Fairly standard colours system, but keep in mind that they may not be universal across all builds. Certain options may be best for strength builds, but not compatible with dexterity builds. Just use common sense to figure out what might work for you or rely on the builds section of the guide to learn more about these in context.

Sky Blue means this is among the best decisions, and not taking this either means shenanigans or you purposefully choosing the not best option. 

Basic Blue means that this is also quite good and a solid option that anyone can respect, but isn’t as likely to call you a min maxing power gamer.

Purple means that this is a more neutral option, still serviceable but might not be a first choice.

Red means that this is likely some sort of trap option like PHB beastmaster ranger. Possible that in certain contexts are somewhat usable but still likely nonoptimal.

Green will be used to signify that a choice, while niche, has some silly combination to be went over near the end of the guide.

(Note: Dexadin refers to dexterity based Paladins, MAD refers to Multiple Ability Dependent)

Hit Dice: Typical martial class fare, you can take a few more hits than the proper spellcasters.

Armor and Weapons: You get everything there is to use, so you're good here.

Saving Throws: These are actually fairly good ones for a martial character to get more rounded saves, also means your extra good vs spellcasters.

Skills: Honestly this is an acceptable list, two of the three useful charisma skills plus some other more flavourful guff, plus athletics for grappling.

Divine Sense: This feature… well it’s somewhat forgettable due to how niche it’s uses are. Use it as a way to bypass invisibility and help tell your allies where enemies are.

Lay on Hands: Great feature both for yourself and others, being able to heal a specific amount prevents you from wasting it, and being able to just touch yourself and heal up a sizable chunk of your health will keep you in the game longer than rangers or fighters.

Spellcasting: You're a half caster so most of this isn’t your job, I would suggest preparing an assortment of defensive buffs for you to be using on yourself or allies. Will be covered more heavily later in the guide. 

Divine Smite: Your offensive feature that will help make you one of the most damaging members in the team.

Divine Health: This is a feature that might get easily forgotten, but if your DM tries using diseases against you at least you are safe.

Channel Divinity, Harness Divine Power: As a generic channel divinity option, I’m unsure of how often this would actually be worth using, it’s a free option though so.

Ability Score Improvement: You have the standard amount since you aren’t a fighter or rogue. 

Extra Attack: Again fairly standard fair for the martial classes, but more hits means more chances to use Divine Smites.

Aura of Protection: This is an absurdly good feature and a major reason to bother sticking in Paladin instead of multiclassing as well as actually raising Charisma. Remember that you also gain these bonuses. I also want to take a moment to note how this can create an interesting combat dynamic of if it worth being near the Paladin and being an easy fireball target, or risking being away from the Paladin so you are less likely to get fireballed but be more hurt when you do.

Aura of Courage: Fear effects are quite uncommon unless your fighting dragons, but since this is also a party buff I can get behind it.

Improved Divine Smite: Just some free extra damage on hit, pretty nice going into tier 3.

Cleansing Touch: Being able to have a limited target dispel magic that you can use a handful of times is nice, helps cement Paladins as a sort of anti mage class.

Defense: This is a pretty boring choice as a +5% extra miss chance for yourself.

Dueling: The offensive choice if your planning to make a sword and board character, actually makes your one handed almost as good as two handed swords. Dexadins will likely take this for rapiers.

Great Weapon Fighting: Does add on average about +2 damage with a greatsword, though that is hardly the best two hander for Paladins. A decent choice though for plenty of builds.

Protection: If you want to support an ally who is willing to stick with you, this is a way to do it but not the best.

Blessed Warrior: To be honest when I first saw this, I didn’t think it was very good. Now though I realize this can actually be a solid option for Paladins that want to backline support. 

Blind Fighting: Honestly a waste of a fighting style unless you know your dm loves throwing these types of enemies at you, but at that point you should just ask a caster to cast see invisibility on you.

Interception: The better version of Protection and should generally be considered better IMO since disadvantage is a fairly common thing and doesn’t stack. 

Thrown Weapon Fighting: This is hard to justify to me, but maybe with an artificer in the party you can make something out of this.

Unarmed Fighting: Grappling is a build of it’s own and I’m unsure if Paladins are the best choice for one. 

Mariner: This is just defense but only for dex builds, but you also can’t use shields with it, horribly campaign dependent since you can go entire campaigns where swim speed never even comes up.

Close Quarters Shooter: +1 hit on ranged attacks is likely all you’d be using this feat for, since Paladin doesn’t get archery as a style.

Tunnel Fighter: If your DM allows you to take this as a style you can create something truly horrifying which I’ll cover as a build at the end.

To keep the clutter down, I'll be listing the races by the book the original race first appeared in, rather than the book the subraces individually came in, this way you can see what I think of all of a race's options.

Player Handbook Races

 Elemental Evil Races

 Volo's Guide to Monsters Races

 Tortles

Eberron Races 

 Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes Races

 Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica

Oath of Devotion

Overall this is a decent oath at low levels, and for certain builds can be a fine choice. Many of the features are a bit circumstantial in enemy type, but they are common enough that it isn’t too detrimental.

Oath of the Ancients

A bit of a later game oath, but it offers a LOT of durability for both you and your party. Once when I was playing this at level 7, a single encounter had me prevent more than 200 total damage, and that would only increase at greater levels.

Oath of Vengeance

A solid all around oath who doesn’t care about what kind of enemies you fight. You focus on an enemy and just do everything you can to nuke it down. Excellent boss killer and will make you one of the best single target dpr in the party. Most of the good stuff you get pretty early on.

Oath of Conquest

The fear Paladin, how good this is really just comes down to how often you can actually land the fear on enemies. High charisma is required and you do need to get in close, spacing is very key. Likely not very good in some campaigns where a lot of enemies might have good wisdom saves or you mainly just fight a handful of big things. This archetype really specializes at the idea of holding back the horde of enemies at the front just by force of will.

Oath of Heroism

Another oath that really wants you to have high charisma, this time it gives you bonuses for getting out there and doing things as a more active Paladin than some of the other oaths with their more passive bonuses. This oath also loves to get crits even more than other Paladins, which is saying something. One of the most well rounded oaths, with all of the features being fairly good.

