In theory I like Divine Favor no longer requiring concentration since it gives a decent BA option. Namely for Paladin builds that don't use Polearm Master, like my current mounted build w/ a Lance & Shield or any that wants to use its few ASIs to raise needed stats instead of having to take a feat.
My session last night underscored again how DF just cannot compete with Bless (at lvl 8). We had back-to-back combats where the extra d4s turned several misses to hits and absolutely saved our biscuits on saves when a young red dragon swooped in and dropped 60 fire damage on our heads. Because of my Aura + Bless, everyone made their DEX saves and only took 30 dmg ("only" lol). Without that, we would have TPKed. DF simply can't do that.
DF is now easier to use, but I agree it should also scale to compete with all the other stuff they've jammed into Paladin's BA. Seems it went from Polearm Master being optimal way to use a Paladin's BA in 2014 (making BA spells much less attractive), to being fairly wasteful on a 2024 Pally. IMHO players should have options that allow them to make good use of a class' offerings, instead of all competing with one another.
I'm going to cut this back down, it mostly looks like you're arguing against points I never made on maths that is somewhat shaky while disregarding the importance of resource usage for Paladin. I could go over every point but it's not worth it, you'll just try and counter them.
My original point where I believe this all spawned from is that you said that a Paladin would cast both Divine Smite and Spirit Shroud since concentration only applies to Spirit Shroud. I said that this is pointless, you lose too much DPR from doing this, you wouldn't cast both in one encounter.
The quite significant consequence of divine favor not being concentration is that it stacks with spirit shroud.
They can stack but that is two bonus actions, two spell slots (both 3rd level) and you can not smite for 2 whole rounds. Unless you know you're gunna be in a several round encounter (6+), instead of a couple of rounds (2~5), you'd probably lose DPR from doing that.
When I said you lose DPR, I did not mean you lose DPR vs. casting a 3rd level smite, I meant you lose DPR against saving the spell slot for a latter encounter.
If you have 4 encounters.
Encounter 1, you cast Divine Favor 1st round (with proposed upcasting), you cast spirit shroud 2nd round, you get 1-3 more rounds with 2d4+1d8.
Encounter 2-4 you can't use another 3rd level slot. So no more bonuses.
DPR increase from 2 3rd level slots would be (going for 4 turns as that is more realistic) 8 * 2d4 + 6 * 1d8 for an average of 67
Now if you instead do
Encounter 1, you cast Divine Favor, then just attack every other round
Encounter 2, you cast Divine Favor, then just attack every other round
Encounter 3 & 4 you use nothing since no more 3rd level slots.
You would instead get 8*1d8 + 8*1d8 for an average of 72 damage. If you instead have an upcasted Divine Favor like I recommend, it would be 80. This increased damage is hardly breaking anything, it'd be a 0.5 DPR increase over 16 (4*4) rounds of combat
The increase here is little but the consistency factor of not having DPR based on a concentration spell here is good (and more so a spell that is in the PHB!), Paladin is a front-liner that takes a lot of damage, that Paladin's DPR theoretically relies on spells that are concentration to keep Paladin as viable as Barbarian or Fighter, isn't great but the concentration failures aren't going to occur that often for a Paladin due to the higher AC and higher saving throws, so it's hard to exactly map where Paladin is. If Paladin had a good 3rd level option with no concentration (and in the PHB), we would know exactly where Paladin is and we do not need to worry about a Paladin casting 2 buffs in 1st and 2nd round, it's a sub-optimum choice of resource management and it's really not going to NOVA Spike the damage like the triple Smiting of 2014 did.
Now I did mention bonus actions and Divine Smite, but I did not say I'd be using the 3rd level slot for the Smite, I am just pointing out that at this point, since resource management would be better to not do this, it would the case you can save the 2nd round BA for a smite or other action. Personally my recommendation for Paladin remains PAM, 2-Handed Polearms being even more preferable (for GWM) but Spears and quarterstaves also work if wanting to use a Shield.
I really don't think spirit shroud is necessary for paladins to be competitive. They get radiant strikes at level eleven, and 1d4 from divine favor is not bad. Even if they are uncompetitive, they also have their aura, along with lay on hands and some healing/support spells.
I really don't think spirit shroud is necessary for paladins to be competitive. They get radiant strikes at level eleven, and 1d4 from divine favor is not bad. Even if they are uncompetitive, they also have their aura, along with lay on hands and some healing/support spells.
In 5E, the most effective way to be the big front liner is to kill things faster, thus Barbarian, Fighter and Paladin should all kill things in around the same amount of time/rounds. Having one that is objectively ahead or behind the other two becomes a big issue since it is under-performing and less competitive then the other two.
As for Radiant Strikes, it reduces the gap at level 11 between Paladin and Barbarian but the gap between Fighter and Paladin actually increases as Fighter's 3rd attack is simply a bigger increase in DPR than Radiant strikes is. So Paladin is generally behind on DPR in Tiers 1, 2 & 3 but Paladin generally does over take in Tier 4. Given Tier 4 is Tier 4 and I've seen no evidence to suggest people are anymore likely to play Tier 4 now then they were in 2014, I think we can disregard that and half of Tier 3 too since 90% of campaigns aren't touching those. But just to cover it, Tier 4 increase in DPR for Paladin is mostly due to Holy Weapon, as one cast can generally last 2 encounters but it's concentration, so there is a lot of caveats in saying that Paladin can take over in Tier 4.
Theoretically on paper, if you have just 1 encounter a day, Paladin looks like the highest DPR of the free, since you can just cast your best buff round 1 and then cast smites every following round but in practice you rarely know if there will be just 1 encounter a day and instead maintain a rough baseline of resource burn for if you're going to have 5/6 encounters. Paladin gets less Channel Divinities than Barbarian gets Rages and while Fighter gets less Action Surges (at least until level 17), Fighter generally makes the damage up more from subclass features and getting more feats/ASIs then anybody else.
Aura is a nice feature, but most Paladin's have a +2 Charisma modifier, since Strength is what gives attack and damage to Paladins, so unless you're playing a support/off-tank you are best off with Strength and that +2 Charisma is only converting a couple of failures into successes, but if you have to make that many more saves due to combat lasting 1 round longer then it's not really saving the class.
Lay on hands is nice but as the main target of lay on hands is generally yourself... it generally heals less then Fighter gets from Second Wind and Barbarian makes up for it by having a larger hit point pool, larger hit dies and resistances against 3 of the most common damage types while raging, that said Barbarian does generally have a lower AC (assuming half-plate, it's usually only 1~3 points lower but still lower) and their DPR is heavily reliant on Reckless Attack, so they usually take a lot more hits on the flip side.
Paladin has some support spells, yes a few of them, but most of them are an action and most of them have concentration and also the very same spell slots are needed for keeping the DPR up. So casting support spells, unless you have somebody else being the big front-liner, it's generally not the best/most optimum way to play the class, really it's just bless (since it enhances it's own saving throws and the attack bonus might convert enough misses to hits to make it a higher DPR in the end). Playing a support you'd basically be a worse performing Cleric that just gets extra attack and Aura of Protection, it can work but you'd likely reach a point of wondering why you didn't pick Bard/Cleric/Druid instead, since they are all full casters and can all fulfil the support role.
Obviously I am talking pure class builds here, no multiclassing, that Paladin has some of the best multiclass builds, is known but shouldn't be considered as a fix the classes issues. Now I think all classes still have some issues in 2024 (less so then in 2014) but at least Paladin doesn't have the issues that Ranger has.
Good data breakdown. Unsure about a couple judgements:
What is your stat assumption? With Point Buy, you could get 16/8/16/8/16.
The resource limits are real for a Paladin, but how common are 5-6 combats a day? I'm pretty new, but over the past year, at-most I've had 2 combats before long rest again, and that was only 3 times maybe. From what little I've read, that seems more common nowadays?
Channel Divinity - These can be used to restore a spell slot (per Tasha's rule), so that's effectively 2 more spell slots per rest, since that's often a better use than actual CDs.
Aura - Obviously related to the stat question, but in games with lots saving throws (like mine), the Auras have really saved us. At level 8, I am giving +4 plus my Resistance to spell damage from Aura of Warding (btw, good but not overpowered - doesn't cover spell-like abilities, like Dragon's breath, etc, which have knocked us out).
Support - Between the Aura, a support spell like Bless, and being able to tank, it has seemed that just being up on the field has made a big difference to my team. I switched from Deuling to Defense fighting style. Honest question: who is best suited to cast Bless? It's a whole action for whomever casts it. So a Paladin loses 2 strong attacks, but a Cleric would lose casting Spirit Guardians or something. In both groups I'm in, I have multiple players (more experienced than me) with Bless, but I'm the only one who ever casts it. Important also is maintaining concentration - I've almost never lost concentration thanks to high AC and high saves.
All that plus Lay on Hands also being useful for lifting up downed allies, and it seems a Paladin should probably have slightly lower damage output than a Fighter & Barbarian, no?
Good data breakdown. Unsure about a couple judgements:
What is your stat assumption? With Point Buy, you could get 16/8/16/8/16.
The resource limits are real for a Paladin, but how common are 5-6 combats a day? I'm pretty new, but over the past year, at-most I've had 2 combats before long rest again, and that was only 3 times maybe. From what little I've read, that seems more common nowadays?
I generally don't use Point Buy, I use Standard Array. People use Point Buy to just go 15/15/15/8/8/8. With Paladin that's just be STR 15/DEX 8/CON 15/INT 8/WIS 8/CHA 15. Then go +2 Strength +1 Charisma or Constitution. (if planning resilient(constitution) then +1 in charisma, if planning warcaster then +1 in constitution)
Since I recommend Standard Array, I'll put in what I believe to be the best possible build using that
===
Standary Array, I would go STR 15/DEX 10/CON 13/INT 8/WIS 12/CHA 14, with +2 Strength and +1 Charisma
This limits Background choices too Entertainer or Noble, Entertainer is just straight up better as Musician is better than Skilled.
Alternatively if wanting more HP and not caring about being 1 CHA mod lower, then switch CHA and CON and take either Soldier or Farmer, Farmer is better (Tough > Savage Attacker)
If going custom background, I'd recommend +2 Strength, +1 Charisma, Magic Initiative (Wizard - Charisma) for Fire Bolt, Ray of Frost (switch to Booming Blade once/if picking up warcaster) and either Absorb Elements or Shield (switch either to feather fall from level 13+ for the flying mount).
Equipment at 1st level - Greatsword, Javelins, Best heavy armor piece you can get, holy symbol of some sort and then basic necessities past that
For a 2-handed weapon, GWF sucks, so it's really do you want to be able to deal with the blinded condition and invisible creatures or get an extra +1AC when wearing armor. If you have another front liner, Interception can be okay, If using a shield protection can be okay.
Level 3 - either Devotion or Vengeance
It's mostly the Channel Divinity options here.
Level 4 - Feat : Polearm Master (+1 Strength)
Gets the +4 Strength, additional attacks, requires switching to some Polearms, I recommend Pike as a main weapon and Halberd as a secondary. Halberd is used for 1 vs. many fights where cleaving is likely, else use Pike. Lance is an fine option if you don't have too many people making ranged attacks but have a few melee characters in the party. Glaive, I wouldn't recommend for Devotion or Vengeance as their Channel Divinity options (Sacred Weapon and Vow of Enmity) make them quiet accurate, however Ancient and Glory paladin may benefit more from Glaive.
Level 8 - Feat : Warcaster (+1 Charisma)
Get that +2/+3 Charisma mod for Aura of Protection and spell casting, if you're a Devotion Paladin, also that extra +1 attack on Sacred Weapon.
Level 12 - GWM
More damage, simple as
Level 16 - Feat : Resilient (Constitution)
Holy Weapon at 17 lasts an hour, so getting better concentration saves helps a lot, also more HP
Boon - True Sight (Strength)
True Sight as the front liner means you pick up dangers first, does make Blind Fighting redundant. Additionally gets the final +5 STR Modifier.
As for 2 encounters per day, this is a big issue plaguing 5E, people long rest at end of session, since there is no limits on when/where you can long rest. Ultimately a design flaw but not what the game is designed for, it is designed for far more encounters per day. Limiting Long Rests to secure locations (towns/inns/special sanctuaries) fixes it but there is no hard and fast rule for it.
Channel Divinity - These can be used to restore a spell slot (per Tasha's rule), so that's effectively 2 more spell slots per rest, since that's often a better use than actual CDs.
It's a weak option, Level 3-5 you can only restore a 1st level slot, level 6-12 you can only restore a 2nd level slot and level 13+ a 3rd level slot. You get far more from Sacred Weapon or Vow of Enmity than any 3rd spell slot option would ever give you. For Oath of Ancients and Oath of Glory it's fine, their CDs honestly suck, Glory's CD being the worst.
Aura - Obviously related to the stat question, but in games with lots saving throws (like mine), the Auras have really saved us. At level 8, I am giving +4 plus my Resistance to spell damage from Aura of Warding (btw, good but not overpowered - doesn't cover spell-like abilities, like Dragon's breath, etc, which have knocked us out).
Support - Between the Aura, a support spell like Bless, and being able to tank, it has seemed that just being up on the field has made a big difference to my team. I switched from Deuling to Defense fighting style. Honest question: who is best suited to cast Bless? It's a whole action for whomever casts it. So a Paladin loses 2 strong attacks, but a Cleric would lose casting Spirit Guardians or something. In both groups I'm in, I have multiple players (more experienced than me) with Bless, but I'm the only one who ever casts it. Important also is maintaining concentration - I've almost never lost concentration thanks to high AC and high saves.
