You can do it with tomelock too, by picking up Shillelagh. With feats on the table now and IIRC being able to pick your casting stat, you can pick up Shillelagh with a feat. You'd be limited on your mastery properties, but it is an option.
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.
I mean, even if you manage to finesse your way into using CHA for your weapon attacks, you can't completely dump STR if you plan to wear Heavy Armor; at best you can use Medium instead and still need to have a DEX score of 14 for a lower AC. The theoretical possibility of people tacking together separate class features or feats into an optimized build that will at best only slightly redistribute your stats seems like a flimsy basis for saying Paladins should stop using CHA for Aura, or features in general. Finding some way to keep a one level dip into Warlock from giving the feature and leaving Magic Initiate as-is solves the problem much better than nerfing a Paladin feature.
I mean, even if you manage to finesse your way into using CHA for your weapon attacks, you can't completely dump STR if you plan to wear Heavy Armor; at best you can use Medium instead and still need to have a DEX score of 14 for a lower AC.
Lack of reason to invest in strength is a legit problem with the 2024 paladin, but not because of heavy armor; it's problem because it mostly kills synergy with PAM/GWM, and without those feats there's not much reason to use strength based weapons.
Umm, have you seen the Masteries the polearms and other big weapons get? Contrary to what people keep insisting, there's little tangible benefit to DEX over STR based on what gets the mod, and Cleave and Graze are easily the best Mastery options to improve DPR. Besides, PAM and GWM seriously needed to be nerfed, and arguably they still work with Paladin if you want to be something besides a spambot for Smites.
Umm, have you seen the Masteries the polearms and other big weapons get? Contrary to what people keep insisting, there's little tangible benefit to DEX over STR based on what gets the mod, and Cleave and Graze are easily the best Mastery options to improve DPR. Besides, PAM and GWM seriously needed to be nerfed, and arguably they still work with Paladin if you want to be something besides a spambot for Smites.
The main difference is strength gets cleave and graze and sap and dex gets better ranged attacks.
Umm, have you seen the Masteries the polearms and other big weapons get? Contrary to what people keep insisting, there's little tangible benefit to DEX over STR based on what gets the mod, and Cleave and Graze are easily the best Mastery options to improve DPR.
Cleave is good in situations where it applies, particularly if you have static damage bonuses such as improved smite. Graze is something I can't figure out why you think is good. Being able to effectively use a longbow is far more valuable than either of them, and at typical combat durations the initiative difference is actually important.
Umm, have you seen the Masteries the polearms and other big weapons get? Contrary to what people keep insisting, there's little tangible benefit to DEX over STR based on what gets the mod, and Cleave and Graze are easily the best Mastery options to improve DPR.
Cleave is good in situations where it applies, particularly if you have static damage bonuses such as improved smite. Graze is something I can't figure out why you think is good. Being able to effectively use a longbow is far more valuable than either of them.
Because the circumstances where a longbow is useful but a melee weapon isn't aren't nearly as common or useful as the "DEX is OP" bloc makes it out to be, and how do you think that literally guaranteeing damage on every attack is better than attacking with a weaker weapon die? Besides, Paladins can't Smite with ranged weapons in any case, so it's fairly pointless to discuss them in the context of what's good for Paladins.
The fantasy I imagine around Paladins (actually both half-casters) is somewhat closer to a Witcher. It's not necessarily big flashy spell casting that sorcerers in that universe can utilize, but rather practical spell casting of lesser nature that complements their martial prowess instead of substituting it. Breadth of options is nice, but the neat part is that parties seldom consists of 1 or 2 people. So there's a very good chance that there is some overlap between the half-caster's options and someone else in the party. Therefore your breadth of options seldom bears fruit as someone else is often better at doing it
Have you played or read the Witcher? Witchers have half-baked spellcasting that they alternate between with weapon strikes on different turns to make use of tactics like strafe-ing, using terrain to their advantage, triggering monster weaknesses, or momentary battlefield control. In the Witcher universe, witchers are routinely ridiculed by true sorcerers for their limited abilities with magic.
I have read the Last Wish, and played Witcher 3. We don't talk about the TV series. I don't know what you mean about taking turns, but in the book, Geralt uses signs in tandem with weapon attacks a few times. And I know that Sorceresses in that universe look down on the Witchers. That doesn't change that Witchers utilize magic during their sword fighting to gain some advantages. Because of the speed in DnD, you cannot really make much use of many effects or conditions without either making the effect last longer (and become extremely powerful) or you have to be confined within your own turn. The prone condition is my favorite to bring up as the condition is neutralized rather trivially in 5e.
