I'm enjoying my Loxodon. He's an Oath of Conquest Paladin weilding both a Maul and a Greataxe. His mount is a Celestial Dire wolf, sized up to be ridden by him...so its bigger than the average Dire Wolf.
Wielding the maul and great axe at the same time or separately?
One at a time with the other strapped to his back as there is no monkey grip currently in 5e that i know of. lol
Will I don't really think it's quite on par with the S-tier paladin races (Variant Human, Fallen Aasimar, Half Elf, Triton in maritime games, Eladrin for dexadin builds), I really like the new Harengon for Paladins, especially conquest paladins. Choice of ability score bonus lets you meet the conquest key stats with bonus to strength (or dex), charisma, and maybe also constitution depending on whether +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 fits your ability spread and ASI plans better. Yes that's the same for all post-tasha races and, at least in theory, pre-tasha races as well, but not every DM is applying those options retroactively. Apart from ability scores, the racial features are also really nice for conquerors, shoring up some notable weak points in the build.
Yes, frighten-based lockdown is a strong cc option for a front line tank, but there's a big difference between between locking down enemies before they get to act vs. after. Proficiency in perception and especially the proficiency bonus to initiative is a big help there. Other paladins, whether they're focused on tanking or direct damage, also really appreciate these bonuses.
Paladins in general can have difficulty with positioning in crowded combats. At least those that don't have teleportation options on their oath spell list can. The bunny hop is like a kind-of sort-of misty step, proficiency times per day. Especially if your DM lets you count some of the jump distance vertically to hop over obstructions and enemies, though admittedly the ability is somewhat vaguely worded so there may be table variation in its utility.
Aura of Protection doesn't make a standard strength-based (or cha-based with a hex dip) paladin's dex save good, but based on past experience with Bless it does raise your dex save enough that even just a d4 extra will often be the difference between passing and failing, making the reaction to add d4 to dex saves better on conquerors (and other paladins) than it would generally be on builds with either better or worse dex saves who will usually pass dex saves anyway or fail them even with a d4 bonus.
While I wouldn't quite put Harengon in with what I consider the S tier paladin races, I do think they're on par with or even slightly ahead of the A tiers - Dragonborn, Zariel Tieflings, etc. Play a high-jumping Harengon paladin with a spear and polearm master as a Final Fantasy lancer, or a Harengon conquest pally modeled after the villain from Watership Down. Here's my own take on the latter:
Aura of Protection doesn't make a standard strength-based (or cha-based with a hex dip) paladin's dex save good, but based on past experience with Bless it does raise your dex save enough that even just a d4 extra will often be the difference between passing and failing, making the reaction to add d4 to dex saves better on conquerors (and other paladins) than it would generally be on builds with either better or worse dex saves who will usually pass dex saves anyway or fail them even with a d4 bonus.
The number of occurrences that a d4 changes a failure to a success is the same, ie identical, for all characters except in very extreme situations. Mathematical fact.
As for best race? Dragonborn, clearly. Because a Conquest Dragonborn with the Dragon Fear feat is... scary.
Fair enough on the Dex saves. Subjective experience and confirmation bias can make fools of us all. That said, Dexterity is an important save, and one that paladins are typically a bit lacking in, so the extra bump there is still well appreciated.
Unless the new dragon book changes how it works (I haven't seen it yet, so it might), the Dragon Fear feat actually suffers from some unfortunate anti-synergy with Aura of Conquest. This is because Dragon Fear's frighten effect allows new saves for affected creatures to escape every time they take damage, and aura of conquest deals a small amount of extra damage at the start of affected creatures' turns, effectively giving them two chances to 'save out' of the frighten condition before the condition can force disadvantage on their attacks or the aura can steal their movement. Supposedly the new dragon book significantly improves the effectiveness of the dragonborn's breath attack itself, at which point I don't really feel Dragon Fear would be a worthwhile trade on a conqueror. IMO fey touched would be the better half-cha feat option if you happen to end up with an uneven charisma score.