The best person to cast bless is usually the Cleric, they have higher slots and can target more creatures due to that but Cleric also has other spells. Spirit Guardians is a concentration spell, so they can't have Bless and Spirit Guardians up together. Bless is a nice spell but it's not vital, if you're going into a fight with a lot of potential saves, then whoever moves first is probably better to cast it (generally, who has higher initiative), if you don't have that many saves then bless is generally not going to be worth the lost DPR of 2 attacks+some other buff.
If you want to focus on being a support Paladin like that, then it'd be a Paladin/Sorcerer multiclass, not Paladin/Rogue, since Sorcerer has metamagics and you can quickened spell bless to make it a bonus action.
All that plus Lay on Hands also being useful for lifting up downed allies, and it seems a Paladin should probably have slightly lower damage output than a Fighter & Barbarian, no?
No, again, DPR is still the main difference between Fighter, Barbarian and Paladin.
Lay on Hands is still less self healing then Fighter's second wind, while lay on hands can be used on others, it is limited to a touch range, often meaning you need to take Opportunity Attacks to go heal a downed ally, instead somebody with Healing Word is better equipped for that job, such as a Bard, Cleric or Druid, more likely than not, there is at least one of these in the party.
Barbarian is the tankiest class in the game and fighter gets more build options in general with some of the best subclasses in the game. Overall, if Paladin has too much utility, that is a question of if Barbarian and Fighter need more utility to match, not if Paladin should be lower on DPR.
I really don't think spirit shroud is necessary for paladins to be competitive. They get radiant strikes at level eleven, and 1d4 from divine favor is not bad. Even if they are uncompetitive, they also have their aura, along with lay on hands and some healing/support spells.
In 5E, the most effective way to be the big front liner is to kill things faster, thus Barbarian, Fighter and Paladin should all kill things in around the same amount of time/rounds. Having one that is objectively ahead or behind the other two becomes a big issue since it is under-performing and less competitive then the other two.
As for Radiant Strikes, it reduces the gap at level 11 between Paladin and Barbarian but the gap between Fighter and Paladin actually increases as Fighter's 3rd attack is simply a bigger increase in DPR than Radiant strikes is. So Paladin is generally behind on DPR in Tiers 1, 2 & 3 but Paladin generally does over take in Tier 4. Given Tier 4 is Tier 4 and I've seen no evidence to suggest people are anymore likely to play Tier 4 now then they were in 2014, I think we can disregard that and half of Tier 3 too since 90% of campaigns aren't touching those. But just to cover it, Tier 4 increase in DPR for Paladin is mostly due to Holy Weapon, as one cast can generally last 2 encounters but it's concentration, so there is a lot of caveats in saying that Paladin can take over in Tier 4.
Theoretically on paper, if you have just 1 encounter a day, Paladin looks like the highest DPR of the free, since you can just cast your best buff round 1 and then cast smites every following round but in practice you rarely know if there will be just 1 encounter a day and instead maintain a rough baseline of resource burn for if you're going to have 5/6 encounters. Paladin gets less Channel Divinities than Barbarian gets Rages and while Fighter gets less Action Surges (at least until level 17), Fighter generally makes the damage up more from subclass features and getting more feats/ASIs then anybody else.
Aura is a nice feature, but most Paladin's have a +2 Charisma modifier, since Strength is what gives attack and damage to Paladins, so unless you're playing a support/off-tank you are best off with Strength and that +2 Charisma is only converting a couple of failures into successes, but if you have to make that many more saves due to combat lasting 1 round longer then it's not really saving the class.
Lay on hands is nice but as the main target of lay on hands is generally yourself... it generally heals less then Fighter gets from Second Wind and Barbarian makes up for it by having a larger hit point pool, larger hit dies and resistances against 3 of the most common damage types while raging, that said Barbarian does generally have a lower AC (assuming half-plate, it's usually only 1~3 points lower but still lower) and their DPR is heavily reliant on Reckless Attack, so they usually take a lot more hits on the flip side.
Paladin has some support spells, yes a few of them, but most of them are an action and most of them have concentration and also the very same spell slots are needed for keeping the DPR up. So casting support spells, unless you have somebody else being the big front-liner, it's generally not the best/most optimum way to play the class, really it's just bless (since it enhances it's own saving throws and the attack bonus might convert enough misses to hits to make it a higher DPR in the end). Playing a support you'd basically be a worse performing Cleric that just gets extra attack and Aura of Protection, it can work but you'd likely reach a point of wondering why you didn't pick Bard/Cleric/Druid instead, since they are all full casters and can all fulfil the support role.
Obviously I am talking pure class builds here, no multiclassing, that Paladin has some of the best multiclass builds, is known but shouldn't be considered as a fix the classes issues. Now I think all classes still have some issues in 2024 (less so then in 2014) but at least Paladin doesn't have the issues that Ranger has.
Let me actually see which does more damage: (ignoring subclasses, origin feats, species, weapon masteries, magic items, and assuming 65% hit rate)
Level 9 fighter - two ASIs to get 20 str, then polearm master for shield and spear:
As it turns out, under my assumptions, the fighter does do more damage.
I think you're underestimating the effect of a paladin's healing. If everybody else in the party is down, they are able to use lay on hands on one of them, and cure wounds on another. This is especially relevant, as they have more health than a cleric and are more likely to survive things like a dragon's breath weapon.
As it turns out, under my assumptions, the fighter does do more damage.
I think you're underestimating the effect of a paladin's healing. If everybody else in the party is down, they are able to use lay on hands on one of them, and cure wounds on another. This is especially relevant, as they have more health than a cleric and are more likely to survive things like a dragon's breath weapon.
I am not underestimating it, these are both touch and so it means often to take advantage of it you have to move and take opportunity attacks, which is a fair trade. Meanwhile a Cleric or Bard can use Mass Healing Word and get up more than 2 up and can often do so without having to move. As a Paladin your main goal is to be the one taking the damage which means healing others really shouldn't be THAT common an event in the first place.
And yes Paladin has more health then a Cleric tho if one were to compare Paladin and Cleric in isolation (not in a party), Cleric can get more Maximum HP than Paladin due to upcasting Aid. Overall, Paladin can heal others but most often the one taking the damage is the Paladin. So it's not really the biggest utility, Unless things go very wrong, most damage the party does take is going to be recovered during short rests or patched up with healing in between encounters.
Ultimately the point still remains, none of this is justification for Paladin doing less damage, it is justification for Barbarian and Fighter to get more utility. Saying Paladin should do less DPR because Paladin has more utility is a cop-out and unquestionably the entirely wrong solution.
As it turns out, under my assumptions, the fighter does do more damage.
I think you're underestimating the effect of a paladin's healing. If everybody else in the party is down, they are able to use lay on hands on one of them, and cure wounds on another. This is especially relevant, as they have more health than a cleric and are more likely to survive things like a dragon's breath weapon.
I am not underestimating it, these are both touch and so it means often to take advantage of it you have to move and take opportunity attacks, which is a fair trade. Meanwhile a Cleric or Bard can use Mass Healing Word and get up more than 2 up and can often do so without having to move. As a Paladin your main goal is to be the one taking the damage which means healing others really shouldn't be THAT common an event in the first place.
And yes Paladin has more health then a Cleric tho if one were to compare Paladin and Cleric in isolation (not in a party), Cleric can get more Maximum HP than Paladin due to upcasting Aid. Overall, Paladin can heal others but most often the one taking the damage is the Paladin. So it's not really the biggest utility, Unless things go very wrong, most damage the party does take is going to be recovered during short rests or patched up with healing in between encounters.
Ultimately the point still remains, none of this is justification for Paladin doing less damage, it is justification for Barbarian and Fighter to get more utility. Saying Paladin should do less DPR because Paladin has more utility is a cop-out and unquestionably the entirely wrong solution.
There's a very simple question. Why? What's wrong with sacrificing less than 15% of your damage output for support, healing, and magic?
As it turns out, under my assumptions, the fighter does do more damage.
I think you're underestimating the effect of a paladin's healing. If everybody else in the party is down, they are able to use lay on hands on one of them, and cure wounds on another. This is especially relevant, as they have more health than a cleric and are more likely to survive things like a dragon's breath weapon.
I am not underestimating it, these are both touch and so it means often to take advantage of it you have to move and take opportunity attacks, which is a fair trade. Meanwhile a Cleric or Bard can use Mass Healing Word and get up more than 2 up and can often do so without having to move. As a Paladin your main goal is to be the one taking the damage which means healing others really shouldn't be THAT common an event in the first place.
And yes Paladin has more health then a Cleric tho if one were to compare Paladin and Cleric in isolation (not in a party), Cleric can get more Maximum HP than Paladin due to upcasting Aid. Overall, Paladin can heal others but most often the one taking the damage is the Paladin. So it's not really the biggest utility, Unless things go very wrong, most damage the party does take is going to be recovered during short rests or patched up with healing in between encounters.
Ultimately the point still remains, none of this is justification for Paladin doing less damage, it is justification for Barbarian and Fighter to get more utility. Saying Paladin should do less DPR because Paladin has more utility is a cop-out and unquestionably the entirely wrong solution.
There's a very simple question. Why? What's wrong with sacrificing less than 15% of your damage output for support, healing, and magic?
Because, as I said, in 5E, it will always be the case that killing things faster is better than trying to endure them for longer. That 15% could be the difference of an extra round with more saves, more incoming damage, etc. Thus for things to be balanced, classes that fulfil similar roles to each other need to perform similarly in those specific areas. Paladin has things it can do on the side but the role it fulfils is in competition with Barbarian and Fighter where Barbarian and Fighter are less constrained by Resources.
Paladin's extra utility is already countered on multiple fronts, if you want to go full support, Paladin has more resources which requires more resource management, the healing is all basically touch range which makes it a sacrifice to go out of your way to up an ally in battle, any healing with a spell slot is lost DPR for the day already. But more generally in class design, if one class has more horizontal progression then another class, the balance is to match the horizontal progression on those classes, not to deduct vertical progression or give others classes vertical progression that the first class is now missing which might have more options on the horizontal line but is definitely behind on the vertical line.
As it turns out, under my assumptions, the fighter does do more damage.
I think you're underestimating the effect of a paladin's healing. If everybody else in the party is down, they are able to use lay on hands on one of them, and cure wounds on another. This is especially relevant, as they have more health than a cleric and are more likely to survive things like a dragon's breath weapon.
I am not underestimating it, these are both touch and so it means often to take advantage of it you have to move and take opportunity attacks, which is a fair trade. Meanwhile a Cleric or Bard can use Mass Healing Word and get up more than 2 up and can often do so without having to move. As a Paladin your main goal is to be the one taking the damage which means healing others really shouldn't be THAT common an event in the first place.
And yes Paladin has more health then a Cleric tho if one were to compare Paladin and Cleric in isolation (not in a party), Cleric can get more Maximum HP than Paladin due to upcasting Aid. Overall, Paladin can heal others but most often the one taking the damage is the Paladin. So it's not really the biggest utility, Unless things go very wrong, most damage the party does take is going to be recovered during short rests or patched up with healing in between encounters.
Ultimately the point still remains, none of this is justification for Paladin doing less damage, it is justification for Barbarian and Fighter to get more utility. Saying Paladin should do less DPR because Paladin has more utility is a cop-out and unquestionably the entirely wrong solution.
There's a very simple question. Why? What's wrong with sacrificing less than 15% of your damage output for support, healing, and magic?
Because, as I said, in 5E, it will always be the case that killing things faster is better than trying to endure them for longer. That 15% could be the difference of an extra round with more saves, more incoming damage, etc. Thus for things to be balanced, classes that fulfil similar roles to each other need to perform similarly in those specific areas. Paladin has things it can do on the side but the role it fulfils is in competition with Barbarian and Fighter where Barbarian and Fighter are less constrained by Resources.
Paladin's extra utility is already countered on multiple fronts, if you want to go full support, Paladin has more resources which requires more resource management, the healing is all basically touch range which makes it a sacrifice to go out of your way to up an ally in battle, any healing with a spell slot is lost DPR for the day already. But more generally in class design, if one class has more horizontal progression then another class, the balance is to match the horizontal progression on those classes, not to deduct vertical progression or give others classes vertical progression that the first class is now missing which might have more options on the horizontal line but is definitely behind on the vertical line.
That's a ridiculous claim. If you should always try for damage rather than endurance, why do shields exist? And why do people use them? If I offered you a choice of +3 armor of resistance or a +1 greatsword, would you take the greatsword? Additionally, a paladin's main role is often tank, so passive, defensive support abilities are not a horizontal improvement.
That's a ridiculous claim. If you should always try for damage rather than endurance, why do shields exist? And why do people use them? If I offered you a choice of +3 armor of resistance or a +1 greatsword, would you take the greatsword? Additionally, a paladin's main role is often tank, so passive, defensive support abilities are not a horizontal improvement.
I'd take the +3 armor of resistance and sell it, if I don't even have a +1 weapon, why worry about having a +3 armor, but it's value is higher so sell it and buy better gear all round then just one piece of armor, heck you can easily afford a +1 Greatsword or another +1 weapon, or even a +2 Weapon and a +2 Armor with that and have gold left over to get some other good gear.
The ability to cast Divine Favor or to cast Cure Wounds or Shield of Faith wouldn't be horizontal? Other than Aura of Protection, it's mostly Horizontal or it's all just fighter features that fighter gets earlier. So the choices here are mostly things fuelled either by spell slots or channel divinity. But then the counter to Aura of Protection is that Barbarian has Rage, that isn't Horizontal, Barbarian has Reckless Attack, that isn't Horizontal. Fighter gets Second Wind, Action Surge, 2 extra feats, and 5 levels of subclass features (1 more than Paladin)
Most of what Barbarian and Fighter gets are Vertical progression, meanwhile Paladin gets what, the ability to prepare spells it already has access too and cast them at the minimum level once a day? One of which you probably cast once a month (2nd level find steed) and both quickly falls into redundancy.
