Spiritual Weapon is not what I was referring to, though it is a nice ranged damage boost. It was their ability to lock down enemies by frightening them, the aura that doesn't allow them to move while frightened, which significantly increases your chances of being able to attack them, increasing your damage output. Their Channel Divinity that allows you to add 10 to an attack roll allows you to hit when you would normally miss, which increases damage output, their level 15 ability that damages enemies when attacked, which increases damage output, and their Capstone, that lets you make one more attack each turn, increasing damage, and allowing crits on 19's, which increases damage output.
Literally all of their abilities allow them to deal more damage. How do you not call them "one of the best damage dealing paladins"?
To be clear, I don't think Conquest is *bad* at dealing damage, I just wouldn't put them in the top end of it, mostly because the signature feature of the subclass is that lockdown aura, and capitalizing on it involves sacrificing damage in a lot of little ways that together add up to the conqueror overall dealing less damaging than more damage oriented paladins, in particular, imo, devotion, vengeance, and oathbreaker.
I wrote a whole thing, but it was way too long and sounded kind of aggressive, so trying again...
a conqueror is spending actions, CDs, spell slots, and concentration inflicting the frighten condition when other paladins would be dealing a lot more damage spending those resources on damage buffs and attacking more with divine smite. To make sure their frighten effects land - because the damage sacrificed to set up frighten is wasted if the enemy passes their save or the conqueror loses concentration - conquerors are pushed to spend key early game ASIs boosting charisma and shoring up their concentration with feats like resilient or warcaster where other paladins would be dealing a lot more damage spending those resources on damage buffs like polearm master (that's what I mean by PAM) or great weapon master or just upping their weapon attack stat. Dipping hexblade can help with that some, but if you only dip one to two levels then you're also giving up damage by having to use one handed weapons - fighting with a spear or longsword instead of a halberd or greatsword. And you're still spending asis on charisma and warcaster instead of major damage boosts like polearm master or great weapon master.
The damage boosts offered by Vengeance or Devotion's accuracy-improving CDs or Oathbreaker's aura may not seem like all that much more damage than what a conqueror gets, but where the conqueror's features force trade-offs with normal ways paladins deal damage the boosts from these other oaths just layer right on top. Better than layering on top, they actually synergize with the existing best ways for a paladin to deal more damage - devotion's CDs offset the hit penalty from great weapon master for a big boost to damage, vengeance's CD does that while giving you more chances to roll crits which you can then smite on for double smite damage, while the bonus attack and extra way to trigger reaction attacks from polearm master let oathbreakers apply the bonus from their damage aura up to two extra times per round, and none of that requires any of these oaths to burn concentration or spell slots or even actions apart from bonus actions to activate CDs.
Not that conquest is bad at all. A little bit situational, since there are a handful of enemies flat immune to frighten and a whole lot more who have very good saves against it - for instance it's probably a bad call for descent to avernus where many of the enemies will have advantage on those saves due to fiendish spell resistance. But in general, in a typical game that doesn't pull overwhelmingly from any individual enemy type, I'd say conquest is probably *the best* tanking oath for paladin, and one of the best tanking sub classes in the game. Very little else can boast the kind of damage mitigation, stickiness, and area control of a level 7+ conqueror, and those are the things that tanking is all about. But making that happen involves sacrificing a lot of the damage a paladin might otherwise be doing, so no, even with the handful of minor extra damage features a conqueror gets, I would not list them among the better paladin oaths for dealing damage specifically.
Probably my favorite paladin for damage would be a max charisma half elf (drow variant from scag) vengeance paladin, dipping a level of hexblade, wielding a spear two handed with cha, taking polearm master as their first ASI and elven accuracy as their second, eventually going back to hexblade for a couple levels for darkness/devil's sight and pact weapon to upgrade to a halberd, then breaking their oath and going oathbreaker (in a heroic campaign by showing mercy to the guilty, in a villainous campaign by striking down on the innocent, either way works as long as your DM allows oathbreaker in the first place) trading vengeance's advantage CD for oathbreakers damage aura now that they have an alternative easy source of advantage via darkness/devil's sight. Stick with paladin until 12 for improved divine smite, an extra CD for great weapon master, then back to hexblade to eventually shift from darkness/devil's sight to the more party friendly shadows of moil, or maybe go into sorcerer instead for quicken/twin and better spell slot progression for more smites.
in fights, set up advantage, hexblade's curse a target if you really need it dead, and fish for crits to smite on, dealing plenty of damage even when you're not critting thanks to improved divine smite, oathbreaker aura, and great weapon master. IME you're going to see way more damage out of that than anything a conqueror is going to be doing.