Oath of Redemption

A very defensive oath, it is designed around the idea of punishing enemies for attacking people, and for you to protect nearby allies by taking damage for them. This means you want to be near the more squishy party members like your casters rather than allies that can actually take a hit. This also means that this oath loves it when you take a multiclass with a caster so you can have a decent ranged attack.

Oath of the Crown

This is basically just Oath of Redemption, but worse in nearly every way. I’ll still be reviewing it but if you want to be playing a defender or someone who controls agro, just play the Redemption Paladin. I could maybe see you taking this when you don’t want to go up to 7 in Paladin, since the channel divinity isn’t too bad.

Oath of the Watchers

Another defensive oath, but this time around the idea of countering enemy spellcasting. I’m not really sure if this is better than Oath of the Ancients, but if you prefer the flavour this isn’t a terrible choice.

Oathbreaker

The most evil of evil Paladins, this oath certainly captures the whole evil Paladin thing with lots to do with undead and fiends. Lots of synergies for if your party also has fellow evil people that make undead or fiends. If you aren’t a part of such a party, however this oath might not be for you since you might end up just giving bonuses to the enemies more so than your allies.

Actor: Not a terrible idea in a heavy social campaign, and better for a more sneaky duplicitous Paladin. If you're doing a lot of holier than thou stuff I’d likely pass.

Alert: I know some people love initiative, and I can imagine this could be useful if you often want to just rush into the enemy and hold them back from the rest of your squishy party.

Athlete: Unless your dm is some sort of absurd minority, you won’t be knocked prone enough to justify this. 

Charger: In a similar way to alert, this is a solid option for the Paladins that just love to rush enemies. This time though, it's meant for longer distances, so judge accordingly.

Crossbow Expert: You probably shouldn’t bother with this even as a Dexadin, and if you wanted to mess with this just play a ranger/rogue/fighter.

Defensive Duelist: Honestly not a terrible option for Dexadins since Paladins typically don’t have much going on for reaction usage.

Dual Wielder: Paladins actually really like having a bonus action attack for more smiting, so this is a decent option for a more offensive oriented Dexadin or a less optimal strength build.

Dungeon Delver: Unless your in a campaign where you are constantly dealing with traps, this shouldn’t really appeal much since actually dealing with traps is likely not your job, your MAD enough as is.

Durable: For general usage, I wouldn’t say this feat is particularly usage. There IS some interesting synergy here though for a dwarven tank Paladin who is taking a lot of damage. 

Elemental Adept: If this had radiant damage on it, then it would maybe be usable. Paladins don’t really do elemental damage nearly enough to justify a feat for resistances.

Grappler: Technically Paladins can grapple, but I don’t think they make for the best grapplers. 

Great Weapon Master: One of the trifecta for the super strong strength polearm build, this can give you some serious hurt.

Healer: You have lay on hands, you shouldn’t ever really need this.

Heavy Armor Mastery: Ya know, while I would say that this isn’t a great feat for most of the game, if you are fighting literal hordes of minions, or are planning to mostly just play in tier 1 and maybe a little of 2, this actually is a decent damage reduction. 

Inspiring Leader: This also isn’t too bad a feature, since as a Paladin you likely have at least half decent charisma, but your also likely a character who needs feats regardless of build so maybe leaving this to one of the other 3 charisma caster classes is a better idea.

Keen Mind: This isn’t your job, let someone with decent Intelligence care about this. 

Linguist: Worthless even to someone who cares about Intelligence.

Lucky: This is basically amazing for everyone, and you enjoy hitting things.

Mage Slayer: This is actually a decent feat for if your dm likes to throw casters at you and you want to make him regret doing so even more than you already likely do. 

Magic Initiate: I’m not really sure how actually useful this can be, but I don’t want to rate it as useless. Maybe as a way to grab a charisma scaling ranged option, but in that case probably just grab two levels of warlock? Grabbing Mage Armor from wizard might not be a horrible idea for a Dexadin. Feel free to say something in the comments if you have any suggestions for especially good spells to take with this that I’m not thinking about.

Martial Adept: You know, I don’t actually think I’ve ever seen people take this feat, maybe at a high level when you have everything raised and you just want to fill out some niche your missing. 

Medium Armor Master: This does have a niche, but a narrow one. Your dexterity needs to be at 16 or higher, but also not at 20 otherwise Magic Initiate would be better with Mage Armor. Assuming you are in that range and planning to stay there though, it is a feat for a full plate that doesn’t give disadvantage on stealth. 

Mobile: This doesn’t seem like it would be good enough for a “first feat to get” but maybe at level 8 or 12 isn’t a bad pick up.

Mounted Combatant: Seeing as Paladins literally get spells to summon mounts, this makes a lot of sense. If you combine this with a druid though? Phenomenal.

Observant: Not really your job, make someone else do it under threat of not letting them into your awesome aura.

Polearm Master: The second of the strength polearm trifecta, this is probably the first one you want to get and the most key to the strategy, makes you have similar damage to a dual wielder with extra bonuses.

Resilient: Grabbing Constitution save proficiency, this is ok, but I think warcaster is better.

Ritual Caster: This shouldn’t be your job just like many other feats.

Savage Attacker: This doesn’t apply to your smite damage, and so is pretty meh. 

Sentinel: The final of the Strength polearm trifecta, take this before GWM if your focus is less on damage and more just range and moment control.

Sharpshooter: Regardless of if you are a Strength build or a Dexadin, I dunno if you would be making so many ranged attacks that this is a great choice.

Shield Mastery: Actually not that bad for a defensive build to make you extra durable against fireball and the like.

Skilled: Maybe you want more skills, and your party is small enough some important ones aren’t covered.

Skulker: Stealth feat, for the stealthy Dexadins in the crowd. Not sure how great this is even for that build but I’ve never tried it.

Spell Sniper: I would rate this as straight worse than Magic Initiate. 

Tavern Brawler: I struggle to think of any class who particularly likes this feat, but Paladin definitely isn’t it.

Tough: More health at a better value than just pumping your Constitution, so is obviously good for the tankiest Paladins.

War Caster: Maybe in some sort of weird multiclass build you will have the cantrips to use with this, but the concentration bonus is nice.

Aberrant Dragonmark: This isn’t too bad if you take Mage Armor + a decent offensive cantrip, since you also get the Constitution bonus and if you hit level 10 and your DM is nice this can get pretty spicy.

Bountiful Luck: If you decided to make a more supportive Paladin, halfling isn’t too bad an option purely from this feat.

Dragon Fear: This is why the race got a green rating, because fear effect + Conquest Paladin. 

Dragon Hide: If you want mage armor but would rather an extra point in Constitution or Charisma over cantrips.

Drow Magic: Probably not worth it even if you were already planning to play a drow.

Dwarven Fortitude: As a method to combine tanking with some health recovery, this is pretty great since you likely have great AC to go with it, and since you are already a dwarf you can get some silly amounts of durability with it.

Elven Accuracy: If you are playing a Dexadin and with party synergy can get advantage pretty easily, this can be really amazing for getting even more crits.

Fade Away: While Gnomes surprisingly aren’t a terrible Paladin race, I don’t really think this is a great feat compared to other options or just raising stats.

Fey Teleportation: If you wanted to misty step, you should have picked one of the multiple elf subraces that already give it to you.

Flames of Phelgos: If you were a pyromaniac maybe, but Paladins don’t have much in the realm of fire spells.

Infernal Constitution: If you expect to run up against these spells and aren’t oath of the ancients this is a decent choice.

Orcish Fury: If your playing an orc, and aren’t playing a polearm build, you might debate using this. I still don’t think it’s worth it since it’s just an occasional d6/8/12 depending on your weapon.

Prodigy: If you are playing a human, and are already finished your build, and you are unwilling to take a level of rogue or aren’t going into Bard, then this is maybe ok. 

Revenant Blade: As a sort of defensive Dexadin build, this isn’t too bad since it is like dual wielding but you get a better defensive bonus. The issue I would have with this would mainly be magic items since you are really locked into a very specific and VERY uncommon item that you aren’t too likely to find replacements for.

Second Chance: Not sure quite how good this is, since you are so limited in how much you can use it. I wouldn’t say it is exactly terrible in exchange for a point to an ability score, but I wouldn’t say this is a strong contender for a feat.

Squat Nimbleness: I wouldn’t say this is a worthless feat, but it does a lot of small passive things for you so it won’t be any serious power boost.

Svirfneblin Magic: The at will nondetect is actually pretty great on its own, and blur is also an excellent defensive spell for yourself. The other spells, while not exactly useless, are scaling from your Intelligence and is therefore going to be easy to save against.

Telekinetic: Considering you won’t care about Intelligence, and mage hand can be gotten by a number of other feats with better bonuses to you, this is a terrible choice.

Telepathic: I can see this as actually being pretty useful if social encounters are common and you need an excuse to justify table discussion on what to do.

Wood Elf Magic: Pass without Trace is an amazing spell to make you and your entire party absurdly good at stealth, so if your party is lacking a ranger or druid this is a viable choice.

Bless: This is an excellent 1st level spell to make not just you but also your fellow martial characters better at hitting things, which translates to better damage. It isn’t a huge bonus but every bit counts.

Command: This might not initially seem amazing, but if you have a decent enough charisma that the DC might actually be failed, this spell can do some amazing things. 

Compelled Duel: This is another solid spell if you really want to lock down an enemy into attacking you instead of a squishy ally. 

Cure Wounds: This spell… exists. You have lay on hands and you shouldn’t need more healing on top of that, at least the amount of healing this spell supplies.

Detect Evil and Good: When first looking at this spell, you would rightfully think it is garbage. This does actually have some useful utility though when you realize it basically skips over invisibility as far as knowing where things are. Up to the DM if that counts towards also removing the disadvantage for them still technically being invisible but at least you can detect that the room is full of a dozen invisible imps.

Detect Magic: This is a great spell but really shouldn’t be your job, leave it for one of the myriad of classes with ritual caster and access to this spell.

Detect Poison and Disease: I can see this being useful in a heavily social game or one with a trap that has a lot of poison traps, but if it’s just a combat slog it won’t have much use.

Divine Favor: 1d4 extra damage to me isn’t nearly worth as much as the 1d4 to hit you can get from bless, and that applies to more than just you as well.

Heroism: This doesn’t have to go to you, and debatably is better placed on someone else since every time you get hit you would have to make a concentration save, this has amazing synergy to anyone that can get resistance like a barbarian. 

Protection from Evil and Good: This is legitimately one of the best spells you can have if you even think you’ll end up against one of the creatures it is designed against, so I imagine most Paladins will always keep it on their lists as an always have.

Purify Food and Drink: This is another one of those spells of situational use, since a lot of games don’t really bother with these parts of gameplay. Even less useful than the detection one since you could use that to find traps.

Searing Smite: So you have to spend your concentration to do 1d6 fire damage, and then they can keep taking 1d6 fire damage if you hold your concentration, assuming they keep failing the fairly common con save. I think normally I’d rather just use the class feature and spend the concentration somewhere more useful, and this will be a recurring theme with these smite spells. 

Shield of Faith: A more generic useful defensive buff, remember you can apply it to not just yourself. At higher levels you should be able to always have either this or Bless active.

Thunderous Smite: Well at least this one doesn’t require you to hold the concentration after the attack for the bonus effect and being able to knock an enemy prone can be nice for you or your allies, this is actually an option I might debate using over the class feature if it’s early enough in the combat and I’m using this as an opening move.

Wrathful Smite: Considering you lack cause fear on your list, this is the next best thing for the conquest Paladins out there and can be pretty nice with a polearm. Note that this spell doesn’t actually force them to run away from you.

Aid: To me this seems pretty meh overall, so probably just leave this to someone else or just don’t bother.

Branding Smite: Hard counter to enemies that can either spam invisibility or use greater invisibility, and so is as useful as those enemies are common.