So no, Paladin has a lot of Horizontal power which doesn't actually make the class any stronger, it just gives it more versatility but versatility alone isn't that great if you're still fundamentally under-performing. Yes Paladin gets SOME vertical progression, I am not saying it'd devoid of it, but certainly in the early game, it's mostly getting features that are trade-offs with other features. Trading DPR for Armor is a fine choice but the DPR baseline prior to such a trade should be in line with the other classes, which is the issue, Paladin starts behind and then gets side options which relatively speaking are equal trades while Barbarian and Fighter just simply get stronger.
Paladin does over take in Tier 4, but really, that's not a good balance. Additionally Paladin is more constrained on the action economy than Barbarian or Fighter generally are. Barbarian activates Rage but else wise their Bonus Action is always free, while Fighter basically only gets Second Wind and they generally want to avoid using that unless things get bad, so not the 1st round of combat. Paladin has DPR behind smites and DPR behind buffs that cost a BA, it has concentration on buffs and it has concentration on multiple defensive spells... it's all stuff to the side, it's not more powerful it's just more options.
Of course Fighter does get Tactical Mind which is Horizontal and Barbarian gets Brutal Strike which are both essentially horizontal (At least until Improved Brutal Strike for Barbarian). But Paladin's power is again, mostly from spell slots and all Paladin mostly gains is bigger spell slots but without the appropriate options to use said spell slots, it's not keeping up and it leaves Paladin far FAR more resource dependent than Barbarian or Fighter are. All Paladin needs is some extra DPR to match base line and then Fighter and Barbarian just need a few Horizontal options and it would be easily equal.
So obviously the on thing you will bring up is Aura of Protection, Aura of Protection is a Vertical improvement, it doesn't do anything most of the time but when it does it can be very impactful. But to get Aura of Protection stronger you need to invest in Charisma, that investment in Charisma comes at the cost of Strength or Constitution. Barbarian obviously focuses on STR > CON > DEX, really a Barbarian only needs +2 DEX and it's done (since medium armor is still better than it's unarmored defence), Fighter is STR/DEX > CON > WIS > STR/DEX > INT/CHA > INT/CHA. Paladin has more of a trade to make to focus on that Aura, else it'll probably be just a +1 and a +1 AOP is only helping very slightly.
Now let me put a point in, what breaks the game more, to give a character a +10 weapon or a +10 armor? It's obviously a +10 weapon, first off that character's DPR would be insanely large, they will be outperforming every other character in combat, everybody else in the party would feel bad because they are being outshone but the +10 armor? nobody would really care, first off most of the creatures are still going to be engaged with the tank so the rest of the party isn't affected by them, second off a +10 armor does nothing around saving throws, it's just a +10 armor. The reason is quiet simple, Offence in 5E is simply stronger than Defence and if you're a DM it's easier to work around 1 character getting a broken armor than it is for 1 character getting a broken weapon.
Finally, the last example of what I mean is Warlock in 2014, prior to Hexblade, Warlock in 2014 was definitely under-performing but Warlock gets A LOT of options and features, From Invocations, to Pacts and Patrons, ultimately tho having a lot of "things" doesn't really matter if your DPR is behind and Warlock damage with Hex+Eldritch Blast+Agonizing Blast was on the lower end, to the point it became the baseline DPR that everybody said you should be beating but Warlock is a DD type class. So lots of features and options isn't the same thing as being powerful.
That's a ridiculous claim. If you should always try for damage rather than endurance, why do shields exist? And why do people use them? If I offered you a choice of +3 armor of resistance or a +1 greatsword, would you take the greatsword? Additionally, a paladin's main role is often tank, so passive, defensive support abilities are not a horizontal improvement.
I'd take the +3 armor of resistance and sell it, if I don't even have a +1 weapon, why worry about having a +3 armor, but it's value is higher so sell it and buy better gear all round then just one piece of armor, heck you can easily afford a +1 Greatsword or another +1 weapon, or even a +2 Weapon and a +2 Armor with that and have gold left over to get some other good gear.
Say you can't sell the armor.
The ability to cast Divine Favor or to cast Cure Wounds or Shield of Faith wouldn't be horizontal? Other than Aura of Protection, it's mostly Horizontal or it's all just fighter features that fighter gets earlier. So the choices here are mostly things fuelled either by spell slots or channel divinity. But then the counter to Aura of Protection is that Barbarian has Rage, that isn't Horizontal, Barbarian has Reckless Attack, that isn't Horizontal. Fighter gets Second Wind, Action Surge, 2 extra feats, and 5 levels of subclass features (1 more than Paladin)
Shield of faith is pretty much the worst example you could give. It is literally making the paladin a better tank.
Most of what Barbarian and Fighter gets are Vertical progression, meanwhile Paladin gets what, the ability to prepare spells it already has access too and cast them at the minimum level once a day? One of which you probably cast once a month (2nd level find steed) and both quickly falls into redundancy.
So no, Paladin has a lot of Horizontal power which doesn't actually make the class any stronger, it just gives it more versatility but versatility alone isn't that great if you're still fundamentally under-performing. Yes Paladin gets SOME vertical progression, I am not saying it'd devoid of it, but certainly in the early game, it's mostly getting features that are trade-offs with other features. Trading DPR for Armor is a fine choice but the DPR baseline prior to such a trade should be in line with the other classes, which is the issue, Paladin starts behind and then gets side options which relatively speaking are equal trades while Barbarian and Fighter just simply get stronger.
Paladin does over take in Tier 4, but really, that's not a good balance. Additionally Paladin is more constrained on the action economy than Barbarian or Fighter generally are. Barbarian activates Rage but else wise their Bonus Action is always free, while Fighter basically only gets Second Wind and they generally want to avoid using that unless things get bad, so not the 1st round of combat. Paladin has DPR behind smites and DPR behind buffs that cost a BA, it has concentration on buffs and it has concentration on multiple defensive spells... it's all stuff to the side, it's not more powerful it's just more options.
Of course Fighter does get Tactical Mind which is Horizontal and Barbarian gets Brutal Strike which are both essentially horizontal (At least until Improved Brutal Strike for Barbarian). But Paladin's power is again, mostly from spell slots and all Paladin mostly gains is bigger spell slots but without the appropriate options to use said spell slots, it's not keeping up and it leaves Paladin far FAR more resource dependent than Barbarian or Fighter are. All Paladin needs is some extra DPR to match base line and then Fighter and Barbarian just need a few Horizontal options and it would be easily equal.
So obviously the on thing you will bring up is Aura of Protection, Aura of Protection is a Vertical improvement, it doesn't do anything most of the time but when it does it can be very impactful. But to get Aura of Protection stronger you need to invest in Charisma, that investment in Charisma comes at the cost of Strength or Constitution. Barbarian obviously focuses on STR > CON > DEX, really a Barbarian only needs +2 DEX and it's done (since medium armor is still better than it's unarmored defence), Fighter is STR/DEX > CON > WIS > STR/DEX > INT/CHA > INT/CHA. Paladin has more of a trade to make to focus on that Aura, else it'll probably be just a +1 and a +1 AOP is only helping very slightly.
I have to ask, why wis before dex for fighter? Also, charisma is usually the secondary stat for a paladin, so at the very least, they would have +2, and more likely +3.
Now let me put a point in, what breaks the game more, to give a character a +10 weapon or a +10 armor? It's obviously a +10 weapon, first off that character's DPR would be insanely large, they will be outperforming every other character in combat, everybody else in the party would feel bad because they are being outshone but the +10 armor? nobody would really care, first off most of the creatures are still going to be engaged with the tank so the rest of the party isn't affected by them, second off a +10 armor does nothing around saving throws, it's just a +10 armor. The reason is quiet simple, Offence in 5E is simply stronger than Defence and if you're a DM it's easier to work around 1 character getting a broken armor than it is for 1 character getting a broken weapon.
It's the +10 armor. Here are the benefits of a +10 weapon:
You will almost always hit (~60% increase in DPR)
+10 damage (~100% increase in DPR)
Taken together that is less than a 300% increase in DPR. Game breaking, but not impossible to balance.
+10 armor:
The vast majority of attacks do not affect you.
A tank that never dies is much more valuable than a <100% increase in the party's DPR. The equation for total damage is DPR * rounds. If the amount of rounds can go arbitrarily high, so can the damage the tank does before they are defeated. "I'll just use only saving throws in combat," I hear you saying. If a magic item singlehandedly makes you completely change combat, then it's definitely broken.
Finally, the last example of what I mean is Warlock in 2014, prior to Hexblade, Warlock in 2014 was definitely under-performing but Warlock gets A LOT of options and features, From Invocations, to Pacts and Patrons, ultimately tho having a lot of "things" doesn't really matter if your DPR is behind and Warlock damage with Hex+Eldritch Blast+Agonizing Blast was on the lower end, to the point it became the baseline DPR that everybody said you should be beating but Warlock is a DD type class. So lots of features and options isn't the same thing as being powerful.
That's a ridiculous claim. If you should always try for damage rather than endurance, why do shields exist? And why do people use them? If I offered you a choice of +3 armor of resistance or a +1 greatsword, would you take the greatsword? Additionally, a paladin's main role is often tank, so passive, defensive support abilities are not a horizontal improvement.
I'd take the +3 armor of resistance and sell it, if I don't even have a +1 weapon, why worry about having a +3 armor, but it's value is higher so sell it and buy better gear all round then just one piece of armor, heck you can easily afford a +1 Greatsword or another +1 weapon, or even a +2 Weapon and a +2 Armor with that and have gold left over to get some other good gear.
Say you can't sell the armor.
This exercise is kinda dull, too many variables in an actual campaign. We'd have to make further assumptions. No more magic items will ever be rewarded (since how unlikely is it that another +1 weapon will come up), Further too this, I'd rather have a +1 Halberd than a +1 Greatsword. But if we are doing these types of Assumption, I would say the +1 Greatsword is going to be the better choice in the long run.
The ability to cast Divine Favor or to cast Cure Wounds or Shield of Faith wouldn't be horizontal? Other than Aura of Protection, it's mostly Horizontal or it's all just fighter features that fighter gets earlier. So the choices here are mostly things fuelled either by spell slots or channel divinity. But then the counter to Aura of Protection is that Barbarian has Rage, that isn't Horizontal, Barbarian has Reckless Attack, that isn't Horizontal. Fighter gets Second Wind, Action Surge, 2 extra feats, and 5 levels of subclass features (1 more than Paladin)
Shield of faith is pretty much the worst example you could give. It is literally making the paladin a better tank.
I would disagree with that, it's lost damage, and it's concentration, sure you might take a few less hits but it's easily lost and that is a spell slot that then can't be used on something else. You'd be better casting bless then Shield of Faith most of the time, despite Bless being an action and Shield of Faith being a bonus action. It has no more value then using the same spell slot to cast Divine Favor, now it might do something else but as it's not really an improvement but rather something of questionably equal trade, that would be horizontal usage.
So obviously the on thing you will bring up is Aura of Protection, Aura of Protection is a Vertical improvement, it doesn't do anything most of the time but when it does it can be very impactful. But to get Aura of Protection stronger you need to invest in Charisma, that investment in Charisma comes at the cost of Strength or Constitution. Barbarian obviously focuses on STR > CON > DEX, really a Barbarian only needs +2 DEX and it's done (since medium armor is still better than it's unarmored defence), Fighter is STR/DEX > CON > WIS > STR/DEX > INT/CHA > INT/CHA. Paladin has more of a trade to make to focus on that Aura, else it'll probably be just a +1 and a +1 AOP is only helping very slightly.
I have to ask, why wis before dex for fighter? Also, charisma is usually the secondary stat for a paladin, so at the very least, they would have +2, and more likely +3.
I was thinking of STR build fighters and messed that up, it should be two separate lines, I'll fix:
STR > CON > DEX > WIS > INT/CHA
DEX > CON > WIS > STR/INT/CHA
Right, yes, you'd go for a +2 Charisma, but what does that do to your constitution? At best you could start with a +2 but there is a cost to this in the scores. You could do 15+2, 10, 13+1, 8, 12, 14. But then if you're going to take feats like warcaster or resilient constitution then these half-feats no longer get you up to a +3 unless you take two of them. As damage is more important, we want to leave the 15+2 on strength, so instead we could do 15+2, 10, 13, 8, 12, 14+1. Now when we take warcaster we will get a +3 or when we take resilient constitution we get the +2. However the cost of doing this is we are at a +1 CON modifier which means less HP. Alternatively we can do 15+2, 10, 14+1, 8, 12, 13 and starting with a +2 CON modifier and getting to a +3 later on.
Now people might go for any of these, but there is more trade off going on and more consideration going on in regards to the actual Ability scores. It's less meaningful then say a Barbarian going 15+1, 14, 13+1, 10/8 , 12, 10/8. You take medium armor, do 3 Strength half-feats and pick up an ASI for +2 Constitution and your feats are good. a STR based fighter is basically similar to this.
It's the +10 armor. Here are the benefits of a +10 weapon:
You will almost always hit (~60% increase in DPR)
+10 damage (~100% increase in DPR)
Taken together that is less than a 300% increase in DPR. Game breaking, but not impossible to balance.
+10 armor:
The vast majority of attacks do not affect you.