If you're looking for a race that comes with a useful additional frighten effect, then IMO you want either Fallen Aasimar or Winter Eladrin (eladrin can change their season whenever they rest, but an Eladrin conqueror wants the winter bonus specifically).
Fallen Aasimar's frighten effect turns on at level 3 (one level before a Dragonborn could take Dragon Fear), and while it only lasts for 1 round it WILL last for that entire round on any enemy that fails the save, unlike Dragon Fear. More importantly, this frighten effect is resisted by a Charisma save, giving you a rare frighten effect that works on targets with effectively untouchable Wisdom saves. The damage buff that follows isn't bad either, neither is the extra healing, light cantrip, & necrotic resistance. All in all, a race tailor made for Conquest Paladin and really the unquestioned 'best' option for that subclass specifically, though other options are certainly good enough to not feel like mistakes.
Winter eladrin get a short duration single target frighten effect that triggers on their racial teleport feature. Again, positioning can be a particular weakness of the Conquest Paladin, so access to such a teleport is fantastic in and of itself. Being able to combine it with an extra frighten effect is the cherry on top of the sundae.
Supposedly we're seeing multiple improvements to Dragonborn in the new book. I haven't seen the actual changes yet myself, but Dragonborn have always been an 'pretty good' option for paladins in general, so improvements should put them more or less in line with other top tiers.
Dragonborn is a solid choice. Fallen Aasimar also gets a strength and charisma increase as well. Combine that with its innate abilities it is a great option.
I'm going to absolutely disagree with you on Fallen Aasimar being an S tier pick for a Paladin. It absolutely is not and Fear, there is so many creatures that are immune to fear that you'd fight it renders the ability useless alot of the time. I understand why you say its an S tier pick though. It gets the +1 to STR. A Paladin having STR based Paladin is not an S tier build and I wont go into my opinion on a dexadin we've covered that in the past.
The notion that you need any more points than 15 in STR as a Paladin starting out is misguided. Not only that It actually limits the Paladins main abilities. Even more so as an Oath of Devotion Paladin. In this regard the Scourge Aasimar is actually superior to the Fallen in every way. People shy away from it because you can damage yourself. But you're only taking a quarter of that actual damage while granting you an ability that is for all intense and purposes pretty much the Devotion Paladins late game ability. CHR is a far more important stat to place things in than STR. It increases your saves, your parties saves, increases the amount of times you can do certain abilities, and in a Devotions case increase your to hit ability with Sacred Weapon. Further Paladins don't really deal damage from STR. Not to the point that it makes any real meaningful impact into overall damage dealt. Fighters and Barbarians rely far more on STR than a Paladin does. When this is taken into account on top of the fact that there are more items that increase STR than any other item that increases abilities its pointless to waste ASI in STR as a Paladin. If I'm at 15' ill manage until I get an item that boosts it to 19 or all the way up to 29 and every odd number in between.
Not much point arguing Aasimar - fallen or otherwise - when it could potentially be seeing a complete overhaul in a month or so. That said, I do think a lot of people tend to underrate the frighten condition. Yes, some things are immune, but far fewer things than in previous editions (for example, most corporeal undead are NOT immune to frighten in 5e). Frighten immunity isn't particularly more common than charm immunity, but you don't see people dismissing Hypnotic Pattern out of hand. There are particular campaign modules where frighten effects are less useful than usual - eg Ravenloft, where wolves, skeletons, and zombies - all quite vulnerable to frighten effects normally - are immune to the condition (and to charm, frighten effects aren't the only effects nerfed there); or Descent to Avernus where the majority of common enemies past the first few missions will have spell resistance and thus shrug off most saves vs. frighten (though again frighten effects aren't the only effects this suppresses, and a clockwork sorcerer dip can more or less solve the problem).
But in most campaigns, most enemies will be subject to it, especially mooks, crowds, and burly brute types, so having some frighten effects on tap - especially AoE frighten effects and/or frighten effects with other positive bonuses attached that work even when enemies are immune to frighten, and the current fallen aasimar's daily feature is both, though again it might be completely rewritten soon - can be very useful, especially for Tanks who put extra value on tools that help them control space and restrict enemy positioning options.
