They get some of the fewest low-level class features of any class in any official 5E release as well.
This is considerably not true in my opinion. As soon as they Wild Shape, they turn into a creature of a very low CR even at their maximum (warlocks get familiars of a similar challenge, which they can summon for free), and while druids do get more average hit points because of Wild Shape, they get far lower average attack damage when they use it, and they can't even cast spells while in Wild Shape.
At higher levels, there are spells that do what druids do and are potentially less costing.
Druids are good, but they're not the OP overblown the way lots of people ramble about them. They get some of the fewest low-level class features of any class in any official 5E release as well.
They also have basically no AC and no improvement to their saving throws outside their base class proficiencies.
This is considerably not true in my opinion. As soon as they Wild Shape, they turn into a creature of a very low CR even at their maximum (warlocks get familiars of a similar challenge, which they can summon for free), and while druids do get more average hit points because of Wild Shape, they get far lower average attack damage when they use it, and they can't even cast spells while in Wild Shape.
At higher levels, there are spells that do what druids do and are potentially less costing.
Druids are good, but they're not the OP overblown the way lots of people ramble about them. They get some of the fewest low-level class features of any class in any official 5E release as well.
Well, when people were saying it was op they were mostly looking at the mood druid which can turn into substantially higher challenge rating monsters. And plus, since the original poster of the thread was looking at level 20 paladin, many people were looking at level 20 druid where, since they have unlimited wild shape uses, a moon druid can continuously bonus action wild shape into a mammoth to reset hp.
And plus, the best part of wild shape is turning into a rat or something to infiltrate, or other utility-type uses. That and being a full caster in addition to all this.
Side note: I agree that druids are not op, and personally think paladins are generally more powerful. Just trying to make a case for where they're coming from.
This is considerably not true in my opinion. As soon as they Wild Shape, they turn into a creature of a very low CR even at their maximum (warlocks get familiars of a similar challenge, which they can summon for free), and while druids do get more average hit points because of Wild Shape, they get far lower average attack damage when they use it, and they can't even cast spells while in Wild Shape.
At higher levels, there are spells that do what druids do and are potentially less costing.
Druids are good, but they're not the OP overblown the way lots of people ramble about them. They get some of the fewest low-level class features of any class in any official 5E release as well.
Well, when people were saying it was op they were mostly looking at the mood druid which can turn into substantially higher challenge rating monsters. And plus, since the original poster of the thread was looking at level 20 paladin, many people were looking at level 20 druid where, since they have unlimited wild shape uses, a moon druid can continuously bonus action wild shape into a mammoth to reset hp.
And plus, the best part of wild shape is turning into a rat or something to infiltrate, or other utility-type uses. That and being a full caster in addition to all this.
Side note: I agree that druids are not op, and personally think paladins are generally more powerful. Just trying to make a case for where they're coming from.
Can't druids also spellcast in their wildshape at level 20 (Archdruid)? That's pretty darn powerful!
This is considerably not true in my opinion. As soon as they Wild Shape, they turn into a creature of a very low CR even at their maximum (warlocks get familiars of a similar challenge, which they can summon for free), and while druids do get more average hit points because of Wild Shape, they get far lower average attack damage when they use it, and they can't even cast spells while in Wild Shape.
At higher levels, there are spells that do what druids do and are potentially less costing.
Druids are good, but they're not the OP overblown the way lots of people ramble about them. They get some of the fewest low-level class features of any class in any official 5E release as well.
Well, when people were saying it was op they were mostly looking at the mood druid which can turn into substantially higher challenge rating monsters. And plus, since the original poster of the thread was looking at level 20 paladin, many people were looking at level 20 druid where, since they have unlimited wild shape uses, a moon druid can continuously bonus action wild shape into a mammoth to reset hp.
And plus, the best part of wild shape is turning into a rat or something to infiltrate, or other utility-type uses. That and being a full caster in addition to all this.
Side note: I agree that druids are not op, and personally think paladins are generally more powerful. Just trying to make a case for where they're coming from.
Can't druids also spellcast in their wildshape at level 20 (Archdruid)? That's pretty darn powerful!