A tank that never dies is much more valuable than a <100% increase in the party's DPR. The equation for total damage is DPR * rounds. If the amount of rounds can go arbitrarily high, so can the damage the tank does before they are defeated. "I'll just use only saving throws in combat," I hear you saying. If a magic item singlehandedly makes you completely change combat, then it's definitely broken.
It's still the +10 weapon, as a DM you can adjust the health, damage and attack of creatures that the party encounters. If somebody has a +10 to AC, creatures get a +10 to attack or you put out creatures with more saving throws, whereas if a player has a +10 to attack and damage, they are now outperforming everybody else. Everybody else now sees themselves being out performed but a single character and that never ends well, my argument here is not just simple numbers, it's player experience.
This is the thing, tables adjust to what players have, so getting an extra +2 AC, if encounters get too easy, creatures get a bump of +1 or +2 attack, or you toss out a few more creatures, or give them multi-attack; But if one player is outperforming the others? The others feel bad because they are not performing well. This is the reason why DPR needs to match on base line since things go past merely, is my number bigger too, is this actively hurting the gaming experience for other players. If you take a Monk, a Wizard and a Cleric then fill a 4th position with either a Paladin, a Fighter or a Barbarian, part of the fun factor of being that Paladin, Fighter and Barbarian is going to be effected by the performance of the class. A Paladin generally speaking is no more defensive then a Fighter or a Barbarian in reality, with the exception of saving throws and yet is performing worse in DPR, now this use to be off-set by Paladin getting their NOVA moment, that moment they go big and suddenly output a huge amount of damage, now it's a much more diluted effect, Paladin does not hit big NOVA damage anymore and the DPR over a normal adventuring day is below the average.
You will still get kills as the Paladin but most likely less than the Barbarian or Fighter would and that slower kill rate requires Paladin thus be more defensive but in reality, past a single concentration spell (which I generally don't recommend using on self) Paladin can get no higher an AC than a fighter and Barbarian has a mixture of more health and some of the most common resistances in the game. So my argument is definitely one that goes beyond just "numbers" and goes into actual player experience. Monk is 2014 was in a very bad place and in 2024 Ranger is also not in a great place, while for parts of 2014 the advice use to be just play a fighter with a bow instead too. Ultimately the game is about the experience and people will far more easily notice a difference in DPR then they will a difference in AC, in reality because only the tank needs to focus on AC but damage is something most characters do almost every round.
And let's remember that WotC did release how many people play each class in 2014, what topped the list? Fighter, where did Barbarian come? Higher than Paladin did. I will not say this is solely due to Paladin being out performed in DPR (it certainly was a factor), but that Fighter and Barbarian are simply easier classes to play with less decision making. Paladin has a lot more build considerations and for many players is still seen as a more complicated class to play, there is also the "role-play" where Paladins are expected to act as Paladins where other then Barbarians being full of rage, there isn't really the same expectations on a fighter or a barbarian. When there is already two factors making Paladin less played (role-play & more complicated) why does it then also need to perform worse in the most major part of comparison between the three classes? It really makes no sense. Paladin now doesn't even have the NOVA, I do not know when we will see 2024 class player counts but I suspect Paladin will further fall behind.
I think overall, yes, DPR is clearly less for a 2024 Paladin than Fighters or Barbs. Homebrews may be the simplest fixes? Like Divine Favor that scales plus being able to use Divine Smite once per turn, but not costing a Bonus Action. If we're talking about enjoyment, the most unlikable part of my Paladin experience is really having whole bunch of spells I won't ever really use. It's the waste & redundancy. That said, because the whole package is strong (standard melee perks + mounted + great saves + extra aura + Bless), it can be a two-trick pony and feel quite good.
The saves piece really seems the point of departure. Quietly impactful is that they are passive boosts, no hit to action economy. YMMV clearly, but per the examples I gave, my auras have been clutch keeping me and my party up. Squeezing out that extra 15% damage I'm fairly sure would not have helped, either because it would not have downed the offending enemy fast enough, if even I could reach it. My understanding is that as the game goes on, saves become even more a threat than HP loss? We're just at level 8, and we are rolling saves constantly. Maybe my DM just crafts good challenging combats?
Of course, what the bonus is to saves is key. Sure if it's just +2, I can see how you'd discount that. That's the first I've heard of a Paladin with just +2 CHA though. The Point Buy example I gave I believe is likely pretty common: 16/8/16/8/16. By level 8, you could raise your ASIs twice. Tough call between ASIs & feats, but it's easy to see raising CHA at least once, but even if not, it's +3 right out of the gate. The aura is perhaps sneaky strong in that it effects 6 saves (7 if you include Death), for you and your nearby allies. For the Pally, that helps shore up the stats you've dumped. For WIS saves, you also get proficiency. For CON, you instead have a good modifier to join your CHA, strengthening your concentration.
Which then adds reliability to Bless, which like the aura, gives far-reaching bonuses from sheer volume: Every time an ally attacks & on all saves. Once it's turned two misses into hits, it's paid for itself. And that's before counting saves' benefits. Since that stacks with your auras, it solidifies their collective benefit and of course helps protect itself. Back to fun gameplay, it feels super good to buff your team and give them something to cheer about when they turn a failure into a success: "Wait, Bless! Roll the d4!"
All that said, I do agree the nerf to damage was too much, but it feels most annoying because of the waste & redundancy. Too many options pitted against each other. If that were fixed and some of the damage restored, I think the tradeoff would be right.
If you're talking Point Buy, then min-maxing, you'd be talking 15+1/8/15+1/8/8/15+1. 2024 is not so based around ASIs as all general feats are now half-feats, they generally offer more than just increasing an Ability Modifier by +1, more so regarding concentration. If you cast bless, you're adding another 1-4 to each saving throw (~2.5). But if you lose your concentration on bless, everybody loses bless, so having warcaster or resilient constitution means holding such spells up much better. Personally not the greatest fan of Point Buy.
Saves is the great but then parties without Paladins still survive, Barbarian for example has a higher initiative and movement speed, this allows them to better control where they stand than a Paladin does, Unless alert is used Paladin tends towards the lower end of Initiative and has less movement speed meaning you have less effective control of the area you end out zoning. If the Barbarian is 60 foot away and the party is behind them, then can the dragon still dragon breath everybody? Probably not, or it has to try and get past the Barbarian to do so. Fighter gets more feats so they can more easily pick-up something like Speedy. Ultimately while Auras are powerful, it is not like Fighter and Barbarian don't have their own advantages either, this is where saying Paladin should suffer less DPR because Auras is a false statement since Paladin already has enough other issues which actually already balances them to Fighter and Barbarian without having to suffer DPR. If you insist Auras are still stronger than what a Fighter or Barbarian can get, then I'd still say that, that is simply an issue of Fighter or Barbarian needing utility to match, not one of Paladin deserving/needing lower DPR.
now with Ancient Paladin, for the Aura of Warding + Aura of Protection, if it's the same type as Warding, that will significantly decrease incoming damage, for sure but with Ancients you're also taking far longer to kill, the DPR difference is more than a 15%. Paladin being behind and then Ancients is further behind that, you're more likely in the 25~30% less DPR area compared to some of fighter or barbarian subclasses, perhaps more in the most powerful subclasses.
Which then adds reliability to Bless, which like the aura, gives far-reaching bonuses from sheer volume: Every time an ally attacks & on all saves. Once it's turned two misses into hits, it's paid for itself. And that's before counting saves' benefits. Since that stacks with your auras, it solidifies their collective benefit and of course helps protect itself. Back to fun gameplay, it feels super good to buff your team and give them something to cheer about when they turn a failure into a success: "Wait, Bless! Roll the d4!"
This is not quiet right, it assumes all attacks are equal but Paladin tends to focus on larger hits rather than more hits, on the flip side Rogue focuses on sneak attack, so turning one rogue hit from a miss to an attack might be equal if that is the only reason they get to sneak attack whereas 3 monks attacks might be less than equal to the two attacks from the Paladin with Divine Favor. Ultimately how likely is it that bless converts that many misses into failures. First off if 60% of attacks hit, it does nothing for those, if attacks miss by 5 or more it does nothing for those either, it means only 20% of attacks are potentially affected. If you miss by 1 then you'll hit 100% of the time, if you miss by 2 then you hit 75% of the time, 3 50% and 4 25%. Each of these has a 5% chance of occurring past that.
That is to say we expect the following formula: .05+.05×.75+.05×.5+.05×.25 that gives 12.5%. So 12.5% of attacks are misses that become hits due to Bless. 12.5% is 1/8, so about 1 in every 8 hits gets converted, so just to hit 2, we need 16 attacks (on average). Between 3 characters, (assuming all 2 attacks), it would take 8 attack actions to get there. You don't attack first round (assuming you are blessing yourself), so that takes basically 3 rounds. However if you used that same spell slot for Divine Favor or even Divine Smite, you'd have done more damage, in that same time, so you need to do more than 2 converts of misses to attacks to actually overtake that usage, you'd need 3 and that would take an average of 12 attack actions but in a 4 round encounter you'd expect only 11.
The effects on saves however is where Bless then does better, ultimately tho, if you're not expecting that many saving throws, I wouldn't bother using bless early on, get divine favor/spirit shroud/etc out first and just get some faster damage out quicker. You might take out some side mobs or bring the boss just that little bit quicker where the rest of the encounter becomes a bit easier from having less to deal with.
EDIT: Which is to say there is a difference between an encounter against 6 bandits compared to an Illithid/Mind Flayer with 3 Intellect Devourer minions... the first bless isn't doing that much but the 2nd... you definitely want to get bless up right away.
That's a ridiculous claim. If you should always try for damage rather than endurance, why do shields exist? And why do people use them? If I offered you a choice of +3 armor of resistance or a +1 greatsword, would you take the greatsword? Additionally, a paladin's main role is often tank, so passive, defensive support abilities are not a horizontal improvement.
I'd take the +3 armor of resistance and sell it, if I don't even have a +1 weapon, why worry about having a +3 armor, but it's value is higher so sell it and buy better gear all round then just one piece of armor, heck you can easily afford a +1 Greatsword or another +1 weapon, or even a +2 Weapon and a +2 Armor with that and have gold left over to get some other good gear.
Say you can't sell the armor.
This exercise is kinda dull, too many variables in an actual campaign. We'd have to make further assumptions. No more magic items will ever be rewarded (since how unlikely is it that another +1 weapon will come up), Further too this, I'd rather have a +1 Halberd than a +1 Greatsword. But if we are doing these types of Assumption, I would say the +1 Greatsword is going to be the better choice in the long run.
I don't know how to explain to you that you're wrong if you don't understand already. The +1 Greatsword will be at most (under normal circumstances) a 10% damage increase. +3 armor of resistance will be a very very significant damage reduction.
The ability to cast Divine Favor or to cast Cure Wounds or Shield of Faith wouldn't be horizontal? Other than Aura of Protection, it's mostly Horizontal or it's all just fighter features that fighter gets earlier. So the choices here are mostly things fuelled either by spell slots or channel divinity. But then the counter to Aura of Protection is that Barbarian has Rage, that isn't Horizontal, Barbarian has Reckless Attack, that isn't Horizontal. Fighter gets Second Wind, Action Surge, 2 extra feats, and 5 levels of subclass features (1 more than Paladin)
Shield of faith is pretty much the worst example you could give. It is literally making the paladin a better tank.
I would disagree with that, it's lost damage, and it's concentration, sure you might take a few less hits but it's easily lost and that is a spell slot that then can't be used on something else. You'd be better casting bless then Shield of Faith most of the time, despite Bless being an action and Shield of Faith being a bonus action. It has no more value then using the same spell slot to cast Divine Favor, now it might do something else but as it's not really an improvement but rather something of questionably equal trade, that would be horizontal usage.
Let's say shield of faith will be a 20% average damage decrease against you, and that you're taking 50% of the hits for the party and doing around 25% of the damage. Since damage is dpr times rounds, shield of faith will offer an 11.11% damage increase ([1/1-.5*.2]) versus a 6.25% damage increase from divine favor (25% * 2.5/10[average attack damage]).
So obviously the on thing you will bring up is Aura of Protection, Aura of Protection is a Vertical improvement, it doesn't do anything most of the time but when it does it can be very impactful. But to get Aura of Protection stronger you need to invest in Charisma, that investment in Charisma comes at the cost of Strength or Constitution. Barbarian obviously focuses on STR > CON > DEX, really a Barbarian only needs +2 DEX and it's done (since medium armor is still better than it's unarmored defence), Fighter is STR/DEX > CON > WIS > STR/DEX > INT/CHA > INT/CHA. Paladin has more of a trade to make to focus on that Aura, else it'll probably be just a +1 and a +1 AOP is only helping very slightly.
I have to ask, why wis before dex for fighter? Also, charisma is usually the secondary stat for a paladin, so at the very least, they would have +2, and more likely +3.
I was thinking of STR build fighters and messed that up, it should be two separate lines, I'll fix:
STR > CON > DEX > WIS > INT/CHA
DEX > CON > WIS > STR/INT/CHA
Right, yes, you'd go for a +2 Charisma, but what does that do to your constitution? At best you could start with a +2 but there is a cost to this in the scores. You could do 15+2, 10, 13+1, 8, 12, 14. But then if you're going to take feats like warcaster or resilient constitution then these half-feats no longer get you up to a +3 unless you take two of them. As damage is more important, we want to leave the 15+2 on strength, so instead we could do 15+2, 10, 13, 8, 12, 14+1. Now when we take warcaster we will get a +3 or when we take resilient constitution we get the +2. However the cost of doing this is we are at a +1 CON modifier which means less HP. Alternatively we can do 15+2, 10, 14+1, 8, 12, 13 and starting with a +2 CON modifier and getting to a +3 later on.