That said, I do think a lot of people tend to underrate the frighten condition. Yes, some things are immune, but far fewer things than in previous editions (for example, most corporeal undead are NOT immune to frighten in 5e). Frighten immunity isn't particularly more common than charm immunity, but you don't see people dismissing Hypnotic Pattern out of hand. There are particular campaign modules where frighten effects are less useful than usual - eg Ravenloft, where wolves, skeletons, and zombies - all quite vulnerable to frighten effects normally - are immune to the condition (and to charm, frighten effects aren't the only effects nerfed there); or Descent to Avernus where the majority of common enemies past the first few missions will have spell resistance and thus shrug off most saves vs. frighten (though again frighten effects aren't the only effects this suppresses, and a clockwork sorcerer dip can more or less solve the problem).
Yeah this, is absolutely great points. Having played a Conquest Paladin in a semi-undead themed campaign I honestly have no complaints. Sure a bunch of undead can't be frightened but... those aren't the enemies you have a problem just eliminating from the battlefield, anyway. What happens, in practice, is you go from a heavy hitting melee controller to a even heavier hitting melee striker. You don't lose effectiveness when fighting undead, your role just changes a little. Your smites are scary in these situations, you'll get through em just fine. This dynamic is actually fun, in practice, too, since it means you don't get stuck in one preprogrammed rut where you just go through the motions of the same like 3 actions every combat, instead you have to change it up and entirely reorient your tactics depending on enemy type.
Oath of the Crown can be best fitted for the Elephant type, or the Firlborg. And since the Firlborg seems to be mostly a race to be played like a True Neutral char, then is best fitted for the Redemption Oath.
How hard it could be playing a Firlborg Paladin into the Oath of Redemption, and acting so much Neutral till the point of no putting a single effort in battling.
Half elf is the top option. There are other good options, and some builds can be better with other races. But Half elf is good for any paladin, and it's the most evident (and easy) race to choose.
I have really enjoyed playing as a Goliath Oath of the Ancients Paladin. The bonuses to strength and constitution are good, and Stone's Endurance has saved him a number of times in the past. The Cold Resistance isn't bad either.
One at a time with the other strapped to his back as there is no monkey grip currently in 5e that i know of. lol
Will I don't really think it's quite on par with the S-tier paladin races (Variant Human, Fallen Aasimar, Half Elf, Triton in maritime games, Eladrin for dexadin builds), I really like the new Harengon for Paladins, especially conquest paladins. Choice of ability score bonus lets you meet the conquest key stats with bonus to strength (or dex), charisma, and maybe also constitution depending on whether +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 fits your ability spread and ASI plans better. Yes that's the same for all post-tasha races and, at least in theory, pre-tasha races as well, but not every DM is applying those options retroactively. Apart from ability scores, the racial features are also really nice for conquerors, shoring up some notable weak points in the build.
Yes, frighten-based lockdown is a strong cc option for a front line tank, but there's a big difference between between locking down enemies before they get to act vs. after. Proficiency in perception and especially the proficiency bonus to initiative is a big help there. Other paladins, whether they're focused on tanking or direct damage, also really appreciate these bonuses.
Paladins in general can have difficulty with positioning in crowded combats. At least those that don't have teleportation options on their oath spell list can. The bunny hop is like a kind-of sort-of misty step, proficiency times per day. Especially if your DM lets you count some of the jump distance vertically to hop over obstructions and enemies, though admittedly the ability is somewhat vaguely worded so there may be table variation in its utility.
Aura of Protection doesn't make a standard strength-based (or cha-based with a hex dip) paladin's dex save good, but based on past experience with Bless it does raise your dex save enough that even just a d4 extra will often be the difference between passing and failing, making the reaction to add d4 to dex saves better on conquerors (and other paladins) than it would generally be on builds with either better or worse dex saves who will usually pass dex saves anyway or fail them even with a d4 bonus.