They technically can at 18th. It just gets easier at 20th.
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This is considerably not true in my opinion. As soon as they Wild Shape, they turn into a creature of a very low CR even at their maximum (warlocks get familiars of a similar challenge, which they can summon for free), and while druids do get more average hit points because of Wild Shape, they get far lower average attack damage when they use it, and they can't even cast spells while in Wild Shape.
At higher levels, there are spells that do what druids do and are potentially less costing.
Druids are good, but they're not the OP overblown the way lots of people ramble about them. They get some of the fewest low-level class features of any class in any official 5E release as well.
Well, sure, if you ignore the moon and spore subclasses and higher level abilities you are correct. Otherwise you are not. The fact that those two wildshaping druids can replenish 80+ HP per turn makes them really difficult to take on. Add to that good stats for saves and high level spell casting and you have a monster on your hand.
Is this still going on? If we really need more evidence that paladins are not by far the most powerful class, here's some evidence. I still stand by my above post, but here's some more if we really need it:
So I said that the 600 damage stuff's not going it happen, and that I did math on it. I guess I didn't show the math, so here it is:
For this 600+ damage to work, we need all crits, and max damage on dice, along with all the right buffs, facing the right enemy, and whatever else. We'll ignore how hard it is to get all these things and just look at the probability of getting this.
First, the chance of getting a crit is 1 in 20, or 5%. Since these 4 crits are independent events, the chance of them all critting is just each chance multiplied by each other, which is 1 in 160000, or only 0.000625% chance! Even that is rare, but it just get's worse from here.
We have 2d12 + 2d8 + 12d8 + 10d10 damage dice. Each one of these are independent events, so we again multiply. It's 1 in 12 (8.3%) x 1 in 12 x 1 in 8 (12.5%) x 1 in 8 x 1 in 8 x 1 in 8 x 1 in 8 x 1 in 8 x 1 in 8 x 1 in 8 x 1 in 8 x 1 in 8 (12.5%) x 1 in 8 x 1 in 8 x 1 in 8 x 1 in 8 x 1 in 10 (10%) x 1 in 10 x 1 in 10 x 1 in 10 x 1 in 10 x 1 in 10 x 1 in 10 x 1 in 10 x 1 in 10 x 1 in 10, for a total probability of... 1 in 15663773000000000000000000 or 0.000000000000000000000001566377% chance!!
Then both the critting and rolling max are independent events, so we multiply those together! This give us a final probability of 1 in 93982635000000000000000000000000, or a 0.000000000000000000000000000009% chance!!! This is such a low chance that it's hard to even comprehend. If every human on earth did this every second for a century, there would still be only about a 1 in 1000000000000 chance of it happening!!! This is such an unlikely event that you may as well count it as impossible. If someone did this, I would seriously look into seeing if the dice were rigged. It just doesn't happen.
Earlier in the thread, I started doing the math of rolling max damage on everything...but stopped when I realized you have a much, much, much greater chance of winning the Mega Millions lottery, than you do of rolling max damage on everything in the example! And even that is massively understating how far removed the chance of rolling all those max damages and the to hit, let alone the crit. Be closer to having to win several lotteries, at the same time. All of that says...never going to happen.
It makes far more sense to look at the average, rather than max damage, which will never happen.
I would love to see the math actually, I've heard of a odds formula called the 10 billion human second century which gives the odds for if all 10 billion people on earth did the same thing every second for a century what the odds would be of whatever it is happening a single time. And I'd wager that rolling 3 crits and max damage on 70 dice has some insanely low probability of happening but would be possible given that formula.
For some fun reference the current record for craps is 154 rolls without getting a seven, the chance of those odds is 1 in 1.56 TRILLION. and that's just not rolling a seven, in our example we need maximum dice rolls on 73 dice and I have a strong feeling that our odds have got to be in that neighborhood.
BUT yes to the OP given a roughly 1 in 1.56 trillion odds the Paladin can do 600+ dmg a turn. Now If he wants to bet say.. $1 an attempt I'll gladly take him up on it nonstop all the time always that he won't get his 600 dmg, I want my checks monthly
I am also aware of the 10 billion human second century, and the I actually mentioned it in my maths. The chance of rolling all max is actually lower the human second century. It's 1 in 9×10^31. This is because when you have independent events (such as rolling a certain number on multiple dice), the combined probably of both happening is the probabilities multiplied by each other. And with 30 dice, each with 8-20 sides....
I don't know if it's the most powerful class, CharOp experts can surly make other builds that surpass a Paladin in AC, healing, damage maximum etc
But it's for me one of the most robust and well-rounded class in terms of HP, saves, damage output, AC right out of the gate, without optimization or anything, which can heal a bit on top! It's laking greatly at range though, being primarly a melee class so not much flexibility there.
Even if they are the most powerful class, I'm not going to play one until someone makes a stealthy, Dexterity-based antipalidan class.
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I don't know if it's the most powerful class, CharOp experts can surly make other builds that surpass a Paladin in AC, healing, damage maximum etc
But it's for me one of the most robust and well-rounded class in terms of HP, saves, damage output, AC right out of the gate, without optimization or anything, which can heal a bit on top! It's lacking greatly at range though, being primary a melee class so not much flexibility there.
This discussion about peak damage aside, the comparrison of the paladin baseclass damag to another class, that can pull of an insane combo at level 20 (!!!!!), in combination with a feat is pretty unfair. I also think, that there are nearly 0 GWM, Samurai builds out there, that weren't created for math-flexing in forum posts or broken one-shots. ;-) So until Level 20 the paladin usually should be compared to GWM Barbarians or something like that. Because here are really relevant gameplay-situations that most players will come across in a regular daily basis. And here a Paladin competes very well against his contenders.
In fact i would say that paladins are the most solid contenders as the strongest "baseclass". They are good from the beginning of the game, are without any additional feats or builts the greatest contender for best damage that you can rely on. Divine smite is written so easily and idiot proof ("if you HIT, you can spend....", "Oh crit!!! High level smite"). The class is considerably the strongest combatant in the dnd core system of a melee skirmisher against powerful giant monsters. And additionally they come with an absolute fantastic support package with lay on hands and a pretty decent support spelllist for a lot of situations (if paladins just wouldn't use all their slots for smites, but this feature is just too good) AND really good aura's. It's not for nothing that groups with Paladin have the reputation of being able to take much tougher encounters than groups without. They add so much to any group that i sometimes feel realy sorry for fighters (which i like way more to be honest) or Barbarians. Because these classes can flex a lot to outmatch the paladin in combat in terms of damage output, but the paladin comes really close to these numbers just by his base class features and can add so much more, then just his pure damage output, to the table. And that is what makes the paladin such a strong contender for the "best" class in my opinion.
Now to the weaknesses. You have to play a paladin. I don't know, but it's not my favorite character style. Your ranged attack capabilities are bad, which is nearly always irrelevant within the close combat system of dnd.... At level 5 just ask your friendly mage companion to cast fly on you or later ride into the skyline of the battlefield on a Griffon or pegasus as the near unstoppable combat-archon that you are!
This discussion about peak damage aside, the comparrison of the paladin baseclass damag to another class, that can pull of an insane combo at level 20 (!!!!!), in combination with a feat is pretty unfair. I also think, that there are nearly 0 GWM, Samurai builds out there, that weren't created for math-flexing in forum posts or broken one-shots. ;-) So until Level 20 the paladin usually should be compared to GWM Barbarians or something like that. Because here are really relevant gameplay-situations that most players will come across in a regular daily basis. And here a Paladin competes very well against his contenders.
In fact i would say that paladins are the most solid contenders as the strongest "baseclass". They are good from the beginning of the game, are without any additional feats or builts the greatest contender for best damage that you can rely on. Divine smite is written so easily and idiot proof ("if you HIT, you can spend....", "Oh crit!!! High level smite"). The class is considerably the strongest combatant in the dnd core system of a melee skirmisher against powerful giant monsters. And additionally they come with an absolute fantastic support package with lay on hands and a pretty decent support spelllist for a lot of situations (if paladins just wouldn't use all their slots for smites, but this feature is just too good) AND really good aura's. It's not for nothing that groups with Paladin have the reputation of being able to take much tougher encounters than groups without. They add so much to any group that i sometimes feel realy sorry for fighters (which i like way more to be honest) or Barbarians. Because these classes can flex a lot to outmatch the paladin in combat in terms of damage output, but the paladin comes really close to these numbers just by his base class features and can add so much more, then just his pure damage output, to the table. And that is what makes the paladin such a strong contender for the "best" class in my opinion.
