I’m playing a Drow paladin in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. I’ve already taken Drow High Magic as it’s fitting with my character’s background, and also because my party likes to grab magic items first, ask what they do later. What feats would you say are important for a Vengeance Paladin? Stats are 16 CHA, 15 DEX and STR, 14 CON, 13 INT, and 10 WIS.
I’m playing a Drow paladin in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. I’ve already taken Drow High Magic as it’s fitting with my character’s background, and also because my party likes to grab magic items first, ask what they do later. What feats would you say are important for a Vengeance Paladin? Stats are 16 CHA, 15 DEX and STR, 14 CON, 13 INT, and 10 WIS.
The stat build has me very curious to the weapons and such too.
its rare to see both str and dex built up on a paladin.
I’m playing a Drow paladin in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. I’ve already taken Drow High Magic as it’s fitting with my character’s background, and also because my party likes to grab magic items first, ask what they do later. What feats would you say are important for a Vengeance Paladin? Stats are 16 CHA, 15 DEX and STR, 14 CON, 13 INT, and 10 WIS.
The stat build has me very curious to the weapons and such too.
its rare to see both str and dex built up on a paladin.
I wanted a way to be able to fight at range if need be.
I'd recommend Sentinel, and Polearm master if you want to use a quarterstaff or spear or trident. If you actually want a Longsword or Rapier, I'd do Shield Master, Mage Slayer, and War Caster.
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Good feats for pally will vary based on your oath, starting stats, racial choice, multiclassing plans, equipment preferences, and personal leaning between the paladins various combat roles (damage, tanking, support, etc).
No matter what the specifics of your paladin are, there will still be several great feats that you would like to have, more than you'll ever actually be able to take, especially since paladin is one of the most stat-intensive classes in the game. This means you need to think very hard before taking even the best of feats. If it isn't *critical* to your build, then it's probably better off waiting until after you've raised up your weapon attack stat and charisma.
That warning out of the way, some stand outs that are good enough to consider picking up at level 4 before raising stats:
For Damage: polearm master or great weapon master. These two up your damage the most, but have the cost of restricting you to a particular subset of weapons, which can be a problem in games with strictly random or pre-generated loot. Both can stack on glaives or halberds, but you probably shouldn't take both before leveling stats unless you're a variant human.
For tanking: sentinel is pretty much obligatory for tanks in 5e. There are a few builds that can get away without it, but in general if you're specifically trying to play a party tank, take sentinel at the first opportunity. It's worth pointing out that sentinel stacks particularly well with polearm master, but again, unless you're playing a variant human, I wouldn't take more than one feat before investing ASIs in your primary stats.
For Healing/Support: healer and inspiring leader both add a lot to your party's total daily hp resource pool. A paladin does already have some healing ability, but one of these feats will let you augment party hp beyond what lay on hands already does without burning spell slots that could otherwise go into smites, or, more likely for you, buff spells like Bless.
Some general use feats to consider:
Warcaster is good for sword & board paladins in general as it makes casting non-material-component somatic spells a bit less awkward (no more dropping your sword to cast bless then picking it back up), and because the bonus to concentration saves is a big deal for a half caster with some solid concentration spells who also likes to trade blows in the thick of melee, but it's probably not worth taking before raising stats unless you've picked up weapon cantrips and/or reactive spells that cannot be cast with your normal equipment, for instance if you're a sword and board pally who's dipped hexblade, picking up Booming Blade and Shield. Then it's a must have.
Alert: paladins don't get perception by default and tend to have low dexterity, which can seriously delay your reaction to the onset of combat. This is especially a problem for tanking and support paladins who *really* want to be occupying choke points, engaging enemies, and/or positioning auras before enemy combatants have had a chance to swarm your team. If you have chosen your race or background to pick up perception, and taken care not to dump your dexterity, then you can make do without it, but if you haven't then alert is worth your consideration.
Lucky: lucky is an amazing feat that makes everything easier. Attack roles, saving throws, whatever you need, when you need it lucky is there. Any character is just better with lucky.
Resilient constitution - as mentioned under warcaster, concentration saves are a big deal. This helps those AND helps your other constitution saves, which, while not common, are often quite nasty to fail. And it comes with +1 con score, which, if you were planning to take resilient con to begin with, should also get you +1 max hp per level.
Speaking of half feats, if they give you a bonus to one of your primary scores, then you might be able to fit them into your build without further delays to stat mod advancement. This is really only worth while if you're playing in a die roll game and happen to end up with an odd score in one of your primary stats, or if you're in a point buy game playing a race with a +2 in a primary stat so you can start the game with a 17. If you deliberately start with a lower multiplier than you otherwise would so that you can bring it up with a half feat, then you are still effectively delaying your stat advancement for a feat, and it isn't even a full feat.
Anyway, the three half-primary feats worth considering are:
For strength: heavy armor master. This feat is notoriously strong early on but scales incredibly poorly. In general that's pretty bad, but if you're starting with a 17 strength via a +2 strength race like dragonborn or mountain dwarf then it's basically free, and for free it's great. Alternatively, resilient strength. Strength saves are uncommon and not too terrible to fail, but at later levels the save proficiency is still probably better than heavy armor master.
For dexterity: dexadins are rare, particularly as the paladin class skill list doesn't support it and it makes multiclassing harder, but despite that dexadins can work quite well. A +2 dex race like eladrin can start with 17 dex and bump to 18 with resilient dex. Unlike strength, dex saves are quite common, so this works out pretty well, though elves and half elves have a better option.
For charisma: sadly actor's all there is here, unless you've got elven blood, and it isnt great. Better to go +1/+1 and round out some other odd stat if you have one.
For elves & half elves: elven accuracy can bump up dex or cha, perfect for elf dexadins and half elf hexadins. A nice boost for elven non-str paladins in general. The triple advantage really helps when fishing for crits to smite on, try it on a build that multiclasses for increased crit range (champion fighter or hexblade warlock) and combine it with polearm master on a hexadin or generic two weapon fighting on a dexadin, one of the few cases where two weapon fighting kind of works. Especially nice on a valenar elf in eberron with the double svimitar and the racial feat to make it finesse.
...
And those are the main feats I would consider taking before switching over to just +2 to a stat until you max out your weapon attack and spellcasting stats, and even then no more than one feat before working on your stats. Half feats can let you cheat a bit there, but if you start with a lower stat bonus then you could have had just to round out with a half feat, then the only one you're cheating is yourself. This is a big part of why I don't rate Dragon Fear highly, at least not in point buy games.
as a paladin though... best use of your auras is to be closer to the action. Either your party, or the enemies. Depending on auras.
javelins and hand axes have pretty good ranges as is. For Paladins. So it just had a few people curious I think.
plus, Paladins get some cool ass spells they can use. That make more sense to cast when still out of your “effective range”.
by switching back and forth between bow and “sword and board” you burn actions switching weapons, bringing out the shield, and such.
and then if you wanted to do your spells anyways. You have to use another turn that’s either bow shot, or switching weapons and shield out turn, to cast the spell you want.
But... I like the idea you put into it. As I am certain it has more of an RP reason than a mechanic reason.
THanks for the help everyone! You've given me a lot to think about. I'm probably going to switch my stats about, with Intelligence getting the 10 instead.
Here's the base stats now, for those who are wondering what I changed: STR, CON, DEX, and CHA are all at 15 due to Drow's racial bonuses, WIS is 13, and INT is at 10. Probably gonna drop the bow idea, but keeping dex high for being able to protect my allies by standing in the way of enemies.
Also, Holy symbols can be on a shield, letting you use your shield as the focus, getting rid of the need to drop your weapon.
You can drop either DEX or STR as a paladin, you don't need both. If you want to be good at range, either is decent, but DEX is better. If you want to main on melee, I'd choose STR.
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I'm not certain what idea you are entertaining about dex affecting your ability to protect allies by standing in the way of enemies. The only stats that really affect your ability to stand in the way of enemies are: 1) Initiative- going sooner means getting there sooner, 2) movement- more movement means getting there in fewer turns (potentially), and 3) reach- if you have a reach weapon, your size is effectively larger than it actually is due too AoO. This can cause some enemies to take longer to get to your squishier friends as they try to avoid passing to close to you.
Of those, initiative is the only affected by dex. Having a high initiative is not imperative to being a good tank. There are some bonuses, but they aren't as critical for you. If you are going longsword, most reach wespons, and/or heavy armor, you'll want strength. Dex doesn't help your AC with heavy armor. Stealth and heavy armor typically don't mix. Sleight of hand isn't a paladin skill and is typically used for non- paladin things. Acrobatics could be useful, but isn't a paladin skill. Unless you are focusing on those skills, finesse weapons AND a reason to use dex instead of str for them, or are super married to the idea of fighting with a bow, I would drop your Dexterity in favor of Str, Con, and Cha if you are looking at staying in front of your allies. Str to help you wear better Armor without penalties and to do more damage to the enemies you do encounter, plus grappling and athletics checks. Con to give you more hit points. It doesn't matter if you are in front of your allies if you are laying at their feet dead or unconcious. Charisma is your spellcasting stat and has some tie ins with other abilities. Better heals, increased chance to hit, and better debuffs happen with better charisma. At level 6, your aura of protection buffs saves to allies within 10 ft of you by your charisma modifier. Other auras usually are affected by it as well.
I'm not sure how your abilities are arrived at, but I'd probably stick with the first set you mentioned over the second set, other than giving wisdom the higher number over intelligence for better wis saves. If you could give the 15 to con and the 14 to dex, that will help you later but not make a difference now. If your stats are set, you'll still be fine.
As for great feats for a protective paladin. PAM/sentinel combo gives you a nice offensive boost plus lots of opportunities to engage your sentinel ability to stop enemies in their tracks. You'll only be limited by your single reaction. Either is a good option individually.
Shield Master gives you the ability to make a bonus action shove attack to either prone an enemy or at least make them use more movement getting by you. It also makes up for lower dex scores by improving your dex saves while using a shield.
Inspired Leader allows you to give temp HP equal to your character level + your charisma modifier. At level 4 with a + 2 cha modifier, that's 6 temp HP for up to 6 allies (including yourself). If you consider that a barbarian hit die is a d12 and gives an average of 6.5 hit points per character level, you are giving everyone the equivalent of an extra d12 worth of average HP after every rest as temp HP. That's also less healing that has to be done meaning more spell slots are spent where they are more effective and fewer hit die are spent to get health pools to good ranges.
Lucky and Elven Accuracy can both be reasonable, but Elven Accuracy makes more sense on a dexadin.
Mobile and Alert are good for reasons mentioned in the discussion about stats, tough keeps you up longer, and resilient (dex) improves dex saves and (con) increases your concentration checks to keep your concentration spells. However, these are probably a second tier.
Warcaster isn't bad if you've got an offensive cantrip somehow and isn't much worse if not.
Magic initiate can give you cantrips and an additional single use per day utility spell like Shield broadening your potential.
Mage slayer if you are working against spellcasters, but this is better or an off tank or melee fighter than a tank that wants to create gravity to itself.
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I’m playing a Drow paladin in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. I’ve already taken Drow High Magic as it’s fitting with my character’s background, and also because my party likes to grab magic items first, ask what they do later. What feats would you say are important for a Vengeance Paladin? Stats are 16 CHA, 15 DEX and STR, 14 CON, 13 INT, and 10 WIS.
What weapon do you have?
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
The stat build has me very curious to the weapons and such too.
its rare to see both str and dex built up on a paladin.
Blank
Usual suspects for pally feats are:
Great Weapon Master
Pole Arm Master
Sentinel
Shield Master
Resilient Con
I wanted a way to be able to fight at range if need be.
I’m going sword and board, with a bow of some sort for if we get into a ranged fight.
I'd recommend Sentinel, and Polearm master if you want to use a quarterstaff or spear or trident. If you actually want a Longsword or Rapier, I'd do Shield Master, Mage Slayer, and War Caster.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Good feats for pally will vary based on your oath, starting stats, racial choice, multiclassing plans, equipment preferences, and personal leaning between the paladins various combat roles (damage, tanking, support, etc).
No matter what the specifics of your paladin are, there will still be several great feats that you would like to have, more than you'll ever actually be able to take, especially since paladin is one of the most stat-intensive classes in the game. This means you need to think very hard before taking even the best of feats. If it isn't *critical* to your build, then it's probably better off waiting until after you've raised up your weapon attack stat and charisma.
That warning out of the way, some stand outs that are good enough to consider picking up at level 4 before raising stats:
For Damage: polearm master or great weapon master. These two up your damage the most, but have the cost of restricting you to a particular subset of weapons, which can be a problem in games with strictly random or pre-generated loot. Both can stack on glaives or halberds, but you probably shouldn't take both before leveling stats unless you're a variant human.
For tanking: sentinel is pretty much obligatory for tanks in 5e. There are a few builds that can get away without it, but in general if you're specifically trying to play a party tank, take sentinel at the first opportunity. It's worth pointing out that sentinel stacks particularly well with polearm master, but again, unless you're playing a variant human, I wouldn't take more than one feat before investing ASIs in your primary stats.
For Healing/Support: healer and inspiring leader both add a lot to your party's total daily hp resource pool. A paladin does already have some healing ability, but one of these feats will let you augment party hp beyond what lay on hands already does without burning spell slots that could otherwise go into smites, or, more likely for you, buff spells like Bless.
Some general use feats to consider:
Warcaster is good for sword & board paladins in general as it makes casting non-material-component somatic spells a bit less awkward (no more dropping your sword to cast bless then picking it back up), and because the bonus to concentration saves is a big deal for a half caster with some solid concentration spells who also likes to trade blows in the thick of melee, but it's probably not worth taking before raising stats unless you've picked up weapon cantrips and/or reactive spells that cannot be cast with your normal equipment, for instance if you're a sword and board pally who's dipped hexblade, picking up Booming Blade and Shield. Then it's a must have.
Alert: paladins don't get perception by default and tend to have low dexterity, which can seriously delay your reaction to the onset of combat. This is especially a problem for tanking and support paladins who *really* want to be occupying choke points, engaging enemies, and/or positioning auras before enemy combatants have had a chance to swarm your team. If you have chosen your race or background to pick up perception, and taken care not to dump your dexterity, then you can make do without it, but if you haven't then alert is worth your consideration.
Lucky: lucky is an amazing feat that makes everything easier. Attack roles, saving throws, whatever you need, when you need it lucky is there. Any character is just better with lucky.
Resilient constitution - as mentioned under warcaster, concentration saves are a big deal. This helps those AND helps your other constitution saves, which, while not common, are often quite nasty to fail. And it comes with +1 con score, which, if you were planning to take resilient con to begin with, should also get you +1 max hp per level.
Speaking of half feats, if they give you a bonus to one of your primary scores, then you might be able to fit them into your build without further delays to stat mod advancement. This is really only worth while if you're playing in a die roll game and happen to end up with an odd score in one of your primary stats, or if you're in a point buy game playing a race with a +2 in a primary stat so you can start the game with a 17. If you deliberately start with a lower multiplier than you otherwise would so that you can bring it up with a half feat, then you are still effectively delaying your stat advancement for a feat, and it isn't even a full feat.
Anyway, the three half-primary feats worth considering are:
For strength: heavy armor master. This feat is notoriously strong early on but scales incredibly poorly. In general that's pretty bad, but if you're starting with a 17 strength via a +2 strength race like dragonborn or mountain dwarf then it's basically free, and for free it's great. Alternatively, resilient strength. Strength saves are uncommon and not too terrible to fail, but at later levels the save proficiency is still probably better than heavy armor master.
For dexterity: dexadins are rare, particularly as the paladin class skill list doesn't support it and it makes multiclassing harder, but despite that dexadins can work quite well. A +2 dex race like eladrin can start with 17 dex and bump to 18 with resilient dex. Unlike strength, dex saves are quite common, so this works out pretty well, though elves and half elves have a better option.
For charisma: sadly actor's all there is here, unless you've got elven blood, and it isnt great. Better to go +1/+1 and round out some other odd stat if you have one.
For elves & half elves: elven accuracy can bump up dex or cha, perfect for elf dexadins and half elf hexadins. A nice boost for elven non-str paladins in general. The triple advantage really helps when fishing for crits to smite on, try it on a build that multiclasses for increased crit range (champion fighter or hexblade warlock) and combine it with polearm master on a hexadin or generic two weapon fighting on a dexadin, one of the few cases where two weapon fighting kind of works. Especially nice on a valenar elf in eberron with the double svimitar and the racial feat to make it finesse.
...
And those are the main feats I would consider taking before switching over to just +2 to a stat until you max out your weapon attack and spellcasting stats, and even then no more than one feat before working on your stats. Half feats can let you cheat a bit there, but if you start with a lower stat bonus then you could have had just to round out with a half feat, then the only one you're cheating is yourself. This is a big part of why I don't rate Dragon Fear highly, at least not in point buy games.
Gotcha.
as a paladin though... best use of your auras is to be closer to the action. Either your party, or the enemies. Depending on auras.
javelins and hand axes have pretty good ranges as is. For Paladins. So it just had a few people curious I think.
plus, Paladins get some cool ass spells they can use. That make more sense to cast when still out of your “effective range”.
by switching back and forth between bow and “sword and board” you burn actions switching weapons, bringing out the shield, and such.
and then if you wanted to do your spells anyways. You have to use another turn that’s either bow shot, or switching weapons and shield out turn, to cast the spell you want.
But... I like the idea you put into it. As I am certain it has more of an RP reason than a mechanic reason.
Blank
THanks for the help everyone! You've given me a lot to think about. I'm probably going to switch my stats about, with Intelligence getting the 10 instead.
Here's the base stats now, for those who are wondering what I changed: STR, CON, DEX, and CHA are all at 15 due to Drow's racial bonuses, WIS is 13, and INT is at 10. Probably gonna drop the bow idea, but keeping dex high for being able to protect my allies by standing in the way of enemies.
Also, Holy symbols can be on a shield, letting you use your shield as the focus, getting rid of the need to drop your weapon.
You can drop either DEX or STR as a paladin, you don't need both. If you want to be good at range, either is decent, but DEX is better. If you want to main on melee, I'd choose STR.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
not for switching between 2 handed longbows. And an action to pull the shield and the weapon. For when it’s melee time.
and. If your focus is your shield.... can’t do that with the longbow out either.
Blank
I'm not certain what idea you are entertaining about dex affecting your ability to protect allies by standing in the way of enemies. The only stats that really affect your ability to stand in the way of enemies are: 1) Initiative- going sooner means getting there sooner, 2) movement- more movement means getting there in fewer turns (potentially), and 3) reach- if you have a reach weapon, your size is effectively larger than it actually is due too AoO. This can cause some enemies to take longer to get to your squishier friends as they try to avoid passing to close to you.
Of those, initiative is the only affected by dex. Having a high initiative is not imperative to being a good tank. There are some bonuses, but they aren't as critical for you. If you are going longsword, most reach wespons, and/or heavy armor, you'll want strength. Dex doesn't help your AC with heavy armor. Stealth and heavy armor typically don't mix. Sleight of hand isn't a paladin skill and is typically used for non- paladin things. Acrobatics could be useful, but isn't a paladin skill. Unless you are focusing on those skills, finesse weapons AND a reason to use dex instead of str for them, or are super married to the idea of fighting with a bow, I would drop your Dexterity in favor of Str, Con, and Cha if you are looking at staying in front of your allies. Str to help you wear better Armor without penalties and to do more damage to the enemies you do encounter, plus grappling and athletics checks. Con to give you more hit points. It doesn't matter if you are in front of your allies if you are laying at their feet dead or unconcious. Charisma is your spellcasting stat and has some tie ins with other abilities. Better heals, increased chance to hit, and better debuffs happen with better charisma. At level 6, your aura of protection buffs saves to allies within 10 ft of you by your charisma modifier. Other auras usually are affected by it as well.
I'm not sure how your abilities are arrived at, but I'd probably stick with the first set you mentioned over the second set, other than giving wisdom the higher number over intelligence for better wis saves. If you could give the 15 to con and the 14 to dex, that will help you later but not make a difference now. If your stats are set, you'll still be fine.
As for great feats for a protective paladin. PAM/sentinel combo gives you a nice offensive boost plus lots of opportunities to engage your sentinel ability to stop enemies in their tracks. You'll only be limited by your single reaction. Either is a good option individually.
Shield Master gives you the ability to make a bonus action shove attack to either prone an enemy or at least make them use more movement getting by you. It also makes up for lower dex scores by improving your dex saves while using a shield.
Inspired Leader allows you to give temp HP equal to your character level + your charisma modifier. At level 4 with a + 2 cha modifier, that's 6 temp HP for up to 6 allies (including yourself). If you consider that a barbarian hit die is a d12 and gives an average of 6.5 hit points per character level, you are giving everyone the equivalent of an extra d12 worth of average HP after every rest as temp HP. That's also less healing that has to be done meaning more spell slots are spent where they are more effective and fewer hit die are spent to get health pools to good ranges.
Lucky and Elven Accuracy can both be reasonable, but Elven Accuracy makes more sense on a dexadin.
Mobile and Alert are good for reasons mentioned in the discussion about stats, tough keeps you up longer, and resilient (dex) improves dex saves and (con) increases your concentration checks to keep your concentration spells. However, these are probably a second tier.
Warcaster isn't bad if you've got an offensive cantrip somehow and isn't much worse if not.
Magic initiate can give you cantrips and an additional single use per day utility spell like Shield broadening your potential.
Mage slayer if you are working against spellcasters, but this is better or an off tank or melee fighter than a tank that wants to create gravity to itself.