I was really hoping they were moving away with “this is how you roleplay” your character. It is the only class that has roleplaying rules on how to play with the oaths. No other class has specific roleplaying rules and requirements
removing alignments from paladins was a good first step It’s a throw back to the beginning of the game where the paladins were always challenged to not break their oath. I saw many players always challenged with roleplaying situations that put them on the spot since it was baked into the class.
Oath of vengeance and conquest paladins also have roleplaying rules on how to play their character. These can lead to “this is how my character would do it” as an excuse for bad behaviour . One comes across an inherently evil
warlocks with their patrons do not have rules on how to roleplay as example. One could argue that they should as well based on their patron.
I really hoping they would totally rework that.
the new smite spells are awesome.
Sacred weapon looks to be awesome. As 3rd level it can add really good flavor for a low level fight for the Paladin to shine when facing down the bbeg.
I like how the smite spells are now cast after a successful strike. I am not sure they are good enough to justify preparing them though given you have a normal smite. Personally I'd maybe remove them as spells and instead turn them into class features that can be used prof bonus per long rest and just are enhancements to the smite.
I like how the smite spells are now cast after a successful strike. I am not sure they are good enough to justify preparing them though given you have a normal smite. Personally I'd maybe remove them as spells and instead turn them into class features that can be used prof bonus per long rest and just are enhancements to the smite.
Not a fan of that, as imo the smite spells see good use on other classes. It's just the paladin is ironically the class which finds them least useful. I'd like to see them opened up as spells for more gish type classes like ranger, artificer, and eldritch knight. So more classes can enchant their weapon for cool effects and damage types.
My DM has allowed me to take thunderous smite with my earth genasi artificer armourer, as it fits the theme. And smiting with thunder fists is so fun!
Paladin Nova is one of the plagues, more so when it came to crit fishing. So not too sad to see it go, I personally like the changes to the smite spells.
Devotion Paladin is now basically the most accurate subclass in the game, also as paladin can select seemingly any fighting style, go dex/cha based, take archery fighting style and then use sacred weapon... that bow ain't missing a dang thing. If you still think you might miss, you can also cast Bless.
Aura of Protection needs a small change, which is around it being when you enter, it should just be that you can only benefit from one at a time. Else wise this causes a bit of a complication if say Paladin ABC had an Aura of Protection that gives Charm immunity and Paladin DEF had an aura that gives resistance to spell damage, as written you have to choose in advance which one is better... it's going to be a rare case to come up but that just feels a bit counter to how it should work. If you're in range of two auras and there is a mass dominate person spell, you'd think everybody would benefit from the charm immunity and that you wouldn't need to have chosen that aura in advance.
Also Find Steed needs some major rework from how it is in the UA, while Paladin gets a 5th level feature to be casting it for free, it'll still be weaker than any Familiar that a Cleric can summon with it. My suggestion would be that the feature casts it at a level equal to Proficiency Bonus even if the Paladin does not have the ability to normally cast spells at that level and that Find Steed should default to +3HP per spell level but increase to +8 per spell level when summoned via the feature.
I am quite disappointed with the UA paladin. I was hoping they would make far more substantial changes to the class, especially to differentiate it more from the close combat cleric in heavy armour.
It's probably an unpopular opinion, but I wouldn't mind if they removed the spellcasting from the paladin. You still have a lot of very neat class features (divine smite, lay on hands, divine sense, auras, channel divinity), not to mention that you basically do everything the Fighter class is doing but better. And I say this as someone whose most played and favourite class is the paladin.
I'm neutral on the whole removing spellcasting thing, though they'd need a fair amount of reworking to get a number of spells (like the one about challenging to duels, find steed, etc) as abilities.
Right now, spellcasting is an elegant way maintaining a broad swath of paladin-appropriate abilities in a limited resource balance. If you could pull something else off, I'd be down for it. The only problem is that its a high bar to clear.
CAREFUL GUYS WITH THE SMITES, DEPENDING YOUR GOD THAT EMPOWERS YOUR DIVINITY.
SOME CRUEL SMITES OR BEING GUN SMITE HAPPY MIGHT BREAK YOUR OATH.
MUCH OF THE PALADIN OATHS IS ABOUT SHOWING HONOR AND FAIRNESS.
Gods don't have to empower Oaths. Certainly, they are a valid target for an oath, but you have to remember that Paladins aren't Clerics, who need a divine blessing. Their Oath can be in the name of practically anything - to the crown of a country, the target of ancestor worship, or just in the name of vengeance like Batman.
Oath of Devotion does care about Honesty, Courage, Compassion and Honor. Its the only one that directly cares about that, though. Well, so does Conquest, but that cares about it because its encouraging cruelty rather than denying it.
removing alignments from paladins was a good first step It’s a throw back to the beginning of the game where the paladins were always challenged to not break their oath. I saw many players always challenged with roleplaying situations that put them on the spot since it was baked into the class.
Alignment wasn't really strongly baked into 5e's Paladin. All the Player's Handbook said was that most Paladins were good or neutral, not evil.
Watching the youtubes, on a video by indestructoboy someone brings up that the new smite might not work with crits based on how its phrased to happen after the hit and not part of the hit like in 5e. If that is the intent that is a unfun nerf.
Watching the youtubes, on a video by indestructoboy someone brings up that the new smite might not work with crits based on how its phrased to happen after the hit and not part of the hit like in 5e. If that is the intent that is a unfun nerf.
as I see it, the damage is part of the attack, it is after the attack roll; after an attack roll is damage rolls. I believe the change in wording is only to keep it consistent with the changes to the smite spells which use this new terminology, they however say "additional damage", I believe it's just an over sight that Divine Smite says "damage" instead of 'additional damage'. Likely Divine Smite was written up first and after the changes to smite spells made, they updated the trigger for divine smite but not the damage part.
Personally, I would not mind seeing crits nerfed on smites, to just +1 die instead of double die, since smites are already powerful without crits.
I would argue the opposite. The race/species/ancestry stuff made it vanilla enough. We shouldn't loose differentiation in the classes as well. Paladins throughout lore have held a specific character. Should a smite powered paladin be a better archer than a ranger? No. If you want to be an ranged fighter, the fighter or ranger should be the class you choose. If you want to be a grappler, play a barbarian, not a smite pounding paladin. Choose the character you want to role play at character creation. If you want to be an evil paladin, be an oathbreaker. Don't use "that's what my character would do" as an excuse to ruin the game. That's a problem with a different type of character. It's also the reason a lot of DMs don't allow evil characters.
Watching the youtubes, on a video by indestructoboy someone brings up that the new smite might not work with crits based on how its phrased to happen after the hit and not part of the hit like in 5e. If that is the intent that is a unfun nerf.
as I see it, the damage is part of the attack, it is after the attack roll; after an attack roll is damage rolls. I believe the change in wording is only to keep it consistent with the changes to the smite spells which use this new terminology, they however say "additional damage", I believe it's just an over sight that Divine Smite says "damage" instead of 'additional damage'. Likely Divine Smite was written up first and after the changes to smite spells made, they updated the trigger for divine smite but not the damage part.
Personally, I would not mind seeing crits nerfed on smites, to just +1 die instead of double die, since smites are already powerful without crits.
My attitude is crits are not that common and crits when it really matters are even less common, let them be awesome.
I would argue the opposite. The race/species/ancestry stuff made it vanilla enough. We shouldn't loose differentiation in the classes as well. Paladins throughout lore have held a specific character. Should a smite powered paladin be a better archer than a ranger? No. If you want to be an ranged fighter, the fighter or ranger should be the class you choose. If you want to be a grappler, play a barbarian, not a smite pounding paladin. Choose the character you want to role play at character creation. If you want to be an evil paladin, be an oathbreaker. Don't use "that's what my character would do" as an excuse to ruin the game. That's a problem with a different type of character. It's also the reason a lot of DMs don't allow evil characters.
I don't think its a good idea to put every class into a small box. Give them a tool kit it should be broad and allow characters to play in a variety of ways. They should focus on balance and not how some dude in a office 2,000 miles away can tell you how to play a class.
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Paladin Video
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Paladins get to smite with their unarmed strikes, and even ranged weapons?
Great!
Paladins only getting to smite once per turn?
Not so great...but understandable.
Paladins getting their high-level subclass abilities sooner?
Great!
Devotion Paladins getting to use their "Sacred Weapon" as a bonus action?
Fantastic improvement.
It looks like they are scaling smite to be on par with other the same “once per term” as per runic knights with their giant smash damage.
The new smite spells are really cool. Looking forward to testing those out.
I was really hoping they were moving away with “this is how you roleplay” your character. It is the only class that has roleplaying rules on how to play with the oaths. No other class has specific roleplaying rules and requirements
removing alignments from paladins was a good first step It’s a throw back to the beginning of the game where the paladins were always challenged to not break their oath. I saw many players always challenged with roleplaying situations that put them on the spot since it was baked into the class.
Oath of vengeance and conquest paladins also have roleplaying rules on how to play their character. These can lead to “this is how my character would do it” as an excuse for bad behaviour . One comes across an inherently evil
warlocks with their patrons do not have rules on how to roleplay as example. One could argue that they should as well based on their patron.
I really hoping they would totally rework that.
the new smite spells are awesome.
Sacred weapon looks to be awesome. As 3rd level it can add really good flavor for a low level fight for the Paladin to shine when facing down the bbeg.
I like how the smite spells are now cast after a successful strike. I am not sure they are good enough to justify preparing them though given you have a normal smite. Personally I'd maybe remove them as spells and instead turn them into class features that can be used prof bonus per long rest and just are enhancements to the smite.
Not a fan of that, as imo the smite spells see good use on other classes. It's just the paladin is ironically the class which finds them least useful. I'd like to see them opened up as spells for more gish type classes like ranger, artificer, and eldritch knight. So more classes can enchant their weapon for cool effects and damage types.