Now people might go for any of these, but there is more trade off going on and more consideration going on in regards to the actual Ability scores. It's less meaningful then say a Barbarian going 15+1, 14, 13+1, 10/8 , 12, 10/8. You take medium armor, do 3 Strength half-feats and pick up an ASI for +2 Constitution and your feats are good. a STR based fighter is basically similar to this.
It's the +10 armor. Here are the benefits of a +10 weapon:
You will almost always hit (~60% increase in DPR)
+10 damage (~100% increase in DPR)
Taken together that is less than a 300% increase in DPR. Game breaking, but not impossible to balance.
+10 armor:
The vast majority of attacks do not affect you.
A tank that never dies is much more valuable than a <100% increase in the party's DPR. The equation for total damage is DPR * rounds. If the amount of rounds can go arbitrarily high, so can the damage the tank does before they are defeated. "I'll just use only saving throws in combat," I hear you saying. If a magic item singlehandedly makes you completely change combat, then it's definitely broken.
It's still the +10 weapon, as a DM you can adjust the health, damage and attack of creatures that the party encounters. If somebody has a +10 to AC, creatures get a +10 to attack or you put out creatures with more saving throws, whereas if a player has a +10 to attack and damage, they are now outperforming everybody else. Everybody else now sees themselves being out performed but a single character and that never ends well, my argument here is not just simple numbers, it's player experience.
Unless you only target the player with the armor (which will feel arbitrary and unfair), the other PCs will have to deal with +10s to attacks, and unless monsters are homebrewed, the whole party will have to deal with monsters way out of their CR range.
This is the thing, tables adjust to what players have, so getting an extra +2 AC, if encounters get too easy, creatures get a bump of +1 or +2 attack, or you toss out a few more creatures, or give them multi-attack; But if one player is outperforming the others? The others feel bad because they are not performing well. This is the reason why DPR needs to match on base line since things go past merely, is my number bigger too, is this actively hurting the gaming experience for other players. If you take a Monk, a Wizard and a Cleric then fill a 4th position with either a Paladin, a Fighter or a Barbarian, part of the fun factor of being that Paladin, Fighter and Barbarian is going to be effected by the performance of the class. A Paladin generally speaking is no more defensive then a Fighter or a Barbarian in reality, with the exception of saving throws and yet is performing worse in DPR, now this use to be off-set by Paladin getting their NOVA moment, that moment they go big and suddenly output a huge amount of damage, now it's a much more diluted effect, Paladin does not hit big NOVA damage anymore and the DPR over a normal adventuring day is below the average.
You will still get kills as the Paladin but most likely less than the Barbarian or Fighter would and that slower kill rate requires Paladin thus be more defensive but in reality, past a single concentration spell (which I generally don't recommend using on self) Paladin can get no higher an AC than a fighter and Barbarian has a mixture of more health and some of the most common resistances in the game. So my argument is definitely one that goes beyond just "numbers" and goes into actual player experience. Monk is 2014 was in a very bad place and in 2024 Ranger is also not in a great place, while for parts of 2014 the advice use to be just play a fighter with a bow instead too. Ultimately the game is about the experience and people will far more easily notice a difference in DPR then they will a difference in AC, in reality because only the tank needs to focus on AC but damage is something most characters do almost every round.
And let's remember that WotC did release how many people play each class in 2014, what topped the list? Fighter, where did Barbarian come? Higher than Paladin did. I will not say this is solely due to Paladin being out performed in DPR (it certainly was a factor), but that Fighter and Barbarian are simply easier classes to play with less decision making. Paladin has a lot more build considerations and for many players is still seen as a more complicated class to play, there is also the "role-play" where Paladins are expected to act as Paladins where other then Barbarians being full of rage, there isn't really the same expectations on a fighter or a barbarian. When there is already two factors making Paladin less played (role-play & more complicated) why does it then also need to perform worse in the most major part of comparison between the three classes? It really makes no sense. Paladin now doesn't even have the NOVA, I do not know when we will see 2024 class player counts but I suspect Paladin will further fall behind.
I don't know how to explain to you that you're wrong if you don't understand already. The +1 Greatsword will be at most (under normal circumstances) a 10% damage increase. +3 armor of resistance will be a very very significant damage reduction.
a +3 armor of resistance is going to make 15% of attacks miss, it also offers a singular resistance against 1 of 10 damage types.
And let me put it to you another way, if Defence is as important as Offence then why does most the party generally focus on damage output instead? A party of 4 Paladin might be viable, all using shields and longswords to inflict sap but in reality this is very rarely a party set-up and it generally isn't going to fair as well as a more balanced party set-up. Ultimately people choose classes with very low defence but offer more damage. You only need as much defence as you need to keep yourself up while the party dispatches whatever foe(s) you're facing, while you might significantly reduce the incoming damage, when you get to a certain point, it generally becomes a point of detrimental returns because you're not killing any faster and were never going to go do either way.
Let's say shield of faith will be a 20% average damage decrease against you, and that you're taking 50% of the hits for the party and doing around 25% of the damage. Since damage is dpr times rounds, shield of faith will offer an 11.11% damage increase ([1/1-.5*.2]) versus a 6.25% damage increase from divine favor (25% * 2.5/10[average attack damage]).
Let's say Divine Smite gives the damage to finish off one of the four creatures in front of you. You're talking an average 25% damage decrease against you, which is why offence tends to be better. And no, Shield of Faith is not offering more damage, since again, doing less damage initially often means encounters taking longer, which then means you take even more damage but worse yet, the rest of the party ALSO takes more damage. Since you're less capable of say, casting Compelled Duel to get a creature off of the Wizard or moving next to the Bard and delivering the fatal against a creature that moves on the turn after you.
And no, killing isn't guaranteed but then neither is the rest of the party surviving while you're still fighting 4 mobs 25 feet away from them. So the preference will generally remain faster kills over higher defence and slower kills.
Unless you only target the player with the armor (which will feel arbitrary and unfair), the other PCs will have to deal with +10s to attacks, and unless monsters are homebrewed, the whole party will have to deal with monsters way out of their CR range.
Do not get how this is a point, the same is true of the +10 weapon, since creatures go down more, that means still having to toss out stronger creatures with more HP that the party is going to take down slower since those monsters are way out of their CR Range. The flip side a paladin focusing on defence would have 18 AC at level 1, 20 with shield of faith where a Wizard focusing Defence would have 15AC, Going to 20 when casting shield.
By level 4 the Paladin will likely have 21 AC or 23 AC when casting shield of faith while the Wizard is still on 15AC, or 20 with Shield. If 50% of attacks are hitting the paladin, 65% are already hitting the Wizard with shield and 90% are hitting without it. A +10 armor by this point is already doing little to the gap, Wizard can keep up when they cast shield but they are going to be constantly burning spell slots.
By level 9 we are likely talking about a Defence focused Paladin having 23AC or 25 with shield of faith and taking 3 less damage from Piercing, Bludgeoning and Slashing.
Now where things get crazier in 2024, The Paladin can also get access to the shield spell, it's quiet easy, just magic initiate (wizard) and you've got it from an origin feat, the fact is the vast VAST majority of paladins aren't doing this, because the increase in AC is simply less meaningful over the course of an encounter than you think it is. Yes a Paladin should have more AC than a Wizard but the gaps are already quiet huge before getting into +1 gear. Instead the Risk/Reward of more damage output tends to be favored, a Paladin is not ignoring defence but is still making many decisions that favor damage over defence. Else every Paladin would pick up Shield early and then pick up defensive duellist at level 12 or 16, again, decisions Paladins generally aren't making.
Heck most paladins that take sword and board take Duelling over Defence, Duelling is a +2 Damage per hit, which generally speaking is usually a lower DPR increase than a +1 enchantment (+1 Damage AND +1 attack). Most generally don't cast Shield of Faith on self, they might cast bless when saving throws are likely but usually it's going to be more self damage buffs or smites.
Maybe I am being a bit asinine in saying a +1 weapon enchantment is comparable or even better than a +3 armor enchantment but I am not when I say that the comparison between a +1 weapon enchantment is closer to a +3 armor enchantment than it is a +1 armor enchantment.
I don't know how to explain to you that you're wrong if you don't understand already. The +1 Greatsword will be at most (under normal circumstances) a 10% damage increase. +3 armor of resistance will be a very very significant damage reduction.
a +3 armor of resistance is going to make 15% of attacks miss, it also offers a singular resistance against 1 of 10 damage types.
And let me put it to you another way, if Defence is as important as Offence then why does most the party generally focus on damage output instead? A party of 4 Paladin might be viable, all using shields and longswords to inflict sap but in reality this is very rarely a party set-up and it generally isn't going to fair as well as a more balanced party set-up. Ultimately people choose classes with very low defence but offer more damage. You only need as much defence as you need to keep yourself up while the party dispatches whatever foe(s) you're facing, while you might significantly reduce the incoming damage, when you get to a certain point, it generally becomes a point of detrimental returns because you're not killing any faster and were never going to go do either way.
TBH, I had thought that armor of resistance gave resistance to BPS damage, my bad. Even so, against a young red dragon, it would give a nearly 33% average damage reduction against the rend attacks. (normal AC: plate armor + shield = 20, with +3 armor, 23)
Let's say shield of faith will be a 20% average damage decrease against you, and that you're taking 50% of the hits for the party and doing around 25% of the damage. Since damage is dpr times rounds, shield of faith will offer an 11.11% damage increase ([1/1-.5*.2]) versus a 6.25% damage increase from divine favor (25% * 2.5/10[average attack damage]).
Let's say Divine Smite gives the damage to finish off one of the four creatures in front of you. You're talking an average 25% damage decrease against you, which is why offence tends to be better. And no, Shield of Faith is not offering more damage, since again, doing less damage initially often means encounters taking longer, which then means you take even more damage but worse yet, the rest of the party ALSO takes more damage. Since you're less capable of say, casting Compelled Duel to get a creature off of the Wizard or moving next to the Bard and delivering the fatal against a creature that moves on the turn after you.
And no, killing isn't guaranteed but then neither is the rest of the party surviving while you're still fighting 4 mobs 25 feet away from them. So the preference will generally remain faster kills over higher defence and slower kills.
It's a pretty crazy assumption to assume casting divine smite at the beginning of combat would strait up kill one of the four creatures attacking you. Elsewise you must be talking about low levels, where the AC boost from shield of faith is far more significant. Also, even if you don't use divine smite, someone else is likely to kill the monster fairly quickly. After all, it has less than 9 or 18 health. You're right though that I was unfair in not calculating reduced damage from killing enemies using divine favor. Against one enemy (assuming constant DPR), the party would take roughly 6% less damage overall. Doing some math, I believe this number should remain constant over however many enemies there are. For shield of faith to be better in reducing total-party-average-damage, the paladin would only need to take 33% of the attacks in the party. (1-2.8/3)
Unless you only target the player with the armor (which will feel arbitrary and unfair), the other PCs will have to deal with +10s to attacks, and unless monsters are homebrewed, the whole party will have to deal with monsters way out of their CR range.
Do not get how this is a point, the same is true of the +10 weapon, since creatures go down more, that means still having to toss out stronger creatures with more HP that the party is going to take down slower since those monsters are way out of their CR Range. The flip side a paladin focusing on defence would have 18 AC at level 1, 20 with shield of faith where a Wizard focusing Defence would have 15AC, Going to 20 when casting shield.
By level 4 the Paladin will likely have 21 AC or 23 AC when casting shield of faith while the Wizard is still on 15AC, or 20 with Shield. If 50% of attacks are hitting the paladin, 65% are already hitting the Wizard with shield and 90% are hitting without it. A +10 armor by this point is already doing little to the gap, Wizard can keep up when they cast shield but they are going to be constantly burning spell slots.
+10 armor would make only 5% of attacks hit the paladin (crits). It doesn't matter how that compares to other classes, only that the paladin would survive over 5x as long against most attacks.
By level 9 we are likely talking about a Defence focused Paladin having 23AC or 25 with shield of faith and taking 3 less damage from Piercing, Bludgeoning and Slashing.
Now where things get crazier in 2024, The Paladin can also get access to the shield spell, it's quiet easy, just magic initiate (wizard) and you've got it from an origin feat, the fact is the vast VAST majority of paladins aren't doing this, because the increase in AC is simply less meaningful over the course of an encounter than you think it is. Yes a Paladin should have more AC than a Wizard but the gaps are already quiet huge before getting into +1 gear. Instead the Risk/Reward of more damage output tends to be favored, a Paladin is not ignoring defence but is still making many decisions that favor damage over defence. Else every Paladin would pick up Shield early and then pick up defensive duellist at level 12 or 16, again, decisions Paladins generally aren't making.
I never said defense is always better than offense. You, however, actually made the claim that offense is always better than defense. "it will always be the case that killing things faster is better than trying to endure them for longer" If that's true, then why is it that some paladins do use shields and pick defensive duelist.
Heck most paladins that take sword and board take Duelling over Defence, Duelling is a +2 Damage per hit, which generally speaking is usually a lower DPR increase than a +1 enchantment (+1 Damage AND +1 attack). Most generally don't cast Shield of Faith on self, they might cast bless when saving throws are likely but usually it's going to be more self damage buffs or smites.
Maybe I am being a bit asinine in saying a +1 weapon enchantment is comparable or even better than a +3 armor enchantment but I am not when I say that the comparison between a +1 weapon enchantment is closer to a +3 armor enchantment than it is a +1 armor enchantment.