Alternatively, if you just want to hit for big damage without jumping through a bunch of hoops or relying on DMG subclasses or testing your party's patience with melee darkness and evil alignments, then there's a lot to be said for a big dumb variant human devotion paladin with a great sword and great weapon master as their bonus feat, maybe multiclassing into divine soul sorcerer (after level 6 for aura of protection, or 8 for asi, or 12 for improved divine smite & asi, or 13 for improved find steed) for more smites and better buffs, which is a fairly simple build which again should be doing significantly more damage than pretty much any conqueror at pretty much every level.
Neither of those builds can take hits, mitigate damage, or control space in anything like the way a conqueror can, they're not better characters all round, but they are better at damage specifically. Honestly, even one of the more lackluster paladin subclasses, oath of crown, is going to be a better damage dealer than conquerors once they pick up spirit guardians, because that's a big buff to the conqueror's damage output that again isn't forcing the sorts of trade offs that actually using aura of conquest does.
Dragonborn's not bad on stat bonuses & a damage resistance. On the other hand, the breath weapon starts out ok, but scales really poorly, and the dragonborn doesn't have much else going for it, so while they're a good race for paladins I'd still wouldn't put them in top tier with variant humans, half elves, tritons, fallen assimar, eladrin (for dexadins), changelings (for hexadins) or scourge aasimar (also hexadins).
Instead I'd put dragonborn solidly in high tier with zariel legacy tieflings, protector aasimar, mountain dwarves, drow (dexadins in underdark only), lightfoot halflings (they make good mounted dexadins, don't laugh), standard humans, mark of passage humans (dexadins), mark of hospitality halflings (even better than lightfoot, and in eberron you might even be able to talk your dm into letting you take a clawfoot or dactyl as your found steed), etc.
Zariel tieflings get bonuses to strength and charisma, plus two smite racial abilities replacing (and superior to, for a paladin) hellish rebuke and darkness. Plus darkvision, fire resistance, and free thaumaturgy cantrip.
Zariel tieflings are good. Better than dragonborn, if only by a bit. Unfortunately the smite spells, while nice to have, aren't great because smite spells in general aren't great (wrathful smite on a conqueror being the main exception). Better than nothing, but not enough to put them on the level of variant human's bonus feat, half elf's ott stat bonuses, fallen aasimar's massive pile of useful features, etc.
Still, they are noticeably better than dragonborn, who are already quite good, so if you want to draw a line between "top tier" and "high tier", zariel tieflings are right on that line and could reasonably be called either way imo.
This is all splitying hairs, though. If a race has bonuses to strength (or dex) and charisma, or even to just one or the other if it also has some other useful racial traits, then it's already good enough to make a great paladin. Even standard humans, often rightfully called out as a pretty lacking racial choice, make strong paladins.
Zariel tieflings are good. Better than dragonborn, if only by a bit. Unfortunately the smite spells, while nice to have, aren't great because smite spells in general aren't great (wrathful smite on a conqueror being the main exception). Better than nothing, but not enough to put them on the level of variant human's bonus feat, half elf's ott stat bonuses, fallen aasimar's massive pile of useful features, etc.
Still, they are noticeably better than dragonborn, who are already quite good, so if you want to draw a line between "top tier" and "high tier", zariel tieflings are right on that line and could reasonably be called either way imo.
This is all splitying hairs, though. If a race has bonuses to strength (or dex) and charisma, or even to just one or the other if it also has some other useful racial traits, then it's already good enough to make a great paladin. Even standard humans, often rightfully called out as a pretty lacking racial choice, make strong paladins.
Thunderous smite is good, especially near cliffs/ledges, but Zariel Tieflings don't get it. Smiting spells aren't great, but having them baked in with your race is a lot better than having to waste a spell slot on it.