I mean, even if you manage to finesse your way into using CHA for your weapon attacks, you can't completely dump STR if you plan to wear Heavy Armor; at best you can use Medium instead and still need to have a DEX score of 14 for a lower AC. The theoretical possibility of people tacking together separate class features or feats into an optimized build that will at best only slightly redistribute your stats seems like a flimsy basis for saying Paladins should stop using CHA for Aura, or features in general. Finding some way to keep a one level dip into Warlock from giving the feature and leaving Magic Initiate as-is solves the problem much better than nerfing a Paladin feature.
Depending on whether they return the feat Eldritch Adept in the 2024 PHB, you can do it with just that, picking up Pact of the Blade that lets your Paladin use CHA for weapon swings. And if not, multiclassing is optional but I believe most groups should allow it, and it's just a 1 level dip into Warlock. (This could obviously be reasons to lock the Pact invocations deeper within Warlock somehow, at all the expense that is associated with)
Pact of the Blade extends to the Graze mastery, so you never need to invest in STR beyond your desire for armor. The Cleave mastery property doesn't utilize your ability modifier.
And lets be real: What's the difference between a 15 STR plate armor wielder and a 10 STR plate armor wielder? 10 ft. of movement and worse ability checks - once we hit lvl 6 the saving throws are taken care of. Picking up the Mobile feat fixes that issue and effectively "buys" you 5 stats worth of points. So your point-buy array can look something like 10 STR/14 DEX/14 CON/8 INT/10 WIS/15 CHA. Picking up DEX for the initiative bonus - at which point we could also just opt for Half-Plate and forego the feat requirement entirely at the cost of 1 AC compared to Full Plate. Strength as a whole don't have that much incentive once you remove the weapon attack dependency, kinda similar to how intelligence works for Wizard but you get all the neat bonuses to knowledge checks. Strength checks are... not terribly useful.
The cost to not invest in CON is poor concentration checks if you happen to take damage - even with high AC you're likely to take some damage from breath weapons, AoEs, saving-throw magics - the higher CR you go the more likely the enemy will deal damage to you somehow. Not to mention that CON saves is one of the most common saves throughout the game. Not investing in CON would mean that such a Paladin is mostly devoting their spell slots to smiting and not much else as the best uses of Paladin spell slots is mostly within concentration-territory.
I get what Panta is going for. The aura can be a significant boost to the paladin and their team's survival on saving throws - making certain control spells near useless against your party as long as they huddle up - in the process becoming vulnerable to AoEs and de-facto be part of the frontline, so choose your battles where you stick to the Paladin wisely. Personally I would love for the aura to more easily affect your allies without piggybacking on the Paladin's back, but at the trade-off that it cannot be as strong. Normally CHA is a secondary stat for Paladin as they don't have the spell slots to become a full-time caster and thus needs to rely on their weapon attacks to be useful to the party. Limiting the power of the aura "frees up" power within the class to put elsewhere. On the other hand it is nice with more incentives to invest in CHA - but if the 2024 PHB would look at adding more control spell options for Paladin or possibly reactive defense spells... that might be covered. Imagine if Paladin (and Cleric, why not) had a spell that functions similarly to the concept of Cleric's Spiritual Weapon but with the effects of Shield - aka you cast it and then you can use it for its duration, no concentration, but it is a magical shield to assist rather than hurt. Whenever a non-hostile creature that you can see within range (including you) is hit by an attack but before the result of the attack is revealed, you can use your reaction to grant that creature a bonus to their AC equal to your spell casting modifier, possibly turning a hit into a miss.
What to do with the aura is a tricky one TBH. I don't feel like the aura is core to the Paladin feel - mainly because of how self-serving the range makes it - so nerfing it is not something I'm going to lament if the class instead gets increases on other areas.
The fantasy I imagine around Paladins (actually both half-casters) is somewhat closer to a Witcher. It's not necessarily big flashy spell casting that sorcerers in that universe can utilize, but rather practical spell casting of lesser nature that complements their martial prowess instead of substituting it. Breadth of options is nice, but the neat part is that parties seldom consists of 1 or 2 people. So there's a very good chance that there is some overlap between the half-caster's options and someone else in the party. Therefore your breadth of options seldom bears fruit as someone else is often better at doing it
Have you played or read the Witcher? Witchers have half-baked spellcasting that they alternate between with weapon strikes on different turns to make use of tactics like strafe-ing, using terrain to their advantage, triggering monster weaknesses, or momentary battlefield control. In the Witcher universe, witchers are routinely ridiculed by true sorcerers for their limited abilities with magic.