A few things:
Increasing your AC does more the higher your AC already is. (eg: 10% to 5% hit rate halves the hits you take, but 100% to 95% is only a 1/20 change) Therefore, a +10 to AC is more than ten times better than a +1.
Yet people take defense over great weapon master fighting.
There reaches a point where the best thing to do is just agree not to see eye to eye with somebody... we are both just wasting our time at this point. I'm not going to continue to debate it all, people can draw their own conclusions and they will, if they can be bothered to read all this wall of texts.
no they don't, people take Defense over Great Weapon Fighting!
This is because Great Weapon Fighting adds the most minimum DPR imaginable, on a Greataxe it adds a measily average 0.25 damage per hit, that is barely 1/10th of the DPR increase you'll get from a +1 weapon.
For a D10 Polearm it adds a meh 0.33 average damage per that is a crazily low increase.
About the only weapons GWF adds damage too is Greatsword and Maul, and that is 1 damage per hit average, which is still barely 1/3rd the DPR increase you'd expect from a +1 weapon enchantment.
Great Weapon Master on the other hand adds PB damage to heavy weapon attacks made as part of an attack action, that is quiet a significant damage increase, at a +6 PB that is a significant amount of damage, now it might not be applicable to every attack but you're generally going to expect this to add some significant amounts of damage. It is a far easier pick then any defense related feats when you're using a heavy melee weapon.
I still think the class is quite badly designed and is only saved by it's subclasses and removing concentration from Divine Favor... (but why no upcasting? i.e. 1d4 for every 2 spell levels above 1st). DPR wise Paladin can keep up with Fighter and Barbarian, albeit falling behind the closer you are to a full adventuring day.
Since I say Subclass matters quiet a lot:
Ancients - Strong CC but mostly not great, took too much of a nerf on Aura of Warding and lacks DPR, you get Moonbeam and Ice Storm as spells but if you're relying on those, just play Druid instead. Easy homebrew to bring it more inline, just make Nature's Wrath cause damage 1d6 piercing damage each time a creature makes a saving throw against it.
Devotion - Sacred Weapon makes Devotion basically the most accurate subclass in the game... meaning you constantly cause damage and more of it.
Glory - Honestly don't get the point of this one, Smite + Channel Divinity for a lot of TempHP is okay, but that is two resources that need burning. It is tankier and faster than any other paladin but to a point where it doesn't matter, the DPR is worse then Ancients. Don't think Glory in it's current state is worth playing. I would personally homebrew it so Glory has immunity to the incapacitated condition from the haste spell and when they cast haste on self, they can perform 2 attacks from their haste action instead of 1, it'd double down on their athleticism and bring their DPR up to a decent level from level 9+.
Vengeance - Advantage is always good, but depends partly on party composition, if the bard is hitting things with Faerie Fire, your Vow of Enmity is doing less work but definitely a strong choice to take.
I could go on about other issues I see in the class design but I've mentioned those in these forums enough times before. I'll just summarise points instead:
- Paladin's Smite auto prepares the worst smite spell (divine smite) and gives 1 free casting of a 1st level divine smite which can become entirely redundant as a 1st level divine is only worth casting if you have no other options for your Bonus Action (which several builds do have better options)
- Channel Divinity, the subclass features that rescue the class rely on Channel Divinity and yet the maximum you ever get is 3, even Barbarians get 6 rages. At least both (Channel Divinity and Rage) recover 1 charge on short rest.
- Faithful Steed, if the free casting increased level with your Paladin level then it'd be good but as all this really gives you is a free 2nd level Find Steed every day, it's terrible at level 9 and higher.
- Restoring Touch, this feature is just too high level, in my opinion, at least removing Blinded, Deafened and Frightened should have come in way before level 14.
- Dead levels, 13 & 17, yes you get 4th & 5th level spells at these levels but 4th level spells are the most lackluster and 5th, you only get 2 5th level spell slots as a Paladin... I feel some extra features, even if they were just social or horizontal features should have appeared here.
- Abjure Foes feels underwhelming, unless you're CHA based... it's targeting too few an amount of creatures.
Overall, Paladin is playable, far more so than say Ranger, but that doesn't mean the class design isn't a mess right now and that the sublcasses aren't imbalanced, they are.
I agree with much, if not all of what you wrote. I would add that in this edition of DnD (2024), there are even MORE bonus actions available, which imo makes making paladin smite a bonus action even worse! If they had made Divine Smite just a once per turn ability and costing an appropriate level spell slot (think Sneak Attack, but with a spell cost), it would have solved the paladin "nova round" issue, while still giving the paladin a bonus action. As it is now, you have to make a choice between what was a core and signature paladin ability and the entire world of bonus actions! I dislike how they did paladin/divine smite.
Appreciate all the maths here. Keep it going.
In theory I like Divine Favor no longer requiring concentration since it gives a decent BA option. Namely for Paladin builds that don't use Polearm Master, like my current mounted build w/ a Lance & Shield or any that wants to use its few ASIs to raise needed stats instead of having to take a feat.
My session last night underscored again how DF just cannot compete with Bless (at lvl 8). We had back-to-back combats where the extra d4s turned several misses to hits and absolutely saved our biscuits on saves when a young red dragon swooped in and dropped 60 fire damage on our heads. Because of my Aura + Bless, everyone made their DEX saves and only took 30 dmg ("only" lol). Without that, we would have TPKed. DF simply can't do that.
DF is now easier to use, but I agree it should also scale to compete with all the other stuff they've jammed into Paladin's BA. Seems it went from Polearm Master being optimal way to use a Paladin's BA in 2014 (making BA spells much less attractive), to being fairly wasteful on a 2024 Pally. IMHO players should have options that allow them to make good use of a class' offerings, instead of all competing with one another.
I really don't think spirit shroud is necessary for paladins to be competitive. They get radiant strikes at level eleven, and 1d4 from divine favor is not bad. Even if they are uncompetitive, they also have their aura, along with lay on hands and some healing/support spells.
In 5E, the most effective way to be the big front liner is to kill things faster, thus Barbarian, Fighter and Paladin should all kill things in around the same amount of time/rounds. Having one that is objectively ahead or behind the other two becomes a big issue since it is under-performing and less competitive then the other two.
As for Radiant Strikes, it reduces the gap at level 11 between Paladin and Barbarian but the gap between Fighter and Paladin actually increases as Fighter's 3rd attack is simply a bigger increase in DPR than Radiant strikes is. So Paladin is generally behind on DPR in Tiers 1, 2 & 3 but Paladin generally does over take in Tier 4. Given Tier 4 is Tier 4 and I've seen no evidence to suggest people are anymore likely to play Tier 4 now then they were in 2014, I think we can disregard that and half of Tier 3 too since 90% of campaigns aren't touching those. But just to cover it, Tier 4 increase in DPR for Paladin is mostly due to Holy Weapon, as one cast can generally last 2 encounters but it's concentration, so there is a lot of caveats in saying that Paladin can take over in Tier 4.
Theoretically on paper, if you have just 1 encounter a day, Paladin looks like the highest DPR of the free, since you can just cast your best buff round 1 and then cast smites every following round but in practice you rarely know if there will be just 1 encounter a day and instead maintain a rough baseline of resource burn for if you're going to have 5/6 encounters. Paladin gets less Channel Divinities than Barbarian gets Rages and while Fighter gets less Action Surges (at least until level 17), Fighter generally makes the damage up more from subclass features and getting more feats/ASIs then anybody else.
Aura is a nice feature, but most Paladin's have a +2 Charisma modifier, since Strength is what gives attack and damage to Paladins, so unless you're playing a support/off-tank you are best off with Strength and that +2 Charisma is only converting a couple of failures into successes, but if you have to make that many more saves due to combat lasting 1 round longer then it's not really saving the class.
Lay on hands is nice but as the main target of lay on hands is generally yourself... it generally heals less then Fighter gets from Second Wind and Barbarian makes up for it by having a larger hit point pool, larger hit dies and resistances against 3 of the most common damage types while raging, that said Barbarian does generally have a lower AC (assuming half-plate, it's usually only 1~3 points lower but still lower) and their DPR is heavily reliant on Reckless Attack, so they usually take a lot more hits on the flip side.
Paladin has some support spells, yes a few of them, but most of them are an action and most of them have concentration and also the very same spell slots are needed for keeping the DPR up. So casting support spells, unless you have somebody else being the big front-liner, it's generally not the best/most optimum way to play the class, really it's just bless (since it enhances it's own saving throws and the attack bonus might convert enough misses to hits to make it a higher DPR in the end). Playing a support you'd basically be a worse performing Cleric that just gets extra attack and Aura of Protection, it can work but you'd likely reach a point of wondering why you didn't pick Bard/Cleric/Druid instead, since they are all full casters and can all fulfil the support role.
Obviously I am talking pure class builds here, no multiclassing, that Paladin has some of the best multiclass builds, is known but shouldn't be considered as a fix the classes issues. Now I think all classes still have some issues in 2024 (less so then in 2014) but at least Paladin doesn't have the issues that Ranger has.
Good data breakdown. Unsure about a couple judgements:
What is your stat assumption? With Point Buy, you could get 16/8/16/8/16.
The resource limits are real for a Paladin, but how common are 5-6 combats a day? I'm pretty new, but over the past year, at-most I've had 2 combats before long rest again, and that was only 3 times maybe. From what little I've read, that seems more common nowadays?
Channel Divinity - These can be used to restore a spell slot (per Tasha's rule), so that's effectively 2 more spell slots per rest, since that's often a better use than actual CDs.
Aura - Obviously related to the stat question, but in games with lots saving throws (like mine), the Auras have really saved us. At level 8, I am giving +4 plus my Resistance to spell damage from Aura of Warding (btw, good but not overpowered - doesn't cover spell-like abilities, like Dragon's breath, etc, which have knocked us out).
Support - Between the Aura, a support spell like Bless, and being able to tank, it has seemed that just being up on the field has made a big difference to my team. I switched from Deuling to Defense fighting style. Honest question: who is best suited to cast Bless? It's a whole action for whomever casts it. So a Paladin loses 2 strong attacks, but a Cleric would lose casting Spirit Guardians or something. In both groups I'm in, I have multiple players (more experienced than me) with Bless, but I'm the only one who ever casts it. Important also is maintaining concentration - I've almost never lost concentration thanks to high AC and high saves.
All that plus Lay on Hands also being useful for lifting up downed allies, and it seems a Paladin should probably have slightly lower damage output than a Fighter & Barbarian, no?
I generally don't use Point Buy, I use Standard Array. People use Point Buy to just go 15/15/15/8/8/8. With Paladin that's just be STR 15/DEX 8/CON 15/INT 8/WIS 8/CHA 15. Then go +2 Strength +1 Charisma or Constitution. (if planning resilient(constitution) then +1 in charisma, if planning warcaster then +1 in constitution)
Since I recommend Standard Array, I'll put in what I believe to be the best possible build using that
===
Standary Array, I would go STR 15/DEX 10/CON 13/INT 8/WIS 12/CHA 14, with +2 Strength and +1 Charisma
This limits Background choices too Entertainer or Noble, Entertainer is just straight up better as Musician is better than Skilled.
Alternatively if wanting more HP and not caring about being 1 CHA mod lower, then switch CHA and CON and take either Soldier or Farmer, Farmer is better (Tough > Savage Attacker)
If going custom background, I'd recommend +2 Strength, +1 Charisma, Magic Initiative (Wizard - Charisma) for Fire Bolt, Ray of Frost (switch to Booming Blade once/if picking up warcaster) and either Absorb Elements or Shield (switch either to feather fall from level 13+ for the flying mount).
Equipment at 1st level - Greatsword, Javelins, Best heavy armor piece you can get, holy symbol of some sort and then basic necessities past that
Level 2 - Blind Fighting Style (if using 1-handed & Shield, Duelling instead)
For a 2-handed weapon, GWF sucks, so it's really do you want to be able to deal with the blinded condition and invisible creatures or get an extra +1AC when wearing armor. If you have another front liner, Interception can be okay, If using a shield protection can be okay.
Level 3 - either Devotion or Vengeance
It's mostly the Channel Divinity options here.
Level 4 - Feat : Polearm Master (+1 Strength)
Gets the +4 Strength, additional attacks, requires switching to some Polearms, I recommend Pike as a main weapon and Halberd as a secondary. Halberd is used for 1 vs. many fights where cleaving is likely, else use Pike. Lance is an fine option if you don't have too many people making ranged attacks but have a few melee characters in the party. Glaive, I wouldn't recommend for Devotion or Vengeance as their Channel Divinity options (Sacred Weapon and Vow of Enmity) make them quiet accurate, however Ancient and Glory paladin may benefit more from Glaive.
Level 8 - Feat : Warcaster (+1 Charisma)
Get that +2/+3 Charisma mod for Aura of Protection and spell casting, if you're a Devotion Paladin, also that extra +1 attack on Sacred Weapon.
Level 12 - GWM
More damage, simple as
Level 16 - Feat : Resilient (Constitution)
Holy Weapon at 17 lasts an hour, so getting better concentration saves helps a lot, also more HP
Boon - True Sight (Strength)
True Sight as the front liner means you pick up dangers first, does make Blind Fighting redundant. Additionally gets the final +5 STR Modifier.
As for 2 encounters per day, this is a big issue plaguing 5E, people long rest at end of session, since there is no limits on when/where you can long rest. Ultimately a design flaw but not what the game is designed for, it is designed for far more encounters per day. Limiting Long Rests to secure locations (towns/inns/special sanctuaries) fixes it but there is no hard and fast rule for it.