My DM has allowed me to take thunderous smite with my earth genasi artificer armourer, as it fits the theme. And smiting with thunder fists is so fun!
Paladin Nova is one of the plagues, more so when it came to crit fishing. So not too sad to see it go, I personally like the changes to the smite spells.
Devotion Paladin is now basically the most accurate subclass in the game, also as paladin can select seemingly any fighting style, go dex/cha based, take archery fighting style and then use sacred weapon... that bow ain't missing a dang thing. If you still think you might miss, you can also cast Bless.
Aura of Protection needs a small change, which is around it being when you enter, it should just be that you can only benefit from one at a time. Else wise this causes a bit of a complication if say Paladin ABC had an Aura of Protection that gives Charm immunity and Paladin DEF had an aura that gives resistance to spell damage, as written you have to choose in advance which one is better... it's going to be a rare case to come up but that just feels a bit counter to how it should work. If you're in range of two auras and there is a mass dominate person spell, you'd think everybody would benefit from the charm immunity and that you wouldn't need to have chosen that aura in advance.
Also Find Steed needs some major rework from how it is in the UA, while Paladin gets a 5th level feature to be casting it for free, it'll still be weaker than any Familiar that a Cleric can summon with it. My suggestion would be that the feature casts it at a level equal to Proficiency Bonus even if the Paladin does not have the ability to normally cast spells at that level and that Find Steed should default to +3HP per spell level but increase to +8 per spell level when summoned via the feature.
I like what they did to paladin, also new build Archerdin sounds kinda fun.
I am quite disappointed with the UA paladin. I was hoping they would make far more substantial changes to the class, especially to differentiate it more from the close combat cleric in heavy armour.
It's probably an unpopular opinion, but I wouldn't mind if they removed the spellcasting from the paladin. You still have a lot of very neat class features (divine smite, lay on hands, divine sense, auras, channel divinity), not to mention that you basically do everything the Fighter class is doing but better. And I say this as someone whose most played and favourite class is the paladin.
I'm neutral on the whole removing spellcasting thing, though they'd need a fair amount of reworking to get a number of spells (like the one about challenging to duels, find steed, etc) as abilities.
Right now, spellcasting is an elegant way maintaining a broad swath of paladin-appropriate abilities in a limited resource balance. If you could pull something else off, I'd be down for it. The only problem is that its a high bar to clear.
If it's a setting with firearms, you can be a gunsmiter!
If you don't care about being suboptimal, you can pick heavy armour with your gunsmiter and make a space marine.
My son’s rather excited about creating a Giff paladin who can smite with his musket!
Gods don't have to empower Oaths. Certainly, they are a valid target for an oath, but you have to remember that Paladins aren't Clerics, who need a divine blessing. Their Oath can be in the name of practically anything - to the crown of a country, the target of ancestor worship, or just in the name of vengeance like Batman.
Oath of Devotion does care about Honesty, Courage, Compassion and Honor. Its the only one that directly cares about that, though. Well, so does Conquest, but that cares about it because its encouraging cruelty rather than denying it.
I did have a Paladin sniper concept; who used the optional firearm rules.
His motto was “Tonitrua et Lux”.
”Thunder & Light”.
”My gods word is the Thunder; and I am his Light.”
(fires gun) “Here is his Word…now witness his Light.”
(whistles)
Alignment wasn't really strongly baked into 5e's Paladin. All the Player's Handbook said was that most Paladins were good or neutral, not evil.
That sounds awesome!
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Watching the youtubes, on a video by indestructoboy someone brings up that the new smite might not work with crits based on how its phrased to happen after the hit and not part of the hit like in 5e. If that is the intent that is a unfun nerf.
as I see it, the damage is part of the attack, it is after the attack roll; after an attack roll is damage rolls. I believe the change in wording is only to keep it consistent with the changes to the smite spells which use this new terminology, they however say "additional damage", I believe it's just an over sight that Divine Smite says "damage" instead of 'additional damage'. Likely Divine Smite was written up first and after the changes to smite spells made, they updated the trigger for divine smite but not the damage part.
Personally, I would not mind seeing crits nerfed on smites, to just +1 die instead of double die, since smites are already powerful without crits.
I would argue the opposite. The race/species/ancestry stuff made it vanilla enough. We shouldn't loose differentiation in the classes as well. Paladins throughout lore have held a specific character. Should a smite powered paladin be a better archer than a ranger? No. If you want to be an ranged fighter, the fighter or ranger should be the class you choose. If you want to be a grappler, play a barbarian, not a smite pounding paladin. Choose the character you want to role play at character creation. If you want to be an evil paladin, be an oathbreaker. Don't use "that's what my character would do" as an excuse to ruin the game. That's a problem with a different type of character. It's also the reason a lot of DMs don't allow evil characters.
My attitude is crits are not that common and crits when it really matters are even less common, let them be awesome.
I don't think its a good idea to put every class into a small box. Give them a tool kit it should be broad and allow characters to play in a variety of ways. They should focus on balance and not how some dude in a office 2,000 miles away can tell you how to play a class.