I have read the Last Wish, and played Witcher 3. We don't talk about the TV series. I don't know what you mean about taking turns, but in the book, Geralt uses signs in tandem with weapon attacks a few times. And I know that Sorceresses in that universe look down on the Witchers. That doesn't change that Witchers utilize magic during their sword fighting to gain some advantages. Because of the speed in DnD, you cannot really make much use of many effects or conditions without either making the effect last longer (and become extremely powerful) or you have to be confined within your own turn. The prone condition is my favorite to bring up as the condition is neutralized rather trivially in 5e.
Geralt doesn't do both sword & spell at the same time, he alternates between them because they serve distinct purposes. In Witcher 3 the animation time for a spell is at least as long as for a sword combo (i.e. full turn). And if you try to use a spell while an enemy is adjacent to you in Witcher 3 you are going to get hit while you do so because the enemies get effectively a turn while you are casting it. He never does anything akin to Thunderous Smite where spell & sword are combined into a single move. Rather he does thing like: use Thunderwave (aka Aard) to push enemies back and then moving away so they have to spend their next action moving up to him and he can use a potion or do something other than sword swinging, or uses Burning Hands (aka Igni) to trigger weaknesses or hit multiple enemies when fighting a group, or uses Magic Circle (aka Yrden) to avoid having to kill a "monster". Nearly all his spells are about giving himself some breathing room to reposition, or use a potion, to keep a monster where he wants it to be, or to trigger monster weaknesses.
Nearly all conditions in 5e last more than one round, push and prone it is a simple choice to make it last more than 1 round - simply move away from the creature you pushed or proned instead of moving towards it. Most monsters have the same move speed you do, so when in the face of an enemy, push it back 10 feet then using your full movement to move away will force it to Dash to get back into melee with you, same goes for prone. Knock it prone, move away, and watch it have to use it's next turn to Dash to get back to you.
Problem is, D&D players don't play like Geralt, not that the rules don't allow you to make Geralt (a Ranger with a Wizard or Alchemist Dip would be extremely close to Geralt). Geralt primarily uses his fast reflexes & movement speed to gain advantage in combat, he never ever just stands still next to a monster, and most of the time he lets the monster come to him. Whereas the majority of melee players in D&D run up to enemies and then just stand next to them and let the monsters hit them.
I have read the Last Wish, and played Witcher 3. We don't talk about the TV series. I don't know what you mean about taking turns, but in the book, Geralt uses signs in tandem with weapon attacks a few times. And I know that Sorceresses in that universe look down on the Witchers. That doesn't change that Witchers utilize magic during their sword fighting to gain some advantages. Because of the speed in DnD, you cannot really make much use of many effects or conditions without either making the effect last longer (and become extremely powerful) or you have to be confined within your own turn. The prone condition is my favorite to bring up as the condition is neutralized rather trivially in 5e.
Even in the Witcher Geralt isn't really casting magic while attacking, it's just another type of attack for him, which is why it's quite a difficult thing to work into D&D with the way actions work and most classes only having two attacks per turn. If you want to cast as you attack then actually Battlemaster could be a better fit in some way as while it's not mechanically magical, nothing stops you from flavouring it as using "signs" to knock a target down, bolster your defence etc., and the damage that superiority adds, plus the speed of the Fighter, very much suits a Witcher-like.
With the UA changes Paladin also does work better now that the smite spells are actually things you might want to spend a spell slot on; most are bonus actions so they don't cost you any attacks, and the effects are all pretty good. While these too are riders on top of attacks, again nothing stops you from narrating it as some kind of quick magic you do mixed in with the attacking.
To "properly" represent a Witcher you'd really need a Fighter sub-class that can swap attacks for stronger magical (or magic-like) effects than the Battlemaster, but not quite the true spellcasting of an Eldritch Knight, but given we already have both of those it's a difficult niche to argue the need for.
Personally though if I were thinking of a "Witcher" class I'd say it should be more the Ranger than the Paladin; Paladin is much more your heavily armoured divine knight who mixes Fighter and Cleric, and it's really pretty dang solid at both as a Paladin without any spell slots is still a decent warrior, and it doesn't need slots for healing or support. Plus Ranger is (supposed to be) all about tracking etc.
Ranger is (or should be) the more mobile, adaptable half-caster, and there's more room in that for a sub-class that could mix in more active magic casting between attacks IMO, which could be as simple as giving a sub-class access to more of the Paladin's smite spells (though that's a little boring as a way to do it). I've tried to build a Witcher-like before and ended up using Gloom Stalker as I felt it captured the "feeling" the best with its extra speed and attack in the first round, and Ