What do you think of a dexterity based paladin and how would you create one?
im looking to do something a little different so I was thinking an oath of the ancients dex paladin, studded leather, rapier with dueling fighting style(though I’m not entirely pleased with the fighting style options for a dex based build), and lastly a longbow. Then I’m deciding if maybe I take it a step further and even prioritize charisma over dex? last bit of flavor would be a pet rat I carry with me and would utilize the speak with animals spell to hopefully get the little fella to perform some simple tasks occasionally.
I’m playing that exact thing right now and it’s really fun. I went halfling for story reasons, but it turned out to be a great choice. DEX bonus (and con), small size means my find steed can be medium, which actually makes them more viable in dungeons (and ancients gives you misty step to help traversing pits or climbing ropes with it). I went defensive, since I’m the 3’ tall party tank and wanted the extra ac.
I guess it’s good to have a ranged weapon just in case, but all your smiting depends on melee, so you’re going to want to be up in it. Still, useful for emergencies, I suppose
I wouldn’t prioritize cha over DEX (Ac, to hit, damage, initiative bonus, DEX has too many goodies attached to it) but I would make it second after DEX (though con is a real contender there). The cha is nice for boosting everyone’s saves, but you won’t be casting many, if any, spells that require an attack roll or save, so the cha boost won’t help a lot there. Though, of course, it is useful for non combat skills.
Yeah that’s another thing not sure of which race to go with. Was thinking Dragonborn originally, I’m purposely trying not to optimize as much as I normally do but half-elf gives me a nice stat spread I am finding hard to resist. But yeah, gonna max cha at 16 and focus on dex.
I was thinking of using the longbow for ensnaring strike, I think that spell works with ranged weapons...
If you are going DEX based, Dragonborn would not exactly be optimizing. The big str bonus isn’t really doing you any good, though the cha is nice. My last character was a Dragonborn, and I found them pretty meh. The breath weapon rapidly becomes a poor choice, unless you happen to run into something vulnerable to your element. It wasn’t bad, just meh. A half elf would be quite strong, you are right. And I would agree ensnaring strike would work with a longbow. Though that keeps the enemy far from you so it’s harder to smite it. Of course, it keeps the squishies safe, so that a plus.
Dex paladins work great. I played with one, and she ripped things apart and would do even better if she read her character sheet.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Yeah that’s another thing not sure of which race to go with. Was thinking Dragonborn originally, I’m purposely trying not to optimize as much as I normally do but half-elf gives me a nice stat spread I am finding hard to resist. But yeah, gonna max cha at 16 and focus on dex.
I was thinking of using the longbow for ensnaring strike, I think that spell works with ranged weapons...
Branding Smite and Banishing Smite are the two Paladin smite spells that work with ranged weapons. The others specify "melee".
Because you're building a dex rather than str build you won't be multi-classing, but that's okay. Magic Initiate: Warlock can give you a ranged cantrip for some alternative damage, and your divine smite doesn't care what melee weapon it's cast with.
Take Stealth and Thieves' Tools in your background and you'll be handy as a scout as well. Remember you can wear a breastplate which doesn't confer disadvantage on stealth.
I have a Dex paladin (Ven/Dueling), HElf. Dex 20, cha 20. +3 Rapier, Glamoured Studded Leather, Shield +1. He's a Pal 12, Wiz 3. Used a Headband of Intellect to get my Wiz bonus up. Took School of Divination for the Portent and the ability to slip enemies bad saves, which is hilarious. I'm sitting on a pair of 6s ready to go this session.
Planning on running with Wiz for the rest of my levels.
My other attuned items are a amulet of health and slippers of spider climbing. The slippers will be the first to go if I get a better item to use, but they are really handy.
I recently played a Kobold Vengeance Paladin who believed he was a dragon. His tribe was wiped out by a dragon, and that delusion was how he coped with the trauma of being the only known survivor. I figured the Vengeance capstone would represent him finally proving himself to the naysayers as he flies around instilling fear.
Didn't make it to 20* but it was a lot of fun to play and still worked fine in combat. Finesse weapon vs a bigger str-based weapon didn't really matter, the bulk of my damage came from smites anyway.