Find Steed: Not a bad spell, taking mounted combatant with this can make you pretty great. You can also always just let someone else ride it who needs the mobility more. 

Lesser Restoration: On paper, I can maybe see this as being useful, but after having played the game for many years I’ve barely seen this actually get used, and never by a Paladin.

Locate Object: This is an amazing spell, but the only caster class that doesn’t have this is the sorcerer. Considering that literally just shy of half the classes in the game can have this spell, you are better off with other spells.

Magic Weapon: For if your dm is as stingy with magic weapons as the early system design actually intended and you haven’t managed to get a magic weapon yet and haven’t silvered what you’re killing with.

Protection from Poison: Another really situational spell, but you can cast it preemptively for if you expect to fight anything with poison.

Zone of Truth: If you somehow end up being the only person with this spell, it is a good spell. If you have a cleric or bard in the party just get them to have it since you have better things to worry about.

Aura of Vitality: 2d6 healing as a bonus action isn’t too bad, but I’d say this is better as an out of combat heal just to guarantee the 20d6 healing total.

Blinding Smite: As far as the smite spells go, this isn’t a terrible ratio. Trading 1d8 damage for the ability to maybe blind a threatening enemy is pretty great. Remember how many spells require the target to be a creature you can SEE.

Create Food and Water: Good if you are in a situation without access to one of these things, obviously useless without.

Crusader’s Mantle: Oh cool you can give Divine favour to everyone near you, but consider that this is the same spell level as spells like fireball. Bless is better anyway and that was two spell levels ago.

Daylight: Anti Vampire spell, otherwise rarely useful.

Dispel Magic: Considering this is on literally every spell list and at this level, just have someone else deal with it.

Elemental Weapon: Divine Favor for yourself but it only works on a non magical weapon (You’re level 9 what are you doing with a non magical weapon), this is pretty garbage even if it was a few spell levels ago.

Magic Circle: Another common spell that others should have, but being able to have multiple people setting this up could prove useful if you are in a hurry preparing for these types of creatures coming at you.

Remove Curse: A common spell that getting other people to cast is much easier on you.

Revify: A spell where redundancy is a smart idea, just in case.

Aura of Life: This is a situational spell for sure, but if your really expecting necrotic damage this can be great since it's a damage type most of the party wouldn’t be able to have otherwise.

Aura of Purity: Similar to the Aura of Life spell, this one is also quite situational but this time for poison damage. At this level I wouldn’t say this is a big worry for most parties, but the bonus against conditions might be worth it if your DM loves to debuff the party.

Banishment: This isn’t that great a spell for you mainly because it is so widely available for many of the other caster classes, leave it for someone else.

Death Ward: This is actually a pretty nice spell, cast it at the start of the adventuring day and leave it, plus since only clerics and Paladins get it you have a lot less competition.

Find Greater Steed: At level 13, a lot of your options are likely to get killed pretty quickly unless you have mounted combatant. On the other hand this is also a spell you can cast and forget able, so with a day of downtime you can switch over to get this spell and then get something useful. 

Locate Creature: This spell is only missing from Sorcerers and Warlocks, so let anyone other than those cast this spell instead of you.

Staggering Smite: Worse than Blinding Smite and at a higher level, easy skip.

Banishing Smite: The damage isn’t actually too bad here since it does d10s instead of the d8 of the class feature, but the secondary effect is garbage. If an enemy is at 50 hit points or less at this level, it is going to very quickly die regardless.

Circle of Power: A big middle finger to spellcasters, if you pair this with oath of the ancients you are basically untouchable by most spellcasters. Of special note in relation to this spell is that you can also simultaneously have this aura on your greater steed for two nodes of “Screw You Magic™”.

Destructive Wave: This is a pretty cool spell as an AOE non friendly fire spell that also knocks enemies prone for your fellow melees to start wailing on your poor enemies extra hard.

Dispel Evil and Good: This is… an interesting spell. It acts as a sort of Protection from Evil and Good, but also gives you the option to use it as an improved Banishment. I don’t think it ends up being as good as some of your other options for this level, but it isn’t exactly terrible either.

Geas: This is a fairly common spell that depending on your campaign can be really useful. If you have some downtime you can help cast this along with nearly every other caster since it’s such a common spell. I wouldn’t keep it on my prepared list outside downtime. Special note here is how nicely this can combine with the idea of showing mercy to enemies and making sure they keep to their promises, but you're also getting this at 17th level so eh.

Holy Weapon: This is an excellent spell for a lot of Paladins, especially polearm builds. I’d probably just try to keep the bonus on hit damage rather than bother with the special dismissal effect though.

Raise Dead: The spell has enough leeway on it that you can reasonably just switch it in and out during downtime, revify is likely the better pick between the two for just general usage.

As a Paladin, Artificer really doesn’t give you anything of use mainly due to how MAD it is. Everything in Artificer scales off of Intelligence, regardless of whatever specialization you take. If I am actually missing anything, correct me in comments but I can’t see any reason to bother taking this.

 This is a pretty great choice, giving you lots of extra durability and other goodies. Not sure how many levels I’d be wanting to grab in this vs actual Paladin levels, but I would want to at least hit level 3 for the Paths.

Ancestral Guardian: This is a pretty cool choice in my opinion to really play up the defender role, hitting level 6 with this seems like a reasonable decision.

Berserker: A 3 level dip here is nice for more attacks if you aren’t just using a polearm, but why aren’t you using a polearm?

Totem Warrior: Bear Totem is amazing to give yourself basically twice the durability you otherwise would. Wolf totem also gets a lower rating but can be cool if your trying for a more supportive frontliner build. Only take three levels from this though.

Zealot: A wonderfully flavourful choice, and the extra damage can be nice for a non polearm build. Going to 6 is reasonable but 3 is also enough.

A classic choice with Paladins since both scale with Charisma, regardless of whether you are focusing on either class. Not a bad choice if you hit 7 and want more skills and spells.

Glamour: Basically lets you cast Aid as a bonus action, and so can be nice but I don’t care about much else it can give, best as a short dip.

Lore: If you want to be a caster and plan to take more than just a dip in bard, this is your best choice.

Swords: The superior choice over Valour, the Blade flourishes can be a very nice supplement to your melee activities. Also gaining access to Dual Wielder as a fighting style is extra nice for Dexadins.

Whispers: You want on hit damage on top of on hit damage? We got you with this College, though as a fair warning might be more difficult to justify from a flavour perspective with a lot of Oaths.

Overall, Cleric does have some pretty decent offerings with a few levels, but it also has some stiff competition. Consider this as a small dip option of 1-3 though. The Cleric spell list tends to overlap a decent amount with the paladin, but it also has some excellent spells that paladin doesn’t get that make it worth going to level 3. 

Grave: Specifically good for the Path to the Grave channel divinity option, which can let you possibly hit one thing REALLY hard if you are able to prep for it.

Order: Lots of nice bonuses for being a party face, simple as that.

Trickery: Three levels of this is actually great for any party that intends to stealth, and so while obviously great for a Dexadin can also actually work to make any paladin surprisingly stealthy.

Twilight: While people may rave about the way this Domain works with darkvision, the real reason you are here is for the really interesting aura. 

Unity: I love this Domain, and is actually one that I’d be interested in going more than 3 levels in.

War: Decent for the fact that more attacks are really nice for non dual wielding Dexadins.

This class actually has some pretty interesting synergies thanks to a lot of the options within it, and the amount of level dip does really depend on what Circle you choose for it. 

Circle of Spores: This is actually a pretty interesting option as it lets you spend wildshape charges to just get a decent passive bonus, and with some level investment being able to make friendly zombies on the cheap can be pretty fun.

Circle of the Moon: Fun fact, you can use all your paladin abilities while wildshaped, including divine smite. This means that paladin is both an awesome dip, and investing to get some good wildshape forms is worthwhile for a paladin. Another fun idea is you wildshaping into a mount for someone and being able to give them all your cool paladin bonuses.

Shepard: Find steed wasn’t enough summoning, so now you can summon herds of horses all on your own. Spirit totems can be great if you want to just hold an area, and if you want to take enough levels for it combining the summoning spells with the various paladin auras can be really effective.

This is one of those classes where there does end up being a bit of overlap, I wouldn’t personally take more than 3 levels in this. Reasons to take the class in general is basically just action surge and an extra fighting style.

Battle Master: Lots of these Maneuvers are pretty great and let you really spice up your frontlining.

Cavalier: I think the Ancestral Guardian from Barbarian does this job better, but if you prefer Action Surge to Rage and Reckless Attack. Noteable synergy just for the fact you can summon a mount.

Rune Knight: The variety of rune options alone make this a formidable choice, but when you also remember that Giant Might is also a feature, easily one of the best choices.

Samurai: At will advantage can be pretty great, but Barbarians get Reckless attack, so decide which of those will do more for you.

I personally really do like monks, but after trying as hard as I could I found very little useful synergy here, on top of the fact it ends up being pretty MAD. That being said, there are a few possibilities. Remember that if you do try this, you can’t smite with unarmed attacks.

Way of Shadow: If you are taking monk you have high dex, so being better at stealth just makes some sense, but you can get these spells and more from other classes, and going 6 levels into this to reach the teleport is kinda meh.

Kensei: Using better weapons is kinda nice and it does try to patch up your inability to use a shield or armour, the issue is that you're really just trying to put a bandaid on the weaknesses of a Monk instead of being here for something good.

Way of the Long Death: This actually has something decent to it in that you get a reward for killing enemies at low levels, but also an at will fear.

The Paladin’s fellow half-caster, there is actually a surprising amount of synergy between the two. If you’re allowed the class feature variants UA this becomes a lot better, but honestly it isn’t even that bad without it.

Gloom Stalker: Anti-Darkvision stealth is a really interesting feature that can change a lot for some campaign types where you can make great use of it, and Dread Ambusher can help make you better and closing in and blitzing priority enemies like spellcasters.

Hunter: Colossus slayer can really add up when your making 3-4 attacks every round as a polearm build.

Swarm Keeper: This trades the passive damage of the Hunter for the ability to push enemies automatically on a hit, which can be really great for either fear paladins or polearm builds.

A solid choice for Dexadins for obvious reasons but I’ll go over them anyway for those of you who haven’t pondered this. Cunning Action is great as a way to spend your bonus action if you aren’t dual wielding, sneak attack is just some nice extra damage, Expertise is a way for you to become an amazing face character or get good stealth, and uncanny dodge if you go that far gives you a great way to spend your reaction.

Arcane Trickster: Gets you access to some wizard utility while still gaining the reasons why the Rogue is awesome, though you are slightly limited in some of your choices getting the important mage armor is nice.

Assassin: Damage damage and damage, assassinate lets you auto double your dice, which includes your divine smites so given a bit of preparation that first turn nova can be pretty great.

Mastermind: Giving you some nice support oriented bonus action spending and making you a better face, a solid choice for many Dexadins.

Swashbuckler: This has some charisma scaling and makes it easier on you to use that extra sneak attack on your hits, also helps you bypass the frontline and hit the mages.

The Revived: The skill proficiency stuff is kinda cool, but Bolts from the Grave actually has some interesting usage as a bit of small damage that even strength paladins could use. I’d have to playtest this to see how much use it would actually be getting, but if you're playing a Strength build you aren’t going to be able to use the sneak attack damage otherwise.

A Charisma caster who’s focused on blasting, that’s what they want you to think anyway. The truth is that Sorcerers are actually one of the best support classes because you can twin spell your single target buffs. Quickened spell is also pretty great when you can also make two attacks as your main action. Also access to some nice arcane spells scaling off charisma are great. Subclasses sort of come in two flavours, the ones you take because you’re only going for a 3 level dip for meta magics, or ones you invest 6 or more levels in if you want to act like a bit of a caster.

Clockwork Soul: The most support oriented Origin, a small dip is fine with this to keep people safer but going 6+ is quite reasonable.

Draconic Bloodline: I thought this would be good as a dip, then I remembered mage armor is already on the list. Going 6+ is a bit better but IMO doesn’t add enough damage to justify this choice for anything other than flavour.

Shadow Magic: Going just a three level dip here is pretty great, you get the illustrious Darkness but you get to see though it like a warlock. Going 6+ here is also pretty nice to be able to debuff targets and actually possibly succeed on a quickened debuff.

As one of the best dip classes, this is true for Paladins perhaps more so than any other class. If you are unfamiliar as to why, the basic explanation is that Warlock Invocations can give you a decent power boost at little investment. Classics with this range from just making your Eldritch Blast behave like a longbow Fighter without Sharpshooter, to the Devil’s Sight Darkness combo to make you much harder to hit and make you better at hitting enemies. Warlock ends up being a great choice regardless of what kind of paladin you build, though it is likely for different reasons. Warlock also isn’t very worth investing in past two or three levels, though I suppose you could invest more in here if you really like the spell list or something. Flavour does come up here more than with some other multiclassing options just given the fact many Paladin Oaths might oppose some of these creature types.

The Celestial: Works surprisingly well if you want to lean into the “Off Healer” role of the party, since Healing Light is basically just some free charges of Healing Word that you can throw out between attacks. The spell list here isn’t too bad since Flaming Sphere can actually deal a good bit of damage if you throw it up in the middle of a choke point. Also of note that this is very thematically appropriate and so DMs are much more likely to let this slide.

The Fiend: I like this one too, though it isn’t too easily thematic with some paladins for obvious reasons. Being able to use your inherent lethality to power your durability can make you a serious force to be reckoned with if you have to deal with some smaller creatures that can let you keep these temporary hit points up more.

The Hexblade: The one and only, probably the best possible multiclass in the game for paladins of all sorts, note that this is compatible with any Pact of the Blade weapon, and so polearm mastery can be used with a three level dip. Even ignoring how good Hex Warrior can be for many, the spell list’s inclusion of Shield as an available spell is also a standout to make you much harder to hit (+5 AC is equivalent to 25% dodge chance increase). Finally, the Hexblade’s Curse is amazing for the ability to be far more likely to crit with your multiple attacks, which can be devastating with divine smites.

The Lurker in the Deep: A recent UA option (at least at the time of writing this), provides a solid option to spend your bonus action if you don’t have an easy way to spend it. The tentacle translates as a weaker bonus action ray of frost, and the movement penalty can be quite useful if you are playing a more mobile Paladin build to slow down pursuit.

The Undying: If you know the campaign will feature a number of undead enemies, this ends up being a decent pick if you really want the Warlock class bonuses, but aren’t really wanting Hexblade. Outside of an undead heavy campaign however, this is basically useless.

A bit of a black horse, but actually ends up synergizing extremely well. If you only have the minimum 13 Intelligence it doesn’t really matter if you just don’t take spells that involve saves, or attacks, or damage. This isn’t really a big deal with Paladin already giving you Extra Attack and Divine Smite as ways to offensively spend your spell slots. Just spend your slots on any required useful utility spells when you want to, grab a handful of useful combat utility like Misty Step, Absorb Elements, Shield, etc. The main reason you come here are the handful of spells not easily accessed from other lists, and the Tradition you pick is moreso just gravy on top.

Bladesinging: If you manage a 14 or higher intelligence and are building a Dexadin, this ends up being a pretty great choice. It being even harder for you to break your concentration on your buffs while frontlining, more AC, more Movement speed, all of this is great even if it limits your ability to use a shield. Notw when your out of uses for your Bladesong you can just equip a shield.

Abjuration: A bit of extra health is nice, and the Paladin’s spell list actually by default has some abjuration spells you are actually going to regularly use.

Divination: This can actually be pretty great in some circumstances to just make sure your opponent fails a key save or that you make your’s. Later on might lose potency due to important enemies getting to auto save on stuff.

War Magic: Main reason to grab this is for the initiative boost, which for a lot of paladins isn’t likely to be high unless you rolled well for stats. I personally think the reaction bonuses aren’t that outstanding but a +4 to a single save can often be all you need to make it.

Access to polearms and other assorted heavy weapons is the main justification for this choice, but heavy armor ends up a nice boon on top of it. This type of build is fairly feat intensive early on, with you wanting the three feats that specifically apply for you as quickly as you can. Focused mainly on abusing 10ft+ melee control and an impressive damage output thanks to the number of attacks.

Race Selection-  Strength Paladin ends up being fairly simple for selecting your race, you mainly just want a good Strength bonus, ideally with a bonus to another useful attribute. Variant Human gets a special shout out for the bonus feat helping you come fully online earlier. Bugbear gets a special mention for the unique bonus to your reach.

Dragonborn, Dwarf (mountain), Half-orc, Human (variant), Tiefling (Zarial), Bugbear, Minotaur, Orc, Aasimer (fallen), Genasi (earth), Goliath, Shifter(longtooth)

Oath selection- 

Oath of Devotion ends up as quite useful for you due to the Channel Divinity helping to counteract the to hit reduction from Great Weapon Master. 

Vengeance giving you advantage as well as extra on hit damage thanks to Hunter’s Mark makes this a potent choice thanks to the extra attacks you will be making. 

Oath of Heroism rewarding you for killing people as well as giving you a bonus to crit range means it is an Oath well suited to a more aggressive playstyle. 

Feat selection-  There are three key feats to turn you into a combat monster, and that is Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, and Sentinel. This combination enables you to have two more attacks per round than most basic Paladins, as well as being able to add 10 more damage on each of those hits along with freezing enemies in place to counter anyone who decided to not have a reach weapon. I personally think going Polearm > Great Weapon > Sentinel is better, but you can switch to Great Weapon and Sentinel if you want to prioritize control over damage. Heavy Armor Mastery also is somewhat worth looking at if you are wanting to play as a more durable frontliner during Tier 1 and lower Tier 2, as the worth of the feat drops off as you see bigger and bigger hits from enemies. 

Spell Highlights-  Mostly just some basic buff spells for you to maintain as you will be busy smacking people with your weapon.

bless, protection from good and evil, shield of faith, blinding smite

Multiclassing- As far as what you are looking for from multiclassing, are classes easily accessible without being MAD as you are likely to already be quite Feat heavy, and you want classes to give you more damage or keep you alive better. Warlock gets a special mention for helping cover your lack of ranged option.

Barbarian, Fighter, Warlock

General description of strengths and weaknesses of this type of build.

Race Selection- There are a lot of races with bonuses to Dex, and some of those end up being some of the best races in the game. Elves mostly all work decently well, both thanks to the +2 to your primary stat and many having a +1 to another useful stat as well as Elven Accuracy and some of their features being very useful. Small races get a special note for the idea of you mounting a frontliner party member. The races with flying access are amazing picks for obvious reasons. Human( mark of passage), Elves, Halflings, Gnome(svirfneblin), Tiefling( feral), Aarakocra, Kenku, Tabaxi, Goblin, Kobold, Shifter (swiftstride)

Oath selection- 

Oath of the Ancients helps to make you an excellent frontliner to help protect your fellow’s from Fireballs and the like both from enemies and friendlies, and a handful of the spells obtained gives you some excellent ways to use your bonus actions and shores up some of the weaknesses of Paladin. 

Oath of Heroism helping your crit range can be even better on you for that first attack, given the easy access to having good stealth for Dexadins, and being able to survive with less armor means your flexes can be extra glorious.

Oath of the Watchers helps to turn you into a bane of casters in a different way from Oath of the Ancients, through much more preemptive means, bonuses to initiative to hopefully beat the casters, Counterspell and Nondetect are extremely useful to delay them, and combining this with the possibility of you sneaking past their frontline for a backstab on the casters means that while you are a bit of a different playstyle from some other Oath options you are still quite effective. 

Feat selection- Dexadins are able to be a lot more flexible in their feat choice or disregard them to boost stats. You’ll typically want at least a few though even without them being a priority. This openness in feat selection also can mean you can take a few paths, either focusing on messing up mages, or being good at fighting everything.

alert, charger, defensive duelist, duel wielder, mage slayer, magic initiate, mobile, elven accuracy, svirfneblin magic

Spell Highlights- Mostly the same as Strength in that you really just want to cover a few bases, and any more active spells are Oath dependant. 

bless, protection from good and evil, shield of faith, blinding smite, thunderous smite

Multiclassing- Dexadins have a lot of room to multiclass since Dex is a relatively common requirement, but also have certain limits as well because of it. You want a class to help give you a nice Mage Armor to eventually reach 18 AC without a shield. Ways of attaining Stealth proficiency and bonuses are also desirable. 

Bard, Cleric, Druid, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

This is actually a pet project of mine, where you use Paladin as a chassis to make a heavy support character with a focus on friendly protection as well as durability. Paladin actually has a lot going for it in this role thanks to their assorted Auras, as well as their access to some healing and durability thanks to proficiencies.  

Race Selection- Technically most races can fit in here as long as they can grant you some sort of way to help people, and given how few are here as well as each having different justifications I will go over each individually

Dwarf(Hill) are the most durable race in regards to health and so get a mention for just how well they enable you to take punishment for your allies with Oath of Redemption and access to Dwarven Resilience gives you extra self healing. Warforged give you extra AC and the various quality of life bonuses helps you watch over your people and not be as easily incapacitated from some sources. Centaur are unique in that they can act as a mount without having to somehow shapeshift into something, meaning that you can perform an epic combo with someone else willing to ride you (Note that you can also make an effective mount for ranged characters if you spec into some ranged spellcasting of your own. Halfling get a mention for being more Dexterity oriented as well as being able to give out their luck via Feat. Simic is a lesser seen racial choice, but can be used to make an effective grappler to work with other frontliners. Tiefling (Levistus) is another tanky race option with access to some damage resistances, Levistus is the best Tiefling option for this though some others might also work.

Oath selection- 

Oath of the Ancients’ spell resistance is just a straight up amazing feature, and you focusing on staying alive means that it is more accessible for your team, the feature is just that good. 

Oath of Redemption lets you take damage for your allies, what could be better for keeping those squishies alive than constantly going “No I’ll take that damage for you”.

Oathbreaker is a much more niche pick, but worthy of mention if your party will include necromancers and other such foul conjurers. Don’t pick this if you expect to actually deal with these creatures on a semi regular basis since it also affects enemies.

Feat selection-  You are looking for some feats to boost survivability or give you access to more ways to support people.

Dwarven Fortitude, Tough, Aberrant Dragonmark, Durable, Heavy Armor Mastery, Mounted Combatant, Resilient

Spell Highlights- Mostly just the basic low level support spells from paladin, since the higher level spells aren’t actually that amazing outside certain situations.

bless, protection from good and evil, shield of faith, Cure Wounds, Heroism

Multiclassing- In this case you want anything that can get you better support whether that be healing, control, or buffs for you to pass out.

Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock

This is a section on just doing damage with paladin as a primary class rather than a secondary one, though as more of a nuke than the Strength build’s more consistent output. This is accomplished by a bit of setup from you with a few precast buffs and debuffs as well as getting in from stealth.

Race Selection- Elven Accuracy is awesome and so Elf or Half-Elf is probably your best bet, though Half Orc’s bonus on crits is also worthwhile.

Oath selection- 

Oath of Vengence gives you a way to gain advantage outside of Stealth if you wish to build strength and don’t have another way to gain it.

Oath of Heroism is likely the best choice for the ability to crit on a 19 or 20, drastically increasing your odds of a Crit to maximize your dice. 

Feat selection- Elven Accuracy gives you even more consistent rolls from advantage, and so when combined with increasing crit range is amazing. Other feats that give you bonus dice are the name of the game here, and so thing’s like Martial Adept and Lucky are also good options. 

Spell Highlights: The various smite spells are good in this context, since if you set them up you can also use your class feature on top of them for absurd amounts of dice.

Multiclassing- The name of the game is more dice for more damage on a crit, so any options that give you lots of dice or a serious bonus with some preparations are your best bets. Grave Cleric is specifically good in this circumstance for the Channel Divinity. Rogue gives you more sneak attack as well as Stealth bonuses in expertise. Taking a full caster class is also good for bigger spellslots to burn on smites, even if you don’t have spells of that actual level.

To begin with, Fear as a build niche can be a bit questionable in many campaigns. If the dm tends to have a lot of magic resistance, high wisdom saves, mostly just a few big enemies rather than swarms of small ones, or enemies are just straight up immune to Fear as a condition this isn’t going to be great. This is why you should always ask your DM before you do some niche build like this. Assuming that you clear it with the DM and it seems a reasonably viable option, you can expect to be a serious control focused Paladin, even more so than the Polearm build. You rely on causing fear to enemies coming at you to then freeze them in place while outside their reach, or generally giving disadvantage to a large number of enemies as a sort of mix between debuffer, controller, and martial tank.

Race Selection- Races that give you more fear effects are obviously good choices, so Fallen Aasimars and Dragonborn are top picks for this playstyle. Other reasonable options would include any race that is boosting your DC attribute whether that be Charisma or another casting stat for multiclassing. Tortles also get a mention here for just giving you decent AC without needing any stat investment, leaving you to be able to spend all your ASI on maxing your Charisma.

Oath selection- 

Oath of Conquest, it’s literally the “fear” Oath and likely what made you think this could possibly be a viable playstyle. 

Feat selection- Dragon Fear for Dragonborn gives you an extra source of causing fear that doesn’t hit friendlies and has a decent enough range, you can also have your allies basically leave those enemies that fail for last to prevent them from ever getting to repeat the save. Lucky also gets a mention here purely because you are specifically a build around debilitating status condition from a failed save, so more likely to fail is obviously better.

Spell Highlights- Anything to do with causing Frightened, so Wrathful Smite and the Fear spell. If you mutliclass Cause Fear is another option.

Multiclassing- You want more options for fear mainly from your multiclassing, so Wizard and Warlock are viable options here, but another niche option I discovered was the Way of the Long Death for having the ability to unlimited fear enemies at level 6, but this requires you to hit at least level 13 before that combo comes online. If you expect to play into tier 3 and 4 though, it is a decent pick. General Charisma casters also just work with this for the extra spell slots.

This is the extra advanced build for when your party somehow doesn’t have any Charisma based class, or you just want to show off your absurd versatility and rub it in the faces of your enemies. With proper multiclassing, spell selection and other such parts that make up your build  you can create a character with relatively high AC, great saves, the melee damage of a paladin liberally sprinkling smites into the enemy skulls, the ranged output of a warlock who only knows Eldritch Blast, great team support, a diverse spell list of utility spells, and being able to mix together features from basically all the other builds in a horrendous amalgamation of Tryhard  Minmaxing Cancer.

Race Selection- Everyone who gives you Charisma since that and Constitution are the only stats that really matter to you. Yuanti Pureblood are a standout option for fairly optimal stat bonuses as well as one of the most broken racial features in the game. Changeling are another great option for if you want more versatility in the social department with at will better Disguise Self. Half Elves are as good here as you might expect as well, with lots of stat bonuses and free skills, you can always trade some of that out if you like any of the SCAG options instead. 

Oath selection- 

Oath of Devotion can be great if you plan to play this as a more melee oriented character thanks to the ability to double up on your Charisma bonus to melee attacks.

Oath of Heroism benefits greatly from having good Charisma, and doesn’t actually require you to be in melee to be useful, otherwise it is also good for reasons mentioned in the other builds.

Oath of the Ancients is just a generally amazing Oath if you hit 7, and makes you a real monster for your DM to challenge since whittling you down with magic isn’t nearly as viable. 

Feat selection- With all the multiclassing you are likely to do here, feats aren’t nearly as important as just increasing your charisma when you get chances to. If you do manage to hit Charisma 20 and are looking for extra feats, just look through the other build recommendations since basically all the logic for those can also apply here.

Spell Highlights- The basic buff spells from Paladin can help carry you in some of the early game, but you’ll be multiclassing into full casters with better spell lists to borrow from.

Multiclassing- So for those of you unfamiliar with how this concept works I’ll quickly break it down. Of the 12 original classes, 4 of them by default all use Charisma, that's one third of all the classes. The only one that has more than just a basic requirement of 13 Charisma is the Paladin with 13 Strength, and it is generally a decent idea to have 13-15 just for Heavy Armor. So why do you use Paladin as a “primary” class here? Hitting level 6 allows you to add your Charisma modifier to ALL your saves, as well as the saves of all your friends, and level 7 gives you an amazing Aura feature from your Oath. You technically can shift around here and there, an early level of Hexblade or three can help you get some base usage online earlier in exchange for delaying some of your Paladin Power. After 7 you can feel free to become a mechanical monster dipping into whatever you feel like and knowing that you have very few bad options for whatever you go into.

The Hexblade Pact for Warlock allows you to use Charisma with weapons instead of whatever stat they might normally use, though there are some limitations on which weapons you can apply this to. If you want to use a polearm and pretend to be a Strength build, you can grab Pact of the Blade to then get to use Charisma for that too. 

Bards grant you a lot of versatility thanks to all the skill bonuses they give you, the bardic inspiration you can throw out, the possible ability to steal spells from any list you are missing when you are playing half the casting classes, and a great supportive utility focused list. You don’t need offensive spells when you smashing someone with a weapon counts as a sort of spell in and of itself. 

Sorcerers are the final mention here for the Metamagics they can get, specifically Quickened Spell. This allows you to toss down debuffs or buffs onto yourself without needing to rely on party members to do it, or just throw out some extra offense. There is a limitation in the spellcasting mechanics of the game in that you aren’t allowed to spend two spell slots on casting spells in a turn, but that doesn’t stop you from slapping someone with a club and then fireballing them and their friends so they get the message they should be dead.

There are also technically other classes that also work for this, since after release they decided to give some other non casters Charisma Archetypes. Mastermind and Swashbuckler from Rogue, mostly just rogue actually. Mixing in Fighter levels or Barbarian levels can also work with this disgusting mess just because they get some nice features for being up close and taking damage. The only classes that don’t entirely work are the casters that don’t use Charisma, which is basically only 5 classes out of 13.