I’m starting as a level 5 Paladin, it’s a homebrew world, over run with undead, devils, demons, and fey. Our main enemies are an Archlich and a conquest Paladin bound to a devil.
I want my character to be mysterious, protective, and keep my party safe, heal them, but also be able to fight. We already have a berserker barbarian, champion fighter, and circle of the moon druid so the tanking part is covered.
My Paladin is a human variant bounty hunter, and I want him to fight with a dagger/bare handed and shield and he wears full plate.
What feats should I take as well? I was thinking warcaster and magic Initiate cleric so I can spare the dying, so party members don’t die.
What are the advantages and disadvantages each subclasses? I want advice from some more experienced Paladins.
I’m starting as a level 5 Paladin, it’s a homebrew world, over run with undead, devils, demons, and fey. Our main enemies are an Archlich and a conquest Paladin bound to a devil.
I want my character to be mysterious, protective, and keep my party safe, heal them, but also be able to fight. We already have a berserker barbarian, champion fighter, and circle of the moon druid so the tanking part is covered.
My Paladin is a human variant bounty hunter, and I want him to fight with a dagger/bare handed and shield and he wears full plate.
What feats should I take as well? I was thinking warcaster and magic Initiate cleric so I can spare the dying, so party members don’t die.
What are the advantages and disadvantages each subclasses? I want advice from some more experienced Paladins.
devotion paladin with warcaster. you will be the most insane utility to your two melee range friends.
Pick Defence for your fighting style
next feat at 4 should be resilient(constitution) you'll never fail a concentration save.
se 1h + shield. You will be ridiculous.
If you want to keep your friend's alive Devotion is hands down the best, your auras will be ridiculous. Magic initiate for cleric isn't needed since you have lay on hands and cure wounds on demand. at higher levels frightened and charm are super dangerous and far more frequent making your auras invaluable. Lvl 15 gives you protection from evil and good 100% of the time and in a fiend campaign is super brokenly good.
/endrant
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It doesn't matter how smart you think are you. No one will want to work with you if you're an *******.
I wouldn't recommend conquest, too many foes in your game will be immune to or have advantage on frighten saves. i wouldn't recommend oath breaker, as too many of your foes will get buffed by your aura. Both seem poor thematic fits, anyway. I also wouldn't go with redemption. Too many of your opponents will be evil undead and fiends, monsters generally beyond hope of redemption. Plus mechanically redemption's unique features are mostly about HP management for the party, and your party tough enough already that I doubt they'll really need that.
The remaining options are all quite good.
Vengeance has advantage vs a chosen target per short rest from its channel divinity, which helps with crit fishing for double smite damage. Pair with polearm master, or even dual wielding, for an extra attack for more chances to smite. Consider options that further increase your critical chance, like a dip into hexblade or champion fighter for increased crit range, or the elven accuracy feat combined with dex based finesse attacks on an elf or cha based hexblade-multiclass attacks on a half elf. If you plan to stay in paladin past level 6, then consider sentinel, as it pairs well with the level 7 ability. A dual wielding dex build with a background that grants thieves tool proficiency might be a good idea if your party is otherwise lacking someone who can handle locks and traps. Vengeance is also notable for having an especially good oath spell list, with choice options including hunter's mark, misty step, haste, and dimension door.
Devotion has a magic weapon for one fight per short rest with a bonus to hit. That bonus is particularly good at off-setting the penalty from great weapon master, so I would look at a greatsword build. Especially since your part doesn't necessarily need more tanking. Keep in mind that you still will want to find and use an actual magic weapon, as you can't typically expect more than one short rest every other fight, and in many games the average is less than that, and with a lot of enemy fiends in the campaign you'll want to be able to bypass that damage reduction all the time. This is another good damage option, one less reliant on the spike damage of lucky crits. The level 7 aura granting immunity to charm is relatively situational in most games, but with some key spellcasters and a lot of enemy fiends in your game it's likely to be useful.
Sentinel doesn't really have any notable offensive features - though you're still a paladin so you can still divine smite for big damage when you need it - but it does have misty step as an oath spell and probably the best level 7 aura out of any paladin oath granting resistance to spell damage to you and nearby allies. While your party's fighter, barbarian, and moon druid are all likely quite resistant to regular weapon attacks, spell damage targeting vulnerable saving throws more likely to be a key vulnerability, especially with a liche BBEG and a bunch of enemy fiends, and Sentinel shores that up beautifully. With no class features pointing you towards any particular equipment options, you're free to go strength or dex, sword & board or great weapon or polearm or even dual wielding as you like, taking feats as appropriate.
Crown's biggest feature is Spirit Guardians as an oath spell at level 9, which is still a bit of a ways away, but if you're willing to wait that's a BIG spell. Some people play clerics entirely to cast just that spell. You'll want to keep your cha a bit higher than most other paladins (apart from conquest) might, which probably means you should avoid feats to focus on actual stat increases, which in turn pushes you into a sword and board build as that doesn't rely on feats to be good. Or a dual wielder build that doesn't have good feats regardless. I really cannot stress how amazing Spirit Guardians is, especially on a character that is already a tough and strong melee combatant. Normally early game for Crown Paladins can be a bit dull as they coast on parent class features while they wait for their big oath feature at level 9. Starting at level 5 means that wait would be a lot shorter for you.
Feats to look at:
Polearm Master or Great Weapon Master. These are the big damage upgrade feats for spears & polarmes and heavy two handed weapons respectively. I particularly recommend Polearm Master for Vengeance and Great Weapon Master for Devotion, but either can work for any oath. If you plan on taking one of these then I would definitely make it your first ASI choice, either at Paladin 4 or as a variant human bonus feat, but I would only take one or the other, even if you're wielding a two handed polearm like a halberd or glaive, as taking both restricts your potential weapon selection overmuch and takes up too many precious ASIs. That sort of multifeat build is more of a fighter thing. You can maybe make it work on a Variant Human, but I personally don't recommend it.
Sentinel is normally an amazing feat for a paladin and my default recommendation for a sword & board paladin's first ASI, but that's mostly to make you an effective tank, and It doesn't really look like your party needs that. As such, I'd only really recommend it for you on a vengeance paladin build that plans to take paladin at least to level 7, in which case it's a viable alternative to Polearm master, or can be worth taking in addition to polearm master, but ONLY on a variant human with their bonus feat.
Feats to shore up concentration saves. Paladin has some good buff spells. Bless in particular remains useful at nearly all levels, especially if one or more characters in your party pick up great weapon master. Paladin does get aura of protection to help with all saves, but isn't proficient in con saves by default and probably doesn't have the stat pool for a con bonus above +2 what with the pressure on your strength and charisma and not wanting to start with penalties in dex or wisdom if you can help it. As such, a feat to shore up concentration saves can be a good call. The main options are Lucky (limited in use but can help with other rolls as well), Resiliant Constitution (best save boost, be sure to start with an odd constitution score if you plan to take this), or Sentinel (not quite as good a boost as resilient at later levels, but the other benefits of the feat can be useful, especially for sword and board pallies who plan on multiclassing into warlock or sorcerer). I wouldn't recommend more than one of these feats, that's probably overkill, but this is a good use of an ASI, either early on if you aren't taking other feats or have a bonus vuman feat, or later in your build after raising your key stats a bit otherwise.
Other great feats: Alert boosts your otherwise likely lagging initiative, and makes you immune to surprise, which is a big deal, especially if you aren't able to fit perception proficiency into your guild. Inspiring Leader is a massive boost to party HP reserves that scales reasonably well into higher levels. lucky was already mentioned in feats that shore up concentration saves, and it certainly does that, but it also just makes your character generally better at everything, three rerolls per day is a big deal that really can't be overstated. If you don't especially need any of the above in your build, then any of these makes for a good first ASI, or can fill in any open ASI slots you might have later in your build.
When discussing feats, however, it's important to remember that Paladins are a very stat-intensive class. You need a decent constitution, weapon attack, and charisma score at level one, and as you progress you'll want to raise both your weapon attack and your charisma score as high as you can manage. In a normal point buy game, using a race with bonuses to both charisma and either dexterity or strength, you're looking to start with weapon attack and charisma scores of 16 each, and if you plan to raise them both to level 20 that only leaves you room for a single feat in your entire build. Two if you're a Vuman. Multiclassing hexblade to use charisma as your weapon attack stat saves you two ASIs, but if you do that you absolutely want War Caster, so if that wasn't already one of the feats you were planning to take then it really only saves you one ASI, and if you're not careful about your level distribution then you might lose an ASI from your build, in which case the dip might not actually make room for any ASIs you weren't otherwise planning on taking.
You can settle for a +4 bonus in either or both of weapon attack and charisma, but doing so is a significant sacrifice for a paladin. A feat has to be both incredibly good and extremely important for your build to be worth the trade. A belt of giant strength (or gauntlets of ogre power, if you're willing to settle for a +4 bonus) can save you the ASIs you would otherwise spend on strength without having to multiclass, but you can't guarantee that you'll be lucky enough to find one in a given campaign, and even if you do find one it might come quite late. You might not want to wait that long to raise your primary attack stat, but if you do raise strength and then find a belt after that boost might be wasted.
All that's to say, while I think it's a perfectly valid choice to take any of the above listed feats at level 4, I would switch over to raising stats for your ASIs after that, and even then it isn't exactly an incorrect choice to skip ASIs altogether and only raise your stats until your weapon attack and charisma scores are maxed out.
...
In terms of dagger/bare handed and shield... unfortunately bare handed attacks really only work for monks, and even then not necessarily all that well. And monk is not something that multiclasses easily with paladin, as paladin needs a lot of charisma, which is useless to monks, while monks need a lot of wisdom, which isn't useless to paladins, but isn't something they want a lot of later. it just doesn't work out well.
dagger and shield works fine, but then you don't have an open hand to grapple with, and the only reason you're using a dagger and not a stronger weapon at that point is cosmetics really. which is fine, paladins get enough damage from divine smite and improved divine smite that they don't necessarily need to care about what particular weapon they're using, but there's also no reason why you wouldn't just switch to the first magic longsword or battle axe (or rapier or scimitar if dexy build) that your party happens to come across. And you wouldn't have any open hands for grappling.
You could instead go with a single one handed weapon, maybe something with versatile, dropping the two points of AC from shield for the option to make grab attacks. It wouldn't be optimal by any stretch, but it wouldn't be entirely unworkable either.
If building for the long game I would go devotion paladin4/hexblade1. Get to paladin6 as fast as possible and then go hexblade2 before going sorcerer 12.
lets you use charisma for hit, damage, saves and spell dc. Gives you a ton of spellpower, which can also be tuned into smiting. It also gives you a noce ramged attack in the form pf eldritch blast.
if you want a lot of healing power, go divine sorcerer and choose whatever healing spell you want.
with its massive smiting power this build also doesnt care much if you use a dagger, which is a important if you want to have that as your main weapon ;)
Your party would probably love you at level 7 if you become an Ancient Paladin. Your close quarters friends will benefit the most.
Tanking is covered. Boost ASI's if you're going dagger/unarmed/shield. ASI's are worth more than people give them credit for, gameplay wise they make your character consistently stronger over a gimmick. I assume unarmed is for the grapple and athletics checks.
If you want to be fancy with your feats, tavern brawler with expertise from Rogue 1, or prodigy if you want the level 20 capstone.
... everything I could advise you would end in... it really depends
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I’m starting as a level 5 Paladin, it’s a homebrew world, over run with undead, devils, demons, and fey. Our main enemies are an Archlich and a conquest Paladin bound to a devil.
I want my character to be mysterious, protective, and keep my party safe, heal them, but also be able to fight. We already have a berserker barbarian, champion fighter, and circle of the moon druid so the tanking part is covered.
My Paladin is a human variant bounty hunter, and I want him to fight with a dagger/bare handed and shield and he wears full plate.
What feats should I take as well? I was thinking warcaster and magic Initiate cleric so I can spare the dying, so party members don’t die.
What are the advantages and disadvantages each subclasses? I want advice from some more experienced Paladins.
Devotion gives you a magical weapon. Always handy.
Ancients is possibly the best party boosting Oath since at level 7 your aura gives resistance to magical damage.
Vengeance is about targeting one enemy and making them very dead.
Crown is about forcing your enemies to fight you, ignoring the rest of your party.
Redemption, you're a hippie who became a Paladin.
Conquest is about terrifying foes into submission.
My personal favourite is Ancients, but your mileage may vary.
If you want to keep your friend's alive Devotion is hands down the best, your auras will be ridiculous. Magic initiate for cleric isn't needed since you have lay on hands and cure wounds on demand. at higher levels frightened and charm are super dangerous and far more frequent making your auras invaluable. Lvl 15 gives you protection from evil and good 100% of the time and in a fiend campaign is super brokenly good.
/endrant
It doesn't matter how smart you think are you. No one will want to work with you if you're an *******.
I wouldn't recommend conquest, too many foes in your game will be immune to or have advantage on frighten saves. i wouldn't recommend oath breaker, as too many of your foes will get buffed by your aura. Both seem poor thematic fits, anyway. I also wouldn't go with redemption. Too many of your opponents will be evil undead and fiends, monsters generally beyond hope of redemption. Plus mechanically redemption's unique features are mostly about HP management for the party, and your party tough enough already that I doubt they'll really need that.
The remaining options are all quite good.
Vengeance has advantage vs a chosen target per short rest from its channel divinity, which helps with crit fishing for double smite damage. Pair with polearm master, or even dual wielding, for an extra attack for more chances to smite. Consider options that further increase your critical chance, like a dip into hexblade or champion fighter for increased crit range, or the elven accuracy feat combined with dex based finesse attacks on an elf or cha based hexblade-multiclass attacks on a half elf. If you plan to stay in paladin past level 6, then consider sentinel, as it pairs well with the level 7 ability. A dual wielding dex build with a background that grants thieves tool proficiency might be a good idea if your party is otherwise lacking someone who can handle locks and traps. Vengeance is also notable for having an especially good oath spell list, with choice options including hunter's mark, misty step, haste, and dimension door.
Devotion has a magic weapon for one fight per short rest with a bonus to hit. That bonus is particularly good at off-setting the penalty from great weapon master, so I would look at a greatsword build. Especially since your part doesn't necessarily need more tanking. Keep in mind that you still will want to find and use an actual magic weapon, as you can't typically expect more than one short rest every other fight, and in many games the average is less than that, and with a lot of enemy fiends in the campaign you'll want to be able to bypass that damage reduction all the time. This is another good damage option, one less reliant on the spike damage of lucky crits. The level 7 aura granting immunity to charm is relatively situational in most games, but with some key spellcasters and a lot of enemy fiends in your game it's likely to be useful.
Sentinel doesn't really have any notable offensive features - though you're still a paladin so you can still divine smite for big damage when you need it - but it does have misty step as an oath spell and probably the best level 7 aura out of any paladin oath granting resistance to spell damage to you and nearby allies. While your party's fighter, barbarian, and moon druid are all likely quite resistant to regular weapon attacks, spell damage targeting vulnerable saving throws more likely to be a key vulnerability, especially with a liche BBEG and a bunch of enemy fiends, and Sentinel shores that up beautifully. With no class features pointing you towards any particular equipment options, you're free to go strength or dex, sword & board or great weapon or polearm or even dual wielding as you like, taking feats as appropriate.
Crown's biggest feature is Spirit Guardians as an oath spell at level 9, which is still a bit of a ways away, but if you're willing to wait that's a BIG spell. Some people play clerics entirely to cast just that spell. You'll want to keep your cha a bit higher than most other paladins (apart from conquest) might, which probably means you should avoid feats to focus on actual stat increases, which in turn pushes you into a sword and board build as that doesn't rely on feats to be good. Or a dual wielder build that doesn't have good feats regardless. I really cannot stress how amazing Spirit Guardians is, especially on a character that is already a tough and strong melee combatant. Normally early game for Crown Paladins can be a bit dull as they coast on parent class features while they wait for their big oath feature at level 9. Starting at level 5 means that wait would be a lot shorter for you.
Feats to look at:
Polearm Master or Great Weapon Master. These are the big damage upgrade feats for spears & polarmes and heavy two handed weapons respectively. I particularly recommend Polearm Master for Vengeance and Great Weapon Master for Devotion, but either can work for any oath. If you plan on taking one of these then I would definitely make it your first ASI choice, either at Paladin 4 or as a variant human bonus feat, but I would only take one or the other, even if you're wielding a two handed polearm like a halberd or glaive, as taking both restricts your potential weapon selection overmuch and takes up too many precious ASIs. That sort of multifeat build is more of a fighter thing. You can maybe make it work on a Variant Human, but I personally don't recommend it.
Sentinel is normally an amazing feat for a paladin and my default recommendation for a sword & board paladin's first ASI, but that's mostly to make you an effective tank, and It doesn't really look like your party needs that. As such, I'd only really recommend it for you on a vengeance paladin build that plans to take paladin at least to level 7, in which case it's a viable alternative to Polearm master, or can be worth taking in addition to polearm master, but ONLY on a variant human with their bonus feat.
Feats to shore up concentration saves. Paladin has some good buff spells. Bless in particular remains useful at nearly all levels, especially if one or more characters in your party pick up great weapon master. Paladin does get aura of protection to help with all saves, but isn't proficient in con saves by default and probably doesn't have the stat pool for a con bonus above +2 what with the pressure on your strength and charisma and not wanting to start with penalties in dex or wisdom if you can help it. As such, a feat to shore up concentration saves can be a good call. The main options are Lucky (limited in use but can help with other rolls as well), Resiliant Constitution (best save boost, be sure to start with an odd constitution score if you plan to take this), or Sentinel (not quite as good a boost as resilient at later levels, but the other benefits of the feat can be useful, especially for sword and board pallies who plan on multiclassing into warlock or sorcerer). I wouldn't recommend more than one of these feats, that's probably overkill, but this is a good use of an ASI, either early on if you aren't taking other feats or have a bonus vuman feat, or later in your build after raising your key stats a bit otherwise.
Other great feats: Alert boosts your otherwise likely lagging initiative, and makes you immune to surprise, which is a big deal, especially if you aren't able to fit perception proficiency into your guild. Inspiring Leader is a massive boost to party HP reserves that scales reasonably well into higher levels. lucky was already mentioned in feats that shore up concentration saves, and it certainly does that, but it also just makes your character generally better at everything, three rerolls per day is a big deal that really can't be overstated. If you don't especially need any of the above in your build, then any of these makes for a good first ASI, or can fill in any open ASI slots you might have later in your build.
When discussing feats, however, it's important to remember that Paladins are a very stat-intensive class. You need a decent constitution, weapon attack, and charisma score at level one, and as you progress you'll want to raise both your weapon attack and your charisma score as high as you can manage. In a normal point buy game, using a race with bonuses to both charisma and either dexterity or strength, you're looking to start with weapon attack and charisma scores of 16 each, and if you plan to raise them both to level 20 that only leaves you room for a single feat in your entire build. Two if you're a Vuman. Multiclassing hexblade to use charisma as your weapon attack stat saves you two ASIs, but if you do that you absolutely want War Caster, so if that wasn't already one of the feats you were planning to take then it really only saves you one ASI, and if you're not careful about your level distribution then you might lose an ASI from your build, in which case the dip might not actually make room for any ASIs you weren't otherwise planning on taking.
You can settle for a +4 bonus in either or both of weapon attack and charisma, but doing so is a significant sacrifice for a paladin. A feat has to be both incredibly good and extremely important for your build to be worth the trade. A belt of giant strength (or gauntlets of ogre power, if you're willing to settle for a +4 bonus) can save you the ASIs you would otherwise spend on strength without having to multiclass, but you can't guarantee that you'll be lucky enough to find one in a given campaign, and even if you do find one it might come quite late. You might not want to wait that long to raise your primary attack stat, but if you do raise strength and then find a belt after that boost might be wasted.
All that's to say, while I think it's a perfectly valid choice to take any of the above listed feats at level 4, I would switch over to raising stats for your ASIs after that, and even then it isn't exactly an incorrect choice to skip ASIs altogether and only raise your stats until your weapon attack and charisma scores are maxed out.
...
In terms of dagger/bare handed and shield... unfortunately bare handed attacks really only work for monks, and even then not necessarily all that well. And monk is not something that multiclasses easily with paladin, as paladin needs a lot of charisma, which is useless to monks, while monks need a lot of wisdom, which isn't useless to paladins, but isn't something they want a lot of later. it just doesn't work out well.
dagger and shield works fine, but then you don't have an open hand to grapple with, and the only reason you're using a dagger and not a stronger weapon at that point is cosmetics really. which is fine, paladins get enough damage from divine smite and improved divine smite that they don't necessarily need to care about what particular weapon they're using, but there's also no reason why you wouldn't just switch to the first magic longsword or battle axe (or rapier or scimitar if dexy build) that your party happens to come across. And you wouldn't have any open hands for grappling.
You could instead go with a single one handed weapon, maybe something with versatile, dropping the two points of AC from shield for the option to make grab attacks. It wouldn't be optimal by any stretch, but it wouldn't be entirely unworkable either.
If building for the long game I would go devotion paladin4/hexblade1. Get to paladin6 as fast as possible and then go hexblade2 before going sorcerer 12.
lets you use charisma for hit, damage, saves and spell dc. Gives you a ton of spellpower, which can also be tuned into smiting. It also gives you a noce ramged attack in the form pf eldritch blast.
if you want a lot of healing power, go divine sorcerer and choose whatever healing spell you want.
with its massive smiting power this build also doesnt care much if you use a dagger, which is a important if you want to have that as your main weapon ;)
Your party would probably love you at level 7 if you become an Ancient Paladin. Your close quarters friends will benefit the most.
Tanking is covered. Boost ASI's if you're going dagger/unarmed/shield. ASI's are worth more than people give them credit for, gameplay wise they make your character consistently stronger over a gimmick. I assume unarmed is for the grapple and athletics checks.
If you want to be fancy with your feats, tavern brawler with expertise from Rogue 1, or prodigy if you want the level 20 capstone.
... everything I could advise you would end in... it really depends