(* he didn't technically die before 20 but had to be backgrounded due to a "kerfuffle" around a dragon mask the party had recovered)
Dexadin works fine. You'll still be a melee character first and foremost - since divine smite and improved divine smite are melee weapon attacks only. But it's nice to have a workable fallback ranged option when enemies are otherwise unreachable. Better dexterity saves is nice, especially for paladins aiming for a tanking role. Better initiative can be huge. Light/medium armor will often mean a point lower AC, which isn't great but is workable. Damage-oriented builds will miss greatswords/halberds/GWM/PAM, but rapier's as good as a longsword for regular sword & board builds, and paired short swords or scimitars are, well, dual wielding still isn't great in 5e, but if you're set on dual wielding for aesthetic purposes paladins are actually among the better classes for it, as divine strike and improved divine strike can work on your bonus action attack as well as your regular attacks, and base paladin without polearm master can otherwise be shy on good uses for bonus actions. The extra damage still isn't enough to really make up for not using a shield, especially since you may already be losing a point of AC due to skipping heavy armor, but it works better for dexadins than for most other classes. Lower Athletics checks can be a pain. As can the paladin's limited skill and tool proficiency selection, since dex builds have a lot of useful proficiencies they'd like to pick up, while strength builds only have charisma skills and athletics. In point buy builds, dexadins also have a very hard time meeting the strength requirement for multiclassing without unacceptably sacrificing dexterity, constitution, or charisma. If you don't plan on multiclassing that doesn't matter, but paladin does have some great multiclassing options so abandoning them is a sacrifice.
If you want to multiclass, consider half elf. The unparalleled stat modifiers make doing so a lot more viable, and the two extra skill proficiencies are a helpful addition. If you don't care about multiclassing, consider vuman, lightfoot halfling, or eladrin. Dragonborn can make for fine paladins, but generally want to go with a more typical heavy armored build.
My Dexadin did 303pt of damage to a dragon in one round last session. As a Divination Wizard multiclass one of my portent rolls was a 20, so I used that for a crit on the first attack and then got normal damage on the second. The dragon then provoked an AoO using a legendary action and I rolled a 20 on that hit (and with Sentinel it didn't get to run away after all)
I had up a 5th level upcast of Spirit Shroud for +3d8 damage, and smited for +5d8 per hit on the first round and +4d8 on the AoO, plus the IDS bonus d8.
I would have thought that Half-Elf would be great for this build. +2 Char, then you can take the +1 Dex and +1 Con. Also nice to get the Speed boost, the Darkvision AND if you use the Oath of the Ancients the Fey ancestry fits well.
What do you think of a dexterity based paladin and how would you create one?
im looking to do something a little different so I was thinking an oath of the ancients dex paladin, studded leather, rapier with dueling fighting style(though I’m not entirely pleased with the fighting style options for a dex based build), and lastly a longbow. Then I’m deciding if maybe I take it a step further and even prioritize charisma over dex?
last bit of flavor would be a pet rat I carry with me and would utilize the speak with animals spell to hopefully get the little fella to perform some simple tasks occasionally.
I’m playing that exact thing right now and it’s really fun. I went halfling for story reasons, but it turned out to be a great choice. DEX bonus (and con), small size means my find steed can be medium, which actually makes them more viable in dungeons (and ancients gives you misty step to help traversing pits or climbing ropes with it).
I went defensive, since I’m the 3’ tall party tank and wanted the extra ac.
I guess it’s good to have a ranged weapon just in case, but all your smiting depends on melee, so you’re going to want to be up in it. Still, useful for emergencies, I suppose
I wouldn’t prioritize cha over DEX (Ac, to hit, damage, initiative bonus, DEX has too many goodies attached to it) but I would make it second after DEX (though con is a real contender there). The cha is nice for boosting everyone’s saves, but you won’t be casting many, if any, spells that require an attack roll or save, so the cha boost won’t help a lot there. Though, of course, it is useful for non combat skills.
Yeah that’s another thing not sure of which race to go with. Was thinking Dragonborn originally, I’m purposely trying not to optimize as much as I normally do but half-elf gives me a nice stat spread I am finding hard to resist. But yeah, gonna max cha at 16 and focus on dex.
I was thinking of using the longbow for ensnaring strike, I think that spell works with ranged weapons...
If you are going DEX based, Dragonborn would not exactly be optimizing. The big str bonus isn’t really doing you any good, though the cha is nice.
My last character was a Dragonborn, and I found them pretty meh. The breath weapon rapidly becomes a poor choice, unless you happen to run into something vulnerable to your element. It wasn’t bad, just meh.
A half elf would be quite strong, you are right.