I agree, though Zariel Tieflings are good, and better than dragonborn, they aren't as good as variant humans, half-elves, or Fallen Aasimar (coincidentally, I've had one of those 3 races as a paladin in my games before).
Any race that has a damage resistance is generally pretty good for paladins, as they generally are the target of spells and other attacks.
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When judging races for paladin in generic games (ie, point buy, non-AL, no homebrew restrictions), the primary focus is stat mods, since paladin is an especially demanding class in that regard. So you want bonuses to both your primary scores - charisma and either strength or dexterity - first. Even paladins planning to multiclass hexblade have heavy initial stat goals, hexblade saves you some asi's down the line but doesn't buy a lot of initial slack.
So the basic racial tiers for paladin are:
High tier: bonuses to both charisma and either strength or dexterity
Mid tier: bonuses to just one of cha, str, or dex
Low tier: no bonuses to cha, str, or dex
So those are the primary traits to look for. Useful secondary can theoretically bump races up in those tiers if a race has enough such features, or if such features are especially strong. The thing is, though, because of the multifaceted nature of paladin play - they're fighters, they're casters, they're healers, they're spike damage, they're tanks, they're faces, they're infantry, they're cavalry etc - almost every race has at least some useful features. Examples include:
Con bonus - not as important as weapon/armor & casting stats, but still a big big deal
Small size - makes cav builds much more broadly applicable
Darkvision - useful for dexadins in sneaky parties
Damage resistance & mitigation - paladins tank, so reducing incoming damage is a big deal
Save boosts - again pallies attract a lot of attention, anything to help you avoid damage or debilitating status is a big deal, whether its resistance to particilar effects or rerolling ones or whatever
Boosts to melee damage - from per rest racial abilities to bonus action natural attacks, paladins can really benefit from this stuff
Mobility boosts - racial teleports or movement modes or just increased speed, paladin is a melee oriented class that, on its own, is a bit lacking in mobility, so any racial features that help will go a long way
Skill proficiencies - pallies have high charisma, which is one of the big skill monkey stats, and dexadins specifically have high dexterity, which is the other one, so paladins have the stats to be really good at skills, except they don't come with a large skill list or more than the base two proficiency slots, so any you can pick up from your race are more than welcome.
Bonus feats - so far only a vuman thing, but paladins are even more starved for asis than they are starting stats, so getting an extra feat ftom your race is a huge deal.
Campaign specific boosts - in a maritime game water breathing and swim speed is a huge deal, in an underdark game datkvision matters more even outside of stealthy parties, etc.
The list goes on, and honestly that's another reason why primary stat bonuses remain the main dividing point for paladin racial tiers. It's hard for these sorts of secondary racial abilities to be good enough or lacking enough to shift a race's placement in those tiers when near about every race is getting at least something useful.
Still there are a few exceptions that rise above the rest. Again, variant human and half elf and fallen assimar get pushed up to a top tier above the rest of high tier, zariel tieflings and eladrin are right behind them hovering on that boarder, other aasimar are similarly pushed from mid to high tier imo, a case could be made for mountain dwarves and snek people in high tier, changelings are a special mid tier case that arguably shoot up to high or maybe even higher for hex dips, etc.
And at the lower end, vedalken get so little that's relevant to paladining that they fall into a bottom tier all their own.
Wanted to also mention that one area in which I often see paladins struggling is the lack of a decent ranged attack. There's a lot of javelin-throwing going on. So a race that gives you a free ranged attack cantrip can be nice - especially the variant tiefling with Devil's Tongue, which gets Vicious Mockery for free as a charisma-based cantrip; variant human with Magic Initiate (Bard, Warlock, or Sorcerer) feat; fire genasi (gets Produce Flame as free cantrip, with Con base); and high elf (free wizard cantrip of choice, unfortunately Int-based).
Also wanted to mention the Yuan-ti Pureblood. Weird roleplaying choice, but the package is pretty sweet for a paladin. +2 charisma, +1 int, darkvision, magic resistance, poison immunity, and free Poison Spray cantrip, Animal Friendship (snakes only, but unlimited) and 1/long rest Suggestion - all with charisma-based casting.
Also wanted to mention the Yuan-ti Pureblood. Weird roleplaying choice, but the package is pretty sweet for a paladin. +2 charisma, +1 int, darkvision, magic resistance, poison immunity, and free Poison Spray cantrip, Animal Friendship (snakes only, but unlimited) and 1/long rest Suggestion - all with charisma-based casting.
Yes, Yuan-ti Pureblood. I was trying to remember them in my last post and couldn't recall the name so I just called them 'snek people'. +2 charisma on it's own puts them in 'mid tier' in my ranking, but they are one of the races with additional racial features that are so numerous, powerful, and/or directly relevant to paladining that it pushes them up a tier, imo. Magic resistance in particular is fantastic. In terms of roleplay they actually make really good paladins.... provided you're playing a villain or anti-hero party and taking one of the darker oaths - conquest, oathbreaker, maybe vengeance. Treachery especially is a good thematic fit if UA is allowed what with the oath's mental manipulation and poison themes. Aesthetically Pureblood paladins would probably prefer to go medium or light armor instead of heavy, but without a bonus to dexterity, constitution, or strength it's really hard to make that work without unfortunate sacrifices in constitution or charisma.
Obviously without a bonus to strength or dexterity you'd really want to take that hexblade dip, and they lose a fair bit of luster as a paladin race in campaigns that don't allow it.
I really wanna do an oathbreaker Paladin with fallen Aasimar since the flavor is huge, but as it seems ppl tend to pick vuman for the extra feat in their buids, and since oathbreakers work great with POM and Sentinel, if i stack to Aasimar should i sacrifice 4/8 points for POM and Sentinel or i should go with 20 str and leave feats outside?
Especially with a Feat at level one, if they're Variant Human.
The problem is you have to compare to a half-elf. Compare typical variant human setup to typical half-elf setup:
Ability Scores: Variant Human +1 Str, +1 Cha; Half-Elf +1 Str, +1 Con (or Wis), +2 Cha (net benefit: +1 Con/Wis, +1 Cha)
Skills: Variant Human +1, Half-Elf +2 (Net Benefit: +1)
Languages: Variant Human Common + Choice, Half-Elf Common + Elvish + Choice (Net Benefit: Elvish)
Other: Variant Human +1 Feat, Half-Elf Darkvision, Resistance to Charm, Immunity to Sleep
Feats can be pretty good, but is one feat worth +2 attribute points, +1 skill, +1 language, darkvision, and resistances?
Half-elves are really pretty much humans with a very specialized racial feat. :P I tend to play humans over half-elf (for Cha-based classes) only if I roll and roll well and/if it suits the character better. If Charisma isn't need for the build I usually prefer v-humans.
I really wanna do an oathbreaker Paladin with fallen Aasimar since the flavor is huge, but as it seems ppl tend to pick vuman for the extra feat in their buids, and since oathbreakers work great with POM and Sentinel, if i stack to Aasimar should i sacrifice 4/8 points for POM and Sentinel or i should go with 20 str and leave feats outside?
How do you reckon you'd lose 8 points? Anyway, 20 in a stat is not really *need*. It's fun to have, sure but it doesn't make your character terrible if your best stats at level 20 is at 18. And for Paladins I would almost rather recommend maxing out charisma instead of Strength to improve auras and spellcasting and other paladin stuff.
Have you considered Conquest (single classed or with a 1 to 2 level hex dip) in place of oathbreaker for your Fallen Aasimar? Conquest relies more on stats, gets less from feats, and benefits hugely from the Fallen Aasimar's fear burst on an exceptionally rare charisma save.
If that doesn't fit with what you're trying to build and you really want to stick with oathbreaker, then I'd say DO pick up polearm master, but you can hold off on sentinel till later levels. You still might want to go with a hexblade multiclass - three levels instead of two so you can pick up the pact weapon boon and the improved pact weapon invocation. The reason for this is that polearm master, while amazing, especially for an oathbreaker, restricts you to a very narrow set of available weapons, and if your DM hands out treasure according to purely random tables or based strictly on what's included in published adventure books you might not be able to get a magical quarterstaff, spear, pike, glaive, or halberd otherwise. Hex Warrior also helps save on later ASIs by not having to raise your strength past its starting value. You'll still need at least a 15 starting strength for plate armor, and will want a 16 starting strength if you plan to delay the first level of the hexblade multiclass past level 2.
The hexblade multiclass isn't essential at all, especially if your DM will work with you and make a suitable magic weapon available to you by the time resistance to non-magical weapons is becoming relatively common, but it's a useful option to consider.
...........
Otherwise, paladin is already a very stat intensive class, and if your build depends on any feats, and *in particular* if it depends on multiple feats, then variant human absolutely ranks up there with the very best paladin races. Even if your build isn't outright dependent on one or more feats, there's definitely still at least one feat out there that will compare favorably with the bonuses granted by any other race, whether you're looking at sentinel, lucky, resilient constitution, alert, inspiring leader, war caster, magic initiate, great weapon master, polearm master, mage slayer, defensive duelist (for dexadins), or heavy armor master (if your campaign, like most, won't be going much past level 10).
Half Elves, Aasimar, Eladrin (for dexadins), and Tritons (in maritime games specifically) are all right up there as well, Vuman isn't just objectively the best with no competitors for the title, but if feats are allowed in your game at all then Vumans are right up there with the other top tier options.
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What's P.A.M ??? Pole-arm Armored Machine ???
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Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
To be clear, I don't think Conquest is *bad* at dealing damage, I just wouldn't put them in the top end of it, mostly because the signature feature of the subclass is that lockdown aura, and capitalizing on it involves sacrificing damage in a lot of little ways that together add up to the conqueror overall dealing less damaging than more damage oriented paladins, in particular, imo, devotion, vengeance, and oathbreaker.
I wrote a whole thing, but it was way too long and sounded kind of aggressive, so trying again...
a conqueror is spending actions, CDs, spell slots, and concentration inflicting the frighten condition when other paladins would be dealing a lot more damage spending those resources on damage buffs and attacking more with divine smite. To make sure their frighten effects land - because the damage sacrificed to set up frighten is wasted if the enemy passes their save or the conqueror loses concentration - conquerors are pushed to spend key early game ASIs boosting charisma and shoring up their concentration with feats like resilient or warcaster where other paladins would be dealing a lot more damage spending those resources on damage buffs like polearm master (that's what I mean by PAM) or great weapon master or just upping their weapon attack stat. Dipping hexblade can help with that some, but if you only dip one to two levels then you're also giving up damage by having to use one handed weapons - fighting with a spear or longsword instead of a halberd or greatsword. And you're still spending asis on charisma and warcaster instead of major damage boosts like polearm master or great weapon master.
The damage boosts offered by Vengeance or Devotion's accuracy-improving CDs or Oathbreaker's aura may not seem like all that much more damage than what a conqueror gets, but where the conqueror's features force trade-offs with normal ways paladins deal damage the boosts from these other oaths just layer right on top. Better than layering on top, they actually synergize with the existing best ways for a paladin to deal more damage - devotion's CDs offset the hit penalty from great weapon master for a big boost to damage, vengeance's CD does that while giving you more chances to roll crits which you can then smite on for double smite damage, while the bonus attack and extra way to trigger reaction attacks from polearm master let oathbreakers apply the bonus from their damage aura up to two extra times per round, and none of that requires any of these oaths to burn concentration or spell slots or even actions apart from bonus actions to activate CDs.
Not that conquest is bad at all. A little bit situational, since there are a handful of enemies flat immune to frighten and a whole lot more who have very good saves against it - for instance it's probably a bad call for descent to avernus where many of the enemies will have advantage on those saves due to fiendish spell resistance. But in general, in a typical game that doesn't pull overwhelmingly from any individual enemy type, I'd say conquest is probably *the best* tanking oath for paladin, and one of the best tanking sub classes in the game. Very little else can boast the kind of damage mitigation, stickiness, and area control of a level 7+ conqueror, and those are the things that tanking is all about. But making that happen involves sacrificing a lot of the damage a paladin might otherwise be doing, so no, even with the handful of minor extra damage features a conqueror gets, I would not list them among the better paladin oaths for dealing damage specifically.
Probably my favorite paladin for damage would be a max charisma half elf (drow variant from scag) vengeance paladin, dipping a level of hexblade, wielding a spear two handed with cha, taking polearm master as their first ASI and elven accuracy as their second, eventually going back to hexblade for a couple levels for darkness/devil's sight and pact weapon to upgrade to a halberd, then breaking their oath and going oathbreaker (in a heroic campaign by showing mercy to the guilty, in a villainous campaign by striking down on the innocent, either way works as long as your DM allows oathbreaker in the first place) trading vengeance's advantage CD for oathbreakers damage aura now that they have an alternative easy source of advantage via darkness/devil's sight. Stick with paladin until 12 for improved divine smite, an extra CD for great weapon master, then back to hexblade to eventually shift from darkness/devil's sight to the more party friendly shadows of moil, or maybe go into sorcerer instead for quicken/twin and better spell slot progression for more smites.
in fights, set up advantage, hexblade's curse a target if you really need it dead, and fish for crits to smite on, dealing plenty of damage even when you're not critting thanks to improved divine smite, oathbreaker aura, and great weapon master. IME you're going to see way more damage out of that than anything a conqueror is going to be doing.
Alternatively, if you just want to hit for big damage without jumping through a bunch of hoops or relying on DMG subclasses or testing your party's patience with melee darkness and evil alignments, then there's a lot to be said for a big dumb variant human devotion paladin with a great sword and great weapon master as their bonus feat, maybe multiclassing into divine soul sorcerer (after level 6 for aura of protection, or 8 for asi, or 12 for improved divine smite & asi, or 13 for improved find steed) for more smites and better buffs, which is a fairly simple build which again should be doing significantly more damage than pretty much any conqueror at pretty much every level.
Neither of those builds can take hits, mitigate damage, or control space in anything like the way a conqueror can, they're not better characters all round, but they are better at damage specifically. Honestly, even one of the more lackluster paladin subclasses, oath of crown, is going to be a better damage dealer than conquerors once they pick up spirit guardians, because that's a big buff to the conqueror's damage output that again isn't forcing the sorts of trade offs that actually using aura of conquest does.
It stands for Polearm Master.
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I think Dragonborn would be the best mostly because of the strength and charisma increase
"Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced"- Soren Kierkgaard
I agree :)
"A Jack Of All Trades is a master of none"
'That's why I hate Bards'
Fallen Aasimar also get Strength and Charisma boosts, and have better racial abilities.
Tritons are also pretty good, +1 to Con, Cha, and Str, breathing underwater, speaking to swimming creatures, swimming speed, and spells, also good.
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Dragonborn's not bad on stat bonuses & a damage resistance. On the other hand, the breath weapon starts out ok, but scales really poorly, and the dragonborn doesn't have much else going for it, so while they're a good race for paladins I'd still wouldn't put them in top tier with variant humans, half elves, tritons, fallen assimar, eladrin (for dexadins), changelings (for hexadins) or scourge aasimar (also hexadins).
Instead I'd put dragonborn solidly in high tier with zariel legacy tieflings, protector aasimar, mountain dwarves, drow (dexadins in underdark only), lightfoot halflings (they make good mounted dexadins, don't laugh), standard humans, mark of passage humans (dexadins), mark of hospitality halflings (even better than lightfoot, and in eberron you might even be able to talk your dm into letting you take a clawfoot or dactyl as your found steed), etc.
Zariel tieflings get bonuses to strength and charisma, plus two smite racial abilities replacing (and superior to, for a paladin) hellish rebuke and darkness. Plus darkvision, fire resistance, and free thaumaturgy cantrip.
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Zariel tieflings are good. Better than dragonborn, if only by a bit. Unfortunately the smite spells, while nice to have, aren't great because smite spells in general aren't great (wrathful smite on a conqueror being the main exception). Better than nothing, but not enough to put them on the level of variant human's bonus feat, half elf's ott stat bonuses, fallen aasimar's massive pile of useful features, etc.
Still, they are noticeably better than dragonborn, who are already quite good, so if you want to draw a line between "top tier" and "high tier", zariel tieflings are right on that line and could reasonably be called either way imo.
This is all splitying hairs, though. If a race has bonuses to strength (or dex) and charisma, or even to just one or the other if it also has some other useful racial traits, then it's already good enough to make a great paladin. Even standard humans, often rightfully called out as a pretty lacking racial choice, make strong paladins.
Thunderous smite is good, especially near cliffs/ledges, but Zariel Tieflings don't get it. Smiting spells aren't great, but having them baked in with your race is a lot better than having to waste a spell slot on it.