While I wouldn't quite put Harengon in with what I consider the S tier paladin races, I do think they're on par with or even slightly ahead of the A tiers - Dragonborn, Zariel Tieflings, etc. Play a high-jumping Harengon paladin with a spear and polearm master as a Final Fantasy lancer, or a Harengon conquest pally modeled after the villain from Watership Down. Here's my own take on the latter:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/profile/Sception/characters/58802799
The number of occurrences that a d4 changes a failure to a success is the same, ie identical, for all characters except in very extreme situations. Mathematical fact.
As for best race? Dragonborn, clearly. Because a Conquest Dragonborn with the Dragon Fear feat is... scary.
I got quotes!
Fair enough on the Dex saves. Subjective experience and confirmation bias can make fools of us all. That said, Dexterity is an important save, and one that paladins are typically a bit lacking in, so the extra bump there is still well appreciated.
Unless the new dragon book changes how it works (I haven't seen it yet, so it might), the Dragon Fear feat actually suffers from some unfortunate anti-synergy with Aura of Conquest. This is because Dragon Fear's frighten effect allows new saves for affected creatures to escape every time they take damage, and aura of conquest deals a small amount of extra damage at the start of affected creatures' turns, effectively giving them two chances to 'save out' of the frighten condition before the condition can force disadvantage on their attacks or the aura can steal their movement. Supposedly the new dragon book significantly improves the effectiveness of the dragonborn's breath attack itself, at which point I don't really feel Dragon Fear would be a worthwhile trade on a conqueror. IMO fey touched would be the better half-cha feat option if you happen to end up with an uneven charisma score.
If you're looking for a race that comes with a useful additional frighten effect, then IMO you want either Fallen Aasimar or Winter Eladrin (eladrin can change their season whenever they rest, but an Eladrin conqueror wants the winter bonus specifically).
Fallen Aasimar's frighten effect turns on at level 3 (one level before a Dragonborn could take Dragon Fear), and while it only lasts for 1 round it WILL last for that entire round on any enemy that fails the save, unlike Dragon Fear. More importantly, this frighten effect is resisted by a Charisma save, giving you a rare frighten effect that works on targets with effectively untouchable Wisdom saves. The damage buff that follows isn't bad either, neither is the extra healing, light cantrip, & necrotic resistance. All in all, a race tailor made for Conquest Paladin and really the unquestioned 'best' option for that subclass specifically, though other options are certainly good enough to not feel like mistakes.
Winter eladrin get a short duration single target frighten effect that triggers on their racial teleport feature. Again, positioning can be a particular weakness of the Conquest Paladin, so access to such a teleport is fantastic in and of itself. Being able to combine it with an extra frighten effect is the cherry on top of the sundae.
Supposedly we're seeing multiple improvements to Dragonborn in the new book. I haven't seen the actual changes yet myself, but Dragonborn have always been an 'pretty good' option for paladins in general, so improvements should put them more or less in line with other top tiers.
Dragonborn is a solid choice. Fallen Aasimar also gets a strength and charisma increase as well. Combine that with its innate abilities it is a great option.
I'm going to absolutely disagree with you on Fallen Aasimar being an S tier pick for a Paladin. It absolutely is not and Fear, there is so many creatures that are immune to fear that you'd fight it renders the ability useless alot of the time. I understand why you say its an S tier pick though. It gets the +1 to STR. A Paladin having STR based Paladin is not an S tier build and I wont go into my opinion on a dexadin we've covered that in the past.
The notion that you need any more points than 15 in STR as a Paladin starting out is misguided. Not only that It actually limits the Paladins main abilities. Even more so as an Oath of Devotion Paladin. In this regard the Scourge Aasimar is actually superior to the Fallen in every way. People shy away from it because you can damage yourself. But you're only taking a quarter of that actual damage while granting you an ability that is for all intense and purposes pretty much the Devotion Paladins late game ability. CHR is a far more important stat to place things in than STR. It increases your saves, your parties saves, increases the amount of times you can do certain abilities, and in a Devotions case increase your to hit ability with Sacred Weapon. Further Paladins don't really deal damage from STR. Not to the point that it makes any real meaningful impact into overall damage dealt. Fighters and Barbarians rely far more on STR than a Paladin does. When this is taken into account on top of the fact that there are more items that increase STR than any other item that increases abilities its pointless to waste ASI in STR as a Paladin. If I'm at 15' ill manage until I get an item that boosts it to 19 or all the way up to 29 and every odd number in between.