It's a weak option, Level 3-5 you can only restore a 1st level slot, level 6-12 you can only restore a 2nd level slot and level 13+ a 3rd level slot. You get far more from Sacred Weapon or Vow of Enmity than any 3rd spell slot option would ever give you. For Oath of Ancients and Oath of Glory it's fine, their CDs honestly suck, Glory's CD being the worst.
The best person to cast bless is usually the Cleric, they have higher slots and can target more creatures due to that but Cleric also has other spells. Spirit Guardians is a concentration spell, so they can't have Bless and Spirit Guardians up together. Bless is a nice spell but it's not vital, if you're going into a fight with a lot of potential saves, then whoever moves first is probably better to cast it (generally, who has higher initiative), if you don't have that many saves then bless is generally not going to be worth the lost DPR of 2 attacks+some other buff.
If you want to focus on being a support Paladin like that, then it'd be a Paladin/Sorcerer multiclass, not Paladin/Rogue, since Sorcerer has metamagics and you can quickened spell bless to make it a bonus action.
No, again, DPR is still the main difference between Fighter, Barbarian and Paladin.
Lay on Hands is still less self healing then Fighter's second wind, while lay on hands can be used on others, it is limited to a touch range, often meaning you need to take Opportunity Attacks to go heal a downed ally, instead somebody with Healing Word is better equipped for that job, such as a Bard, Cleric or Druid, more likely than not, there is at least one of these in the party.
Barbarian is the tankiest class in the game and fighter gets more build options in general with some of the best subclasses in the game. Overall, if Paladin has too much utility, that is a question of if Barbarian and Fighter need more utility to match, not if Paladin should be lower on DPR.
Let me actually see which does more damage: (ignoring subclasses, origin feats, species, weapon masteries, magic items, and assuming 65% hit rate)
Level 9 fighter - two ASIs to get 20 str, then polearm master for shield and spear:
Attack damage: .65(3.5 + 5 + 2[dueling])
Full turn: .65(2[3.5 + 5 + 2] + 2.5 + 5 + 2) = 30.5
Level 9 paladin - two ASIs for str, assuming divine favor or comparable has been cast previously, sword and board:
Base attack: .65(4.5 + 5 + 2[dueling] + 2.5)
Casts level 2 divine smite if crits, or level 1 if doesn't
Full turn: 1.3(4.5 + 5 + 2 + 2.5) + (1-.95^2)(27) + (.95 * .65)(9) = 26.39
As it turns out, under my assumptions, the fighter does do more damage.
I think you're underestimating the effect of a paladin's healing. If everybody else in the party is down, they are able to use lay on hands on one of them, and cure wounds on another. This is especially relevant, as they have more health than a cleric and are more likely to survive things like a dragon's breath weapon.
I am not underestimating it, these are both touch and so it means often to take advantage of it you have to move and take opportunity attacks, which is a fair trade. Meanwhile a Cleric or Bard can use Mass Healing Word and get up more than 2 up and can often do so without having to move. As a Paladin your main goal is to be the one taking the damage which means healing others really shouldn't be THAT common an event in the first place.
And yes Paladin has more health then a Cleric tho if one were to compare Paladin and Cleric in isolation (not in a party), Cleric can get more Maximum HP than Paladin due to upcasting Aid. Overall, Paladin can heal others but most often the one taking the damage is the Paladin. So it's not really the biggest utility, Unless things go very wrong, most damage the party does take is going to be recovered during short rests or patched up with healing in between encounters.
Ultimately the point still remains, none of this is justification for Paladin doing less damage, it is justification for Barbarian and Fighter to get more utility. Saying Paladin should do less DPR because Paladin has more utility is a cop-out and unquestionably the entirely wrong solution.
There's a very simple question. Why? What's wrong with sacrificing less than 15% of your damage output for support, healing, and magic?
Because, as I said, in 5E, it will always be the case that killing things faster is better than trying to endure them for longer. That 15% could be the difference of an extra round with more saves, more incoming damage, etc. Thus for things to be balanced, classes that fulfil similar roles to each other need to perform similarly in those specific areas. Paladin has things it can do on the side but the role it fulfils is in competition with Barbarian and Fighter where Barbarian and Fighter are less constrained by Resources.
Paladin's extra utility is already countered on multiple fronts, if you want to go full support, Paladin has more resources which requires more resource management, the healing is all basically touch range which makes it a sacrifice to go out of your way to up an ally in battle, any healing with a spell slot is lost DPR for the day already. But more generally in class design, if one class has more horizontal progression then another class, the balance is to match the horizontal progression on those classes, not to deduct vertical progression or give others classes vertical progression that the first class is now missing which might have more options on the horizontal line but is definitely behind on the vertical line.
That's a ridiculous claim. If you should always try for damage rather than endurance, why do shields exist? And why do people use them? If I offered you a choice of +3 armor of resistance or a +1 greatsword, would you take the greatsword? Additionally, a paladin's main role is often tank, so passive, defensive support abilities are not a horizontal improvement.
I'd take the +3 armor of resistance and sell it, if I don't even have a +1 weapon, why worry about having a +3 armor, but it's value is higher so sell it and buy better gear all round then just one piece of armor, heck you can easily afford a +1 Greatsword or another +1 weapon, or even a +2 Weapon and a +2 Armor with that and have gold left over to get some other good gear.
The ability to cast Divine Favor or to cast Cure Wounds or Shield of Faith wouldn't be horizontal? Other than Aura of Protection, it's mostly Horizontal or it's all just fighter features that fighter gets earlier. So the choices here are mostly things fuelled either by spell slots or channel divinity. But then the counter to Aura of Protection is that Barbarian has Rage, that isn't Horizontal, Barbarian has Reckless Attack, that isn't Horizontal. Fighter gets Second Wind, Action Surge, 2 extra feats, and 5 levels of subclass features (1 more than Paladin)
Most of what Barbarian and Fighter gets are Vertical progression, meanwhile Paladin gets what, the ability to prepare spells it already has access too and cast them at the minimum level once a day? One of which you probably cast once a month (2nd level find steed) and both quickly falls into redundancy.
So no, Paladin has a lot of Horizontal power which doesn't actually make the class any stronger, it just gives it more versatility but versatility alone isn't that great if you're still fundamentally under-performing. Yes Paladin gets SOME vertical progression, I am not saying it'd devoid of it, but certainly in the early game, it's mostly getting features that are trade-offs with other features. Trading DPR for Armor is a fine choice but the DPR baseline prior to such a trade should be in line with the other classes, which is the issue, Paladin starts behind and then gets side options which relatively speaking are equal trades while Barbarian and Fighter just simply get stronger.
Paladin does over take in Tier 4, but really, that's not a good balance. Additionally Paladin is more constrained on the action economy than Barbarian or Fighter generally are. Barbarian activates Rage but else wise their Bonus Action is always free, while Fighter basically only gets Second Wind and they generally want to avoid using that unless things get bad, so not the 1st round of combat. Paladin has DPR behind smites and DPR behind buffs that cost a BA, it has concentration on buffs and it has concentration on multiple defensive spells... it's all stuff to the side, it's not more powerful it's just more options.
Of course Fighter does get Tactical Mind which is Horizontal and Barbarian gets Brutal Strike which are both essentially horizontal (At least until Improved Brutal Strike for Barbarian). But Paladin's power is again, mostly from spell slots and all Paladin mostly gains is bigger spell slots but without the appropriate options to use said spell slots, it's not keeping up and it leaves Paladin far FAR more resource dependent than Barbarian or Fighter are. All Paladin needs is some extra DPR to match base line and then Fighter and Barbarian just need a few Horizontal options and it would be easily equal.
So obviously the on thing you will bring up is Aura of Protection, Aura of Protection is a Vertical improvement, it doesn't do anything most of the time but when it does it can be very impactful. But to get Aura of Protection stronger you need to invest in Charisma, that investment in Charisma comes at the cost of Strength or Constitution. Barbarian obviously focuses on STR > CON > DEX, really a Barbarian only needs +2 DEX and it's done (since medium armor is still better than it's unarmored defence), Fighter is STR/DEX > CON > WIS > STR/DEX > INT/CHA > INT/CHA. Paladin has more of a trade to make to focus on that Aura, else it'll probably be just a +1 and a +1 AOP is only helping very slightly.
Now let me put a point in, what breaks the game more, to give a character a +10 weapon or a +10 armor? It's obviously a +10 weapon, first off that character's DPR would be insanely large, they will be outperforming every other character in combat, everybody else in the party would feel bad because they are being outshone but the +10 armor? nobody would really care, first off most of the creatures are still going to be engaged with the tank so the rest of the party isn't affected by them, second off a +10 armor does nothing around saving throws, it's just a +10 armor. The reason is quiet simple, Offence in 5E is simply stronger than Defence and if you're a DM it's easier to work around 1 character getting a broken armor than it is for 1 character getting a broken weapon.
Finally, the last example of what I mean is Warlock in 2014, prior to Hexblade, Warlock in 2014 was definitely under-performing but Warlock gets A LOT of options and features, From Invocations, to Pacts and Patrons, ultimately tho having a lot of "things" doesn't really matter if your DPR is behind and Warlock damage with Hex+Eldritch Blast+Agonizing Blast was on the lower end, to the point it became the baseline DPR that everybody said you should be beating but Warlock is a DD type class. So lots of features and options isn't the same thing as being powerful.
Say you can't sell the armor.
Shield of faith is pretty much the worst example you could give. It is literally making the paladin a better tank.
I have to ask, why wis before dex for fighter? Also, charisma is usually the secondary stat for a paladin, so at the very least, they would have +2, and more likely +3.
It's the +10 armor. Here are the benefits of a +10 weapon:
Taken together that is less than a 300% increase in DPR. Game breaking, but not impossible to balance.
+10 armor:
A tank that never dies is much more valuable than a <100% increase in the party's DPR. The equation for total damage is DPR * rounds. If the amount of rounds can go arbitrarily high, so can the damage the tank does before they are defeated. "I'll just use only saving throws in combat," I hear you saying. If a magic item singlehandedly makes you completely change combat, then it's definitely broken.
I would disagree with that, it's lost damage, and it's concentration, sure you might take a few less hits but it's easily lost and that is a spell slot that then can't be used on something else. You'd be better casting bless then Shield of Faith most of the time, despite Bless being an action and Shield of Faith being a bonus action. It has no more value then using the same spell slot to cast Divine Favor, now it might do something else but as it's not really an improvement but rather something of questionably equal trade, that would be horizontal usage.
I was thinking of STR build fighters and messed that up, it should be two separate lines, I'll fix:
STR > CON > DEX > WIS > INT/CHA
DEX > CON > WIS > STR/INT/CHA
Right, yes, you'd go for a +2 Charisma, but what does that do to your constitution? At best you could start with a +2 but there is a cost to this in the scores. You could do 15+2, 10, 13+1, 8, 12, 14. But then if you're going to take feats like warcaster or resilient constitution then these half-feats no longer get you up to a +3 unless you take two of them. As damage is more important, we want to leave the 15+2 on strength, so instead we could do 15+2, 10, 13, 8, 12, 14+1. Now when we take warcaster we will get a +3 or when we take resilient constitution we get the +2. However the cost of doing this is we are at a +1 CON modifier which means less HP. Alternatively we can do 15+2, 10, 14+1, 8, 12, 13 and starting with a +2 CON modifier and getting to a +3 later on.
Now people might go for any of these, but there is more trade off going on and more consideration going on in regards to the actual Ability scores. It's less meaningful then say a Barbarian going 15+1, 14, 13+1, 10/8 , 12, 10/8. You take medium armor, do 3 Strength half-feats and pick up an ASI for +2 Constitution and your feats are good. a STR based fighter is basically similar to this.
It's still the +10 weapon, as a DM you can adjust the health, damage and attack of creatures that the party encounters. If somebody has a +10 to AC, creatures get a +10 to attack or you put out creatures with more saving throws, whereas if a player has a +10 to attack and damage, they are now outperforming everybody else. Everybody else now sees themselves being out performed but a single character and that never ends well, my argument here is not just simple numbers, it's player experience.
This is the thing, tables adjust to what players have, so getting an extra +2 AC, if encounters get too easy, creatures get a bump of +1 or +2 attack, or you toss out a few more creatures, or give them multi-attack; But if one player is outperforming the others? The others feel bad because they are not performing well. This is the reason why DPR needs to match on base line since things go past merely, is my number bigger too, is this actively hurting the gaming experience for other players. If you take a Monk, a Wizard and a Cleric then fill a 4th position with either a Paladin, a Fighter or a Barbarian, part of the fun factor of being that Paladin, Fighter and Barbarian is going to be effected by the performance of the class. A Paladin generally speaking is no more defensive then a Fighter or a Barbarian in reality, with the exception of saving throws and yet is performing worse in DPR, now this use to be off-set by Paladin getting their NOVA moment, that moment they go big and suddenly output a huge amount of damage, now it's a much more diluted effect, Paladin does not hit big NOVA damage anymore and the DPR over a normal adventuring day is below the average.
You will still get kills as the Paladin but most likely less than the Barbarian or Fighter would and that slower kill rate requires Paladin thus be more defensive but in reality, past a single concentration spell (which I generally don't recommend using on self) Paladin can get no higher an AC than a fighter and Barbarian has a mixture of more health and some of the most common resistances in the game. So my argument is definitely one that goes beyond just "numbers" and goes into actual player experience. Monk is 2014 was in a very bad place and in 2024 Ranger is also not in a great place, while for parts of 2014 the advice use to be just play a fighter with a bow instead too. Ultimately the game is about the experience and people will far more easily notice a difference in DPR then they will a difference in AC, in reality because only the tank needs to focus on AC but damage is something most characters do almost every round.