Now to the weaknesses. You have to play a paladin. I don't know, but it's not my favorite character style. Your ranged attack capabilities are bad, which is nearly always irrelevant within the close combat system of dnd.... At level 5 just ask your friendly mage companion to cast fly on you or later ride into the skyline of the battlefield on a Griffon or pegasus as the near unstoppable combat-archon that you are!
Again, as pointed out many times previously in this thread, how do you define "most powerful class"? No-one disagrees that the Paladin is good in combat and has some excellent support abilities but there's more to the game than combat.
I don't said, that the paladin is "the best class".
I don't want to do the math her or count the pages, but i would guess that 80% of the rules of dnd evolve around combat. Maybe even more. And if you look at the combat rules you will see, that dnd is very close combat heavy either. So the combat capabilities are in my opinion a very important part when i evaluate the strength of a class.
But that is not everything, when evaluating the class. I also look at the other aspekts, or how well are the different features of the class designed. Are they somewhat counterintuitive, what are the advantages and what are the drawbacks? Here are some of my evalution thoughts:
What does this class add to the group? A strong melee combatant, a tanky body, a good charisma char as the face, a well rounded support character and some healing
Can it fill the role of multiple classes? Yes
Can if fill those roles simultainously? Yes, even 4 (Tank/Damage/Support/face)
Loose it anything for doing so? no, it's built in the class
Does it need extra set-up, like feats or a special race or a special combat style? no, it's built in the class
Are the abilities designed, so they can used easily?
Yes. You can dish out your healing to yourself or your allies and are flexible on healing HP or curing deseases or poisons. The resource doesn't even touch your other resources like spellslots.
Your aura is always active
You can choose to divine smite AFTER you know that you hit, so you will not waste a spellslot for a missing attack
Has it some crucial downsides?
no, well not anymore. Beeing a paladin has become a pretty flexible task in 5th edition.
You're somewhat limited to closecombat in your build, but see my second paragraph above. And you are free to do anyhing here, and it will be pretty good
Paladins are a strong chassis of a class, to build the subclasses upon. It's one of the best built and thought out classes in DnD imo. Others can do things better than paladins, but paladins have strong all around versatility. Btw any Cha based class can be the face of the party. So paladins can do it, but so can all the others.
Some of the paladin subclasses are not brilliant in what they bring to the table, but because they are built on a good class base, are still pretty solid overall. Just by being a paladin, no matter their subclass, they won't be awful.
The mere fact that so many paladins choose to multi-class, says that the class, as is, is not "the most powerful" or rather OP. If paladin's were as OP as some have indicated, there would be no need to multi-class. Sorry, but a paladin/sorcerer or paladin/warlock, to me, is a better combo than just a pure paladin. Paladins are a very good class, but can be made better by multi-classing to make up for some of the flaws or weaknesses of the class.
I don't said, that the paladin is "the best class".
No-one said you did. But, and again, this has already been mentioned in this thread numerous times, I suggest you go back and read the whole thing, unless you define what you mean by "the most powerful class" then the whole discussion is pointless.
I don't want to do the math her or count the pages, but i would guess that 80% of the rules of dnd evolve around combat. Maybe even more. And if you look at the combat rules you will see, that dnd is very close combat heavy either. So the combat capabilities are in my opinion a very important part when i evaluate the strength of a class.
Again, it's irrelevant how much of the rules are combat unless combat is all you care about. And even then, as shown in this thread, there are many classes that outshines the paladin in many ways.