I agree, though Zariel Tieflings are good, and better than dragonborn, they aren't as good as variant humans, half-elves, or Fallen Aasimar (coincidentally, I've had one of those 3 races as a paladin in my games before).
Any race that has a damage resistance is generally pretty good for paladins, as they generally are the target of spells and other attacks.
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When judging races for paladin in generic games (ie, point buy, non-AL, no homebrew restrictions), the primary focus is stat mods, since paladin is an especially demanding class in that regard. So you want bonuses to both your primary scores - charisma and either strength or dexterity - first. Even paladins planning to multiclass hexblade have heavy initial stat goals, hexblade saves you some asi's down the line but doesn't buy a lot of initial slack.
So the basic racial tiers for paladin are:
High tier: bonuses to both charisma and either strength or dexterity
Mid tier: bonuses to just one of cha, str, or dex
Low tier: no bonuses to cha, str, or dex
So those are the primary traits to look for. Useful secondary can theoretically bump races up in those tiers if a race has enough such features, or if such features are especially strong. The thing is, though, because of the multifaceted nature of paladin play - they're fighters, they're casters, they're healers, they're spike damage, they're tanks, they're faces, they're infantry, they're cavalry etc - almost every race has at least some useful features. Examples include:
Con bonus - not as important as weapon/armor & casting stats, but still a big big deal
Small size - makes cav builds much more broadly applicable
Darkvision - useful for dexadins in sneaky parties
Damage resistance & mitigation - paladins tank, so reducing incoming damage is a big deal
Save boosts - again pallies attract a lot of attention, anything to help you avoid damage or debilitating status is a big deal, whether its resistance to particilar effects or rerolling ones or whatever
Boosts to melee damage - from per rest racial abilities to bonus action natural attacks, paladins can really benefit from this stuff
Mobility boosts - racial teleports or movement modes or just increased speed, paladin is a melee oriented class that, on its own, is a bit lacking in mobility, so any racial features that help will go a long way
Skill proficiencies - pallies have high charisma, which is one of the big skill monkey stats, and dexadins specifically have high dexterity, which is the other one, so paladins have the stats to be really good at skills, except they don't come with a large skill list or more than the base two proficiency slots, so any you can pick up from your race are more than welcome.
Bonus feats - so far only a vuman thing, but paladins are even more starved for asis than they are starting stats, so getting an extra feat ftom your race is a huge deal.
Campaign specific boosts - in a maritime game water breathing and swim speed is a huge deal, in an underdark game datkvision matters more even outside of stealthy parties, etc.
The list goes on, and honestly that's another reason why primary stat bonuses remain the main dividing point for paladin racial tiers. It's hard for these sorts of secondary racial abilities to be good enough or lacking enough to shift a race's placement in those tiers when near about every race is getting at least something useful.
Still there are a few exceptions that rise above the rest. Again, variant human and half elf and fallen assimar get pushed up to a top tier above the rest of high tier, zariel tieflings and eladrin are right behind them hovering on that boarder, other aasimar are similarly pushed from mid to high tier imo, a case could be made for mountain dwarves and snek people in high tier, changelings are a special mid tier case that arguably shoot up to high or maybe even higher for hex dips, etc.
And at the lower end, vedalken get so little that's relevant to paladining that they fall into a bottom tier all their own.
Wanted to also mention that one area in which I often see paladins struggling is the lack of a decent ranged attack. There's a lot of javelin-throwing going on. So a race that gives you a free ranged attack cantrip can be nice - especially the variant tiefling with Devil's Tongue, which gets Vicious Mockery for free as a charisma-based cantrip; variant human with Magic Initiate (Bard, Warlock, or Sorcerer) feat; fire genasi (gets Produce Flame as free cantrip, with Con base); and high elf (free wizard cantrip of choice, unfortunately Int-based).
Also wanted to mention the Yuan-ti Pureblood. Weird roleplaying choice, but the package is pretty sweet for a paladin. +2 charisma, +1 int, darkvision, magic resistance, poison immunity, and free Poison Spray cantrip, Animal Friendship (snakes only, but unlimited) and 1/long rest Suggestion - all with charisma-based casting.