And let's remember that WotC did release how many people play each class in 2014, what topped the list? Fighter, where did Barbarian come? Higher than Paladin did. I will not say this is solely due to Paladin being out performed in DPR (it certainly was a factor), but that Fighter and Barbarian are simply easier classes to play with less decision making. Paladin has a lot more build considerations and for many players is still seen as a more complicated class to play, there is also the "role-play" where Paladins are expected to act as Paladins where other then Barbarians being full of rage, there isn't really the same expectations on a fighter or a barbarian. When there is already two factors making Paladin less played (role-play & more complicated) why does it then also need to perform worse in the most major part of comparison between the three classes? It really makes no sense. Paladin now doesn't even have the NOVA, I do not know when we will see 2024 class player counts but I suspect Paladin will further fall behind.
I think overall, yes, DPR is clearly less for a 2024 Paladin than Fighters or Barbs. Homebrews may be the simplest fixes? Like Divine Favor that scales plus being able to use Divine Smite once per turn, but not costing a Bonus Action. If we're talking about enjoyment, the most unlikable part of my Paladin experience is really having whole bunch of spells I won't ever really use. It's the waste & redundancy. That said, because the whole package is strong (standard melee perks + mounted + great saves + extra aura + Bless), it can be a two-trick pony and feel quite good.
The saves piece really seems the point of departure. Quietly impactful is that they are passive boosts, no hit to action economy. YMMV clearly, but per the examples I gave, my auras have been clutch keeping me and my party up. Squeezing out that extra 15% damage I'm fairly sure would not have helped, either because it would not have downed the offending enemy fast enough, if even I could reach it. My understanding is that as the game goes on, saves become even more a threat than HP loss? We're just at level 8, and we are rolling saves constantly. Maybe my DM just crafts good challenging combats?
Of course, what the bonus is to saves is key. Sure if it's just +2, I can see how you'd discount that. That's the first I've heard of a Paladin with just +2 CHA though. The Point Buy example I gave I believe is likely pretty common: 16/8/16/8/16. By level 8, you could raise your ASIs twice. Tough call between ASIs & feats, but it's easy to see raising CHA at least once, but even if not, it's +3 right out of the gate. The aura is perhaps sneaky strong in that it effects 6 saves (7 if you include Death), for you and your nearby allies. For the Pally, that helps shore up the stats you've dumped. For WIS saves, you also get proficiency. For CON, you instead have a good modifier to join your CHA, strengthening your concentration.
Which then adds reliability to Bless, which like the aura, gives far-reaching bonuses from sheer volume: Every time an ally attacks & on all saves. Once it's turned two misses into hits, it's paid for itself. And that's before counting saves' benefits. Since that stacks with your auras, it solidifies their collective benefit and of course helps protect itself. Back to fun gameplay, it feels super good to buff your team and give them something to cheer about when they turn a failure into a success: "Wait, Bless! Roll the d4!"
All that said, I do agree the nerf to damage was too much, but it feels most annoying because of the waste & redundancy. Too many options pitted against each other. If that were fixed and some of the damage restored, I think the tradeoff would be right.
If you're talking Point Buy, then min-maxing, you'd be talking 15+1/8/15+1/8/8/15+1. 2024 is not so based around ASIs as all general feats are now half-feats, they generally offer more than just increasing an Ability Modifier by +1, more so regarding concentration. If you cast bless, you're adding another 1-4 to each saving throw (~2.5). But if you lose your concentration on bless, everybody loses bless, so having warcaster or resilient constitution means holding such spells up much better. Personally not the greatest fan of Point Buy.
Saves is the great but then parties without Paladins still survive, Barbarian for example has a higher initiative and movement speed, this allows them to better control where they stand than a Paladin does, Unless alert is used Paladin tends towards the lower end of Initiative and has less movement speed meaning you have less effective control of the area you end out zoning. If the Barbarian is 60 foot away and the party is behind them, then can the dragon still dragon breath everybody? Probably not, or it has to try and get past the Barbarian to do so. Fighter gets more feats so they can more easily pick-up something like Speedy. Ultimately while Auras are powerful, it is not like Fighter and Barbarian don't have their own advantages either, this is where saying Paladin should suffer less DPR because Auras is a false statement since Paladin already has enough other issues which actually already balances them to Fighter and Barbarian without having to suffer DPR. If you insist Auras are still stronger than what a Fighter or Barbarian can get, then I'd still say that, that is simply an issue of Fighter or Barbarian needing utility to match, not one of Paladin deserving/needing lower DPR.
now with Ancient Paladin, for the Aura of Warding + Aura of Protection, if it's the same type as Warding, that will significantly decrease incoming damage, for sure but with Ancients you're also taking far longer to kill, the DPR difference is more than a 15%. Paladin being behind and then Ancients is further behind that, you're more likely in the 25~30% less DPR area compared to some of fighter or barbarian subclasses, perhaps more in the most powerful subclasses.
This is not quiet right, it assumes all attacks are equal but Paladin tends to focus on larger hits rather than more hits, on the flip side Rogue focuses on sneak attack, so turning one rogue hit from a miss to an attack might be equal if that is the only reason they get to sneak attack whereas 3 monks attacks might be less than equal to the two attacks from the Paladin with Divine Favor. Ultimately how likely is it that bless converts that many misses into failures. First off if 60% of attacks hit, it does nothing for those, if attacks miss by 5 or more it does nothing for those either, it means only 20% of attacks are potentially affected. If you miss by 1 then you'll hit 100% of the time, if you miss by 2 then you hit 75% of the time, 3 50% and 4 25%. Each of these has a 5% chance of occurring past that.
That is to say we expect the following formula: .05+.05×.75+.05×.5+.05×.25 that gives 12.5%. So 12.5% of attacks are misses that become hits due to Bless. 12.5% is 1/8, so about 1 in every 8 hits gets converted, so just to hit 2, we need 16 attacks (on average). Between 3 characters, (assuming all 2 attacks), it would take 8 attack actions to get there. You don't attack first round (assuming you are blessing yourself), so that takes basically 3 rounds. However if you used that same spell slot for Divine Favor or even Divine Smite, you'd have done more damage, in that same time, so you need to do more than 2 converts of misses to attacks to actually overtake that usage, you'd need 3 and that would take an average of 12 attack actions but in a 4 round encounter you'd expect only 11.
The effects on saves however is where Bless then does better, ultimately tho, if you're not expecting that many saving throws, I wouldn't bother using bless early on, get divine favor/spirit shroud/etc out first and just get some faster damage out quicker. You might take out some side mobs or bring the boss just that little bit quicker where the rest of the encounter becomes a bit easier from having less to deal with.
EDIT: Which is to say there is a difference between an encounter against 6 bandits compared to an Illithid/Mind Flayer with 3 Intellect Devourer minions... the first bless isn't doing that much but the 2nd... you definitely want to get bless up right away.
Let's say shield of faith will be a 20% average damage decrease against you, and that you're taking 50% of the hits for the party and doing around 25% of the damage. Since damage is dpr times rounds, shield of faith will offer an 11.11% damage increase ([1/1-.5*.2]) versus a 6.25% damage increase from divine favor (25% * 2.5/10[average attack damage]).
Unless you only target the player with the armor (which will feel arbitrary and unfair), the other PCs will have to deal with +10s to attacks, and unless monsters are homebrewed, the whole party will have to deal with monsters way out of their CR range.
a +3 armor of resistance is going to make 15% of attacks miss, it also offers a singular resistance against 1 of 10 damage types.
And let me put it to you another way, if Defence is as important as Offence then why does most the party generally focus on damage output instead? A party of 4 Paladin might be viable, all using shields and longswords to inflict sap but in reality this is very rarely a party set-up and it generally isn't going to fair as well as a more balanced party set-up. Ultimately people choose classes with very low defence but offer more damage. You only need as much defence as you need to keep yourself up while the party dispatches whatever foe(s) you're facing, while you might significantly reduce the incoming damage, when you get to a certain point, it generally becomes a point of detrimental returns because you're not killing any faster and were never going to go do either way.
Let's say Divine Smite gives the damage to finish off one of the four creatures in front of you. You're talking an average 25% damage decrease against you, which is why offence tends to be better. And no, Shield of Faith is not offering more damage, since again, doing less damage initially often means encounters taking longer, which then means you take even more damage but worse yet, the rest of the party ALSO takes more damage. Since you're less capable of say, casting Compelled Duel to get a creature off of the Wizard or moving next to the Bard and delivering the fatal against a creature that moves on the turn after you.
And no, killing isn't guaranteed but then neither is the rest of the party surviving while you're still fighting 4 mobs 25 feet away from them. So the preference will generally remain faster kills over higher defence and slower kills.
Do not get how this is a point, the same is true of the +10 weapon, since creatures go down more, that means still having to toss out stronger creatures with more HP that the party is going to take down slower since those monsters are way out of their CR Range. The flip side a paladin focusing on defence would have 18 AC at level 1, 20 with shield of faith where a Wizard focusing Defence would have 15AC, Going to 20 when casting shield.
By level 4 the Paladin will likely have 21 AC or 23 AC when casting shield of faith while the Wizard is still on 15AC, or 20 with Shield. If 50% of attacks are hitting the paladin, 65% are already hitting the Wizard with shield and 90% are hitting without it. A +10 armor by this point is already doing little to the gap, Wizard can keep up when they cast shield but they are going to be constantly burning spell slots.
By level 9 we are likely talking about a Defence focused Paladin having 23AC or 25 with shield of faith and taking 3 less damage from Piercing, Bludgeoning and Slashing.
Now where things get crazier in 2024, The Paladin can also get access to the shield spell, it's quiet easy, just magic initiate (wizard) and you've got it from an origin feat, the fact is the vast VAST majority of paladins aren't doing this, because the increase in AC is simply less meaningful over the course of an encounter than you think it is. Yes a Paladin should have more AC than a Wizard but the gaps are already quiet huge before getting into +1 gear. Instead the Risk/Reward of more damage output tends to be favored, a Paladin is not ignoring defence but is still making many decisions that favor damage over defence. Else every Paladin would pick up Shield early and then pick up defensive duellist at level 12 or 16, again, decisions Paladins generally aren't making.
Heck most paladins that take sword and board take Duelling over Defence, Duelling is a +2 Damage per hit, which generally speaking is usually a lower DPR increase than a +1 enchantment (+1 Damage AND +1 attack). Most generally don't cast Shield of Faith on self, they might cast bless when saving throws are likely but usually it's going to be more self damage buffs or smites.
Maybe I am being a bit asinine in saying a +1 weapon enchantment is comparable or even better than a +3 armor enchantment but I am not when I say that the comparison between a +1 weapon enchantment is closer to a +3 armor enchantment than it is a +1 armor enchantment.
TBH, I had thought that armor of resistance gave resistance to BPS damage, my bad. Even so, against a young red dragon, it would give a nearly 33% average damage reduction against the rend attacks. (normal AC: plate armor + shield = 20, with +3 armor, 23)
It's a pretty crazy assumption to assume casting divine smite at the beginning of combat would strait up kill one of the four creatures attacking you. Elsewise you must be talking about low levels, where the AC boost from shield of faith is far more significant. Also, even if you don't use divine smite, someone else is likely to kill the monster fairly quickly. After all, it has less than 9 or 18 health. You're right though that I was unfair in not calculating reduced damage from killing enemies using divine favor. Against one enemy (assuming constant DPR), the party would take roughly 6% less damage overall. Doing some math, I believe this number should remain constant over however many enemies there are. For shield of faith to be better in reducing total-party-average-damage, the paladin would only need to take 33% of the attacks in the party. (1-2.8/3)
+10 armor would make only 5% of attacks hit the paladin (crits). It doesn't matter how that compares to other classes, only that the paladin would survive over 5x as long against most attacks.
I never said defense is always better than offense. You, however, actually made the claim that offense is always better than defense. "it will always be the case that killing things faster is better than trying to endure them for longer" If that's true, then why is it that some paladins do use shields and pick defensive duelist.
A few things:
masterfighting.There reaches a point where the best thing to do is just agree not to see eye to eye with somebody... we are both just wasting our time at this point. I'm not going to continue to debate it all, people can draw their own conclusions and they will, if they can be bothered to read all this wall of texts.
This said, I do have to point this one out.
no they don't, people take Defense over Great Weapon Fighting!
This is because Great Weapon Fighting adds the most minimum DPR imaginable, on a Greataxe it adds a measily average 0.25 damage per hit, that is barely 1/10th of the DPR increase you'll get from a +1 weapon.
For a D10 Polearm it adds a meh 0.33 average damage per that is a crazily low increase.
About the only weapons GWF adds damage too is Greatsword and Maul, and that is 1 damage per hit average, which is still barely 1/3rd the DPR increase you'd expect from a +1 weapon enchantment.
Great Weapon Master on the other hand adds PB damage to heavy weapon attacks made as part of an attack action, that is quiet a significant damage increase, at a +6 PB that is a significant amount of damage, now it might not be applicable to every attack but you're generally going to expect this to add some significant amounts of damage. It is a far easier pick then any defense related feats when you're using a heavy melee weapon.
I agree with much, if not all of what you wrote. I would add that in this edition of DnD (2024), there are even MORE bonus actions available, which imo makes making paladin smite a bonus action even worse! If they had made Divine Smite just a once per turn ability and costing an appropriate level spell slot (think Sneak Attack, but with a spell cost), it would have solved the paladin "nova round" issue, while still giving the paladin a bonus action. As it is now, you have to make a choice between what was a core and signature paladin ability and the entire world of bonus actions! I dislike how they did paladin/divine smite.