But that is not everything, when evaluating the class. I also look at the other aspekts, or how well are the different features of the class designed. Are they somewhat counterintuitive, what are the advantages and what are the drawbacks? Here are some of my evalution thoughts:
What does this class add to the group? A strong melee combatant, a tanky body, a good charisma char as the face, a well rounded support character and some healing
Sure, but it doesn't have a bunch of other things.
Can it fill the role of multiple classes? Yes
So can other classes.
Can if fill those roles simultainously? Yes, even 4 (Tank/Damage/Support/face)
Saying that it can do all of those simultaneously is a bit of a stretch. If you support your damage and tank capabilities will lack (and vice versa) and there is seldom room to be both damage dealing and face at the same time.
Loose it anything for doing so? no, it's built in the class
What do you mean by "lose anything"? No class lose anything for being good at what they are good at.
Does it need extra set-up, like feats or a special race or a special combat style? no, it's built in the class
This also goes for every class.
Are the abilities designed, so they can used easily?
Yes. You can dish out your healing to yourself or your allies and are flexible on healing HP or curing deseases or poisons. The resource doesn't even touch your other resources like spellslots.
Your aura is always active
You can choose to divine smite AFTER you know that you hit, so you will not waste a spellslot for a missing attack
I agree. Except that the Paladin's healing is a limited resource (as it should be).
Has it some crucial downsides?
no, well not anymore. Beeing a paladin has become a pretty flexible task in 5th edition.
You're somewhat limited to closecombat in your build, but see my second paragraph above. And you are free to do anyhing here, and it will be pretty good
Sword and Board (sentinel or slasher/crusher)
Polearm master (sentinel)
GWM-Built
The Paladin has numerous downsides and weaknesses. Like you said, it is limited to close combat which means that a Rogue can kite them for days. They also have very limited resources, few spell slots and they have to share the spell slots between spells and smites. Paladins are also quite MAD which means that you basically have to pick an area (tanking, damage or support) to be really good at. You'll still not be bad at the other but focusing on one will make you less good in the others. Paladins are also terrible at stealth, mobility and skills. Unless they have access to a magical weapon they will also lack in offensive capabilities against certain enemies. Smites help for a bit but they cost spell slots that the paladin has very few of.
Also, other classes can do things that the Paladin never can do that render all of the Paladin's combat abilities useless (which have already been covered). Are they bad? No. Are they good? Yes. Are they the best? No way of telling unless you have a very precise definition of what constitutes as "best".
Even if they are the most powerful class, I'm not going to play one until someone makes a stealthy, Dexterity-based antipalidan class.
So, by this, you are trying to tell me you are a Paladin-hater ??????
@Dragonslayer 9
Dude.
Nothing is limiting you from playing a dex based paladin. You have proficiency in all weapons and devine smite can work with finesse.
I realize now that you can. It’s just that there so often considered Strength-based. Still, I would prefer playing a shadowy Antipaladin than a holy Paladin.
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Listening to the druids being more tanky...
This is considerably not true in my opinion. As soon as they Wild Shape, they turn into a creature of a very low CR even at their maximum (warlocks get familiars of a similar challenge, which they can summon for free), and while druids do get more average hit points because of Wild Shape, they get far lower average attack damage when they use it, and they can't even cast spells while in Wild Shape.
At higher levels, there are spells that do what druids do and are potentially less costing.
Druids are good, but they're not the OP overblown the way lots of people ramble about them. They get some of the fewest low-level class features of any class in any official 5E release as well.
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They also have basically no AC and no improvement to their saving throws outside their base class proficiencies.
Well, when people were saying it was op they were mostly looking at the mood druid which can turn into substantially higher challenge rating monsters. And plus, since the original poster of the thread was looking at level 20 paladin, many people were looking at level 20 druid where, since they have unlimited wild shape uses, a moon druid can continuously bonus action wild shape into a mammoth to reset hp.
And plus, the best part of wild shape is turning into a rat or something to infiltrate, or other utility-type uses. That and being a full caster in addition to all this.
Side note: I agree that druids are not op, and personally think paladins are generally more powerful. Just trying to make a case for where they're coming from.
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
Can't druids also spellcast in their wildshape at level 20 (Archdruid)? That's pretty darn powerful!