I honestly think half- elf or harengon paladin would rock the table.
Ain’t nuttiness Berta than sum good ole jambalaya
I have played both in the last year.
Not much point arguing Aasimar - fallen or otherwise - when it could potentially be seeing a complete overhaul in a month or so. That said, I do think a lot of people tend to underrate the frighten condition. Yes, some things are immune, but far fewer things than in previous editions (for example, most corporeal undead are NOT immune to frighten in 5e). Frighten immunity isn't particularly more common than charm immunity, but you don't see people dismissing Hypnotic Pattern out of hand. There are particular campaign modules where frighten effects are less useful than usual - eg Ravenloft, where wolves, skeletons, and zombies - all quite vulnerable to frighten effects normally - are immune to the condition (and to charm, frighten effects aren't the only effects nerfed there); or Descent to Avernus where the majority of common enemies past the first few missions will have spell resistance and thus shrug off most saves vs. frighten (though again frighten effects aren't the only effects this suppresses, and a clockwork sorcerer dip can more or less solve the problem).
But in most campaigns, most enemies will be subject to it, especially mooks, crowds, and burly brute types, so having some frighten effects on tap - especially AoE frighten effects and/or frighten effects with other positive bonuses attached that work even when enemies are immune to frighten, and the current fallen aasimar's daily feature is both, though again it might be completely rewritten soon - can be very useful, especially for Tanks who put extra value on tools that help them control space and restrict enemy positioning options.
Yeah this, is absolutely great points. Having played a Conquest Paladin in a semi-undead themed campaign I honestly have no complaints. Sure a bunch of undead can't be frightened but... those aren't the enemies you have a problem just eliminating from the battlefield, anyway. What happens, in practice, is you go from a heavy hitting melee controller to a even heavier hitting melee striker. You don't lose effectiveness when fighting undead, your role just changes a little. Your smites are scary in these situations, you'll get through em just fine. This dynamic is actually fun, in practice, too, since it means you don't get stuck in one preprogrammed rut where you just go through the motions of the same like 3 actions every combat, instead you have to change it up and entirely reorient your tactics depending on enemy type.
I got quotes!
nevermind, I'm repeating myself
Dragonborn ??? Really ???
This race is best fitted into the Oath of Vengeance type.
My Ready-to-rock&roll chars:
Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
New dragonborn is decent. I like other options more, but it's much better than it used to be.
Oath of the Crown can be best fitted for the Elephant type, or the Firlborg. And since the Firlborg seems to be mostly a race to be played like a True Neutral char, then is best fitted for the Redemption Oath.
How hard it could be playing a Firlborg Paladin into the Oath of Redemption, and acting so much Neutral till the point of no putting a single effort in battling.
My Ready-to-rock&roll chars:
Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
Half elf is the top option. There are other good options, and some builds can be better with other races. But Half elf is good for any paladin, and it's the most evident (and easy) race to choose.
Definitely by third edition. Possibly late second edition.
It was start of 3e. That was when they dropped all the class/race restrictions.
I have really enjoyed playing as a Goliath Oath of the Ancients Paladin. The bonuses to strength and constitution are good, and Stone's Endurance has saved him a number of times in the past. The Cold Resistance isn't bad either.
If by best you mean the most powerful and you are using TCE rules I would say Goblin. Goblin is generally the most powerful race for any non-Rogue.
Custom Lineage and Variant Human are both powerful too, but neither of these are as good as Goblin I don't think.
If you are not using TCE rules on ability bonuses then I would say Drow and Half Elf are prominant.