And I would agree ensnaring strike would work with a longbow. Though that keeps the enemy far from you so it’s harder to smite it. Of course, it keeps the squishies safe, so that a plus.
Dex paladins work great. I played with one, and she ripped things apart and would do even better if she read her character sheet.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Kobold.
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Branding Smite and Banishing Smite are the two Paladin smite spells that work with ranged weapons. The others specify "melee".
Because you're building a dex rather than str build you won't be multi-classing, but that's okay. Magic Initiate: Warlock can give you a ranged cantrip for some alternative damage, and your divine smite doesn't care what melee weapon it's cast with.
Take Stealth and Thieves' Tools in your background and you'll be handy as a scout as well. Remember you can wear a breastplate which doesn't confer disadvantage on stealth.
I have a Dex paladin (Ven/Dueling), HElf. Dex 20, cha 20. +3 Rapier, Glamoured Studded Leather, Shield +1. He's a Pal 12, Wiz 3. Used a Headband of Intellect to get my Wiz bonus up. Took School of Divination for the Portent and the ability to slip enemies bad saves, which is hilarious. I'm sitting on a pair of 6s ready to go this session.
Planning on running with Wiz for the rest of my levels.
My other attuned items are a amulet of health and slippers of spider climbing. The slippers will be the first to go if I get a better item to use, but they are really handy.
Seconding kobold.
I recently played a Kobold Vengeance Paladin who believed he was a dragon. His tribe was wiped out by a dragon, and that delusion was how he coped with the trauma of being the only known survivor. I figured the Vengeance capstone would represent him finally proving himself to the naysayers as he flies around instilling fear.
Didn't make it to 20* but it was a lot of fun to play and still worked fine in combat. Finesse weapon vs a bigger str-based weapon didn't really matter, the bulk of my damage came from smites anyway.
(* he didn't technically die before 20 but had to be backgrounded due to a "kerfuffle" around a dragon mask the party had recovered)
Dexadin works fine. You'll still be a melee character first and foremost - since divine smite and improved divine smite are melee weapon attacks only. But it's nice to have a workable fallback ranged option when enemies are otherwise unreachable. Better dexterity saves is nice, especially for paladins aiming for a tanking role. Better initiative can be huge. Light/medium armor will often mean a point lower AC, which isn't great but is workable. Damage-oriented builds will miss greatswords/halberds/GWM/PAM, but rapier's as good as a longsword for regular sword & board builds, and paired short swords or scimitars are, well, dual wielding still isn't great in 5e, but if you're set on dual wielding for aesthetic purposes paladins are actually among the better classes for it, as divine strike and improved divine strike can work on your bonus action attack as well as your regular attacks, and base paladin without polearm master can otherwise be shy on good uses for bonus actions. The extra damage still isn't enough to really make up for not using a shield, especially since you may already be losing a point of AC due to skipping heavy armor, but it works better for dexadins than for most other classes. Lower Athletics checks can be a pain. As can the paladin's limited skill and tool proficiency selection, since dex builds have a lot of useful proficiencies they'd like to pick up, while strength builds only have charisma skills and athletics. In point buy builds, dexadins also have a very hard time meeting the strength requirement for multiclassing without unacceptably sacrificing dexterity, constitution, or charisma. If you don't plan on multiclassing that doesn't matter, but paladin does have some great multiclassing options so abandoning them is a sacrifice.
If you want to multiclass, consider half elf. The unparalleled stat modifiers make doing so a lot more viable, and the two extra skill proficiencies are a helpful addition. If you don't care about multiclassing, consider vuman, lightfoot halfling, or eladrin. Dragonborn can make for fine paladins, but generally want to go with a more typical heavy armored build.
My Dexadin did 303pt of damage to a dragon in one round last session. As a Divination Wizard multiclass one of my portent rolls was a 20, so I used that for a crit on the first attack and then got normal damage on the second. The dragon then provoked an AoO using a legendary action and I rolled a 20 on that hit (and with Sentinel it didn't get to run away after all)
I had up a 5th level upcast of Spirit Shroud for +3d8 damage, and smited for +5d8 per hit on the first round and +4d8 on the AoO, plus the IDS bonus d8.
I would have thought that Half-Elf would be great for this build. +2 Char, then you can take the +1 Dex and +1 Con. Also nice to get the Speed boost, the Darkvision AND if you use the Oath of the Ancients the Fey ancestry fits well.
That’s what I’m playing right now. Half-elf dex-based Watchers Paladin in a demon focused campaign.