They technically can at 18th. It just gets easier at 20th.
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No connection to Dragonslayer8 other than knowing them in real life.
Well, sure, if you ignore the moon and spore subclasses and higher level abilities you are correct. Otherwise you are not. The fact that those two wildshaping druids can replenish 80+ HP per turn makes them really difficult to take on. Add to that good stats for saves and high level spell casting and you have a monster on your hand.
I would love to see the math actually, I've heard of a odds formula called the 10 billion human second century which gives the odds for if all 10 billion people on earth did the same thing every second for a century what the odds would be of whatever it is happening a single time. And I'd wager that rolling 3 crits and max damage on 70 dice has some insanely low probability of happening but would be possible given that formula.
For some fun reference the current record for craps is 154 rolls without getting a seven, the chance of those odds is 1 in 1.56 TRILLION. and that's just not rolling a seven, in our example we need maximum dice rolls on 73 dice and I have a strong feeling that our odds have got to be in that neighborhood.
BUT yes to the OP given a roughly 1 in 1.56 trillion odds the Paladin can do 600+ dmg a turn. Now If he wants to bet say.. $1 an attempt I'll gladly take him up on it nonstop all the time always that he won't get his 600 dmg, I want my checks monthly
Winterdale81,
I did provide the math, it's in the spoiler.
I am also aware of the 10 billion human second century, and the I actually mentioned it in my maths. The chance of rolling all max is actually lower the human second century. It's 1 in 9×10^31. This is because when you have independent events (such as rolling a certain number on multiple dice), the combined probably of both happening is the probabilities multiplied by each other. And with 30 dice, each with 8-20 sides....
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
I don't know if it's the most powerful class, CharOp experts can surly make other builds that surpass a Paladin in AC, healing, damage maximum etc
But it's for me one of the most robust and well-rounded class in terms of HP, saves, damage output, AC right out of the gate, without optimization or anything, which can heal a bit on top! It's laking greatly at range though, being primarly a melee class so not much flexibility there.
Even if they are the most powerful class, I'm not going to play one until someone makes a stealthy, Dexterity-based antipalidan class.
This isn't actually a signature, just something I copy and paste onto the bottom of all my posts. Or is it? Yep, it is. Or is it..? I’m a hobbit, and the master cranial imploder of the "Oops, I Accidently Destroyed Someone's Brain" cult. Extended sig. I'm actually in Limbo, it says I'm in Mechanus because that's where I get my WiFi from. Please don't tell the modrons, they're still angry from the 'Spawning Stone' fiasco.
No connection to Dragonslayer8 other than knowing them in real life.
Yep. It's about what you want to play not power anyway.
Agree.
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
This discussion about peak damage aside, the comparrison of the paladin baseclass damag to another class, that can pull of an insane combo at level 20 (!!!!!), in combination with a feat is pretty unfair. I also think, that there are nearly 0 GWM, Samurai builds out there, that weren't created for math-flexing in forum posts or broken one-shots. ;-) So until Level 20 the paladin usually should be compared to GWM Barbarians or something like that. Because here are really relevant gameplay-situations that most players will come across in a regular daily basis. And here a Paladin competes very well against his contenders.
In fact i would say that paladins are the most solid contenders as the strongest "baseclass". They are good from the beginning of the game, are without any additional feats or builts the greatest contender for best damage that you can rely on. Divine smite is written so easily and idiot proof ("if you HIT, you can spend....", "Oh crit!!! High level smite"). The class is considerably the strongest combatant in the dnd core system of a melee skirmisher against powerful giant monsters. And additionally they come with an absolute fantastic support package with lay on hands and a pretty decent support spelllist for a lot of situations (if paladins just wouldn't use all their slots for smites, but this feature is just too good) AND really good aura's.
It's not for nothing that groups with Paladin have the reputation of being able to take much tougher encounters than groups without. They add so much to any group that i sometimes feel realy sorry for fighters (which i like way more to be honest) or Barbarians. Because these classes can flex a lot to outmatch the paladin in combat in terms of damage output, but the paladin comes really close to these numbers just by his base class features and can add so much more, then just his pure damage output, to the table. And that is what makes the paladin such a strong contender for the "best" class in my opinion.