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Yes, Yuan-ti Pureblood. I was trying to remember them in my last post and couldn't recall the name so I just called them 'snek people'. +2 charisma on it's own puts them in 'mid tier' in my ranking, but they are one of the races with additional racial features that are so numerous, powerful, and/or directly relevant to paladining that it pushes them up a tier, imo. Magic resistance in particular is fantastic. In terms of roleplay they actually make really good paladins.... provided you're playing a villain or anti-hero party and taking one of the darker oaths - conquest, oathbreaker, maybe vengeance. Treachery especially is a good thematic fit if UA is allowed what with the oath's mental manipulation and poison themes. Aesthetically Pureblood paladins would probably prefer to go medium or light armor instead of heavy, but without a bonus to dexterity, constitution, or strength it's really hard to make that work without unfortunate sacrifices in constitution or charisma.
Obviously without a bonus to strength or dexterity you'd really want to take that hexblade dip, and they lose a fair bit of luster as a paladin race in campaigns that don't allow it.
Ordinary Human paladins work pretty well
Especially with a Feat at level one, if they're Variant Human.
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Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
The problem is you have to compare to a half-elf. Compare typical variant human setup to typical half-elf setup:
Feats can be pretty good, but is one feat worth +2 attribute points, +1 skill, +1 language, darkvision, and resistances?
If Acquisitions Inc is allowed, the Verdan make pretty solid paladins.
I really wanna do an oathbreaker Paladin with fallen Aasimar since the flavor is huge, but as it seems ppl tend to pick vuman for the extra feat in their buids, and since oathbreakers work great with POM and Sentinel, if i stack to Aasimar should i sacrifice 4/8 points for POM and Sentinel or i should go with 20 str and leave feats outside?
Half-elves are really pretty much humans with a very specialized racial feat. :P I tend to play humans over half-elf (for Cha-based classes) only if I roll and roll well and/if it suits the character better. If Charisma isn't need for the build I usually prefer v-humans.
How do you reckon you'd lose 8 points? Anyway, 20 in a stat is not really *need*. It's fun to have, sure but it doesn't make your character terrible if your best stats at level 20 is at 18. And for Paladins I would almost rather recommend maxing out charisma instead of Strength to improve auras and spellcasting and other paladin stuff.
Have you considered Conquest (single classed or with a 1 to 2 level hex dip) in place of oathbreaker for your Fallen Aasimar? Conquest relies more on stats, gets less from feats, and benefits hugely from the Fallen Aasimar's fear burst on an exceptionally rare charisma save.
If that doesn't fit with what you're trying to build and you really want to stick with oathbreaker, then I'd say DO pick up polearm master, but you can hold off on sentinel till later levels. You still might want to go with a hexblade multiclass - three levels instead of two so you can pick up the pact weapon boon and the improved pact weapon invocation. The reason for this is that polearm master, while amazing, especially for an oathbreaker, restricts you to a very narrow set of available weapons, and if your DM hands out treasure according to purely random tables or based strictly on what's included in published adventure books you might not be able to get a magical quarterstaff, spear, pike, glaive, or halberd otherwise. Hex Warrior also helps save on later ASIs by not having to raise your strength past its starting value. You'll still need at least a 15 starting strength for plate armor, and will want a 16 starting strength if you plan to delay the first level of the hexblade multiclass past level 2.
The hexblade multiclass isn't essential at all, especially if your DM will work with you and make a suitable magic weapon available to you by the time resistance to non-magical weapons is becoming relatively common, but it's a useful option to consider.
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Otherwise, paladin is already a very stat intensive class, and if your build depends on any feats, and *in particular* if it depends on multiple feats, then variant human absolutely ranks up there with the very best paladin races. Even if your build isn't outright dependent on one or more feats, there's definitely still at least one feat out there that will compare favorably with the bonuses granted by any other race, whether you're looking at sentinel, lucky, resilient constitution, alert, inspiring leader, war caster, magic initiate, great weapon master, polearm master, mage slayer, defensive duelist (for dexadins), or heavy armor master (if your campaign, like most, won't be going much past level 10).
Half Elves, Aasimar, Eladrin (for dexadins), and Tritons (in maritime games specifically) are all right up there as well, Vuman isn't just objectively the best with no competitors for the title, but if feats are allowed in your game at all then Vumans are right up there with the other top tier options.