Now to the weaknesses.
You have to play a paladin. I don't know, but it's not my favorite character style.
Your ranged attack capabilities are bad, which is nearly always irrelevant within the close combat system of dnd.... At level 5 just ask your friendly mage companion to cast fly on you or later ride into the skyline of the battlefield on a Griffon or pegasus as the near unstoppable combat-archon that you are!
Again, as pointed out many times previously in this thread, how do you define "most powerful class"? No-one disagrees that the Paladin is good in combat and has some excellent support abilities but there's more to the game than combat.
I don't said, that the paladin is "the best class".
I don't want to do the math her or count the pages, but i would guess that 80% of the rules of dnd evolve around combat. Maybe even more. And if you look at the combat rules you will see, that dnd is very close combat heavy either. So the combat capabilities are in my opinion a very important part when i evaluate the strength of a class.
But that is not everything, when evaluating the class. I also look at the other aspekts, or how well are the different features of the class designed. Are they somewhat counterintuitive, what are the advantages and what are the drawbacks? Here are some of my evalution thoughts:
A strong melee combatant, a tanky body, a good charisma char as the face, a well rounded support character and some healing
Yes
Yes, even 4 (Tank/Damage/Support/face)
no, it's built in the class
no, it's built in the class
Paladins are a strong chassis of a class, to build the subclasses upon. It's one of the best built and thought out classes in DnD imo. Others can do things better than paladins, but paladins have strong all around versatility. Btw any Cha based class can be the face of the party. So paladins can do it, but so can all the others.
Some of the paladin subclasses are not brilliant in what they bring to the table, but because they are built on a good class base, are still pretty solid overall. Just by being a paladin, no matter their subclass, they won't be awful.
The mere fact that so many paladins choose to multi-class, says that the class, as is, is not "the most powerful" or rather OP. If paladin's were as OP as some have indicated, there would be no need to multi-class. Sorry, but a paladin/sorcerer or paladin/warlock, to me, is a better combo than just a pure paladin. Paladins are a very good class, but can be made better by multi-classing to make up for some of the flaws or weaknesses of the class.
No-one said you did. But, and again, this has already been mentioned in this thread numerous times, I suggest you go back and read the whole thing, unless you define what you mean by "the most powerful class" then the whole discussion is pointless.
Again, it's irrelevant how much of the rules are combat unless combat is all you care about. And even then, as shown in this thread, there are many classes that outshines the paladin in many ways.
Sure, but it doesn't have a bunch of other things.
So can other classes.
Saying that it can do all of those simultaneously is a bit of a stretch. If you support your damage and tank capabilities will lack (and vice versa) and there is seldom room to be both damage dealing and face at the same time.
What do you mean by "lose anything"? No class lose anything for being good at what they are good at.
This also goes for every class.
I agree. Except that the Paladin's healing is a limited resource (as it should be).
The Paladin has numerous downsides and weaknesses. Like you said, it is limited to close combat which means that a Rogue can kite them for days. They also have very limited resources, few spell slots and they have to share the spell slots between spells and smites. Paladins are also quite MAD which means that you basically have to pick an area (tanking, damage or support) to be really good at. You'll still not be bad at the other but focusing on one will make you less good in the others. Paladins are also terrible at stealth, mobility and skills. Unless they have access to a magical weapon they will also lack in offensive capabilities against certain enemies. Smites help for a bit but they cost spell slots that the paladin has very few of.
Also, other classes can do things that the Paladin never can do that render all of the Paladin's combat abilities useless (which have already been covered). Are they bad? No. Are they good? Yes. Are they the best? No way of telling unless you have a very precise definition of what constitutes as "best".
@Dragonslayer 9
Dude.
Nothing is limiting you from playing a dex based paladin. You have proficiency in all weapons and devine smite can work with finesse.
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I realize now that you can. It’s just that there so often considered Strength-based. Still, I would prefer playing a shadowy Antipaladin than a holy Paladin.
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Yeah you can play a Paladin with 8 STR or 8 CHA you just can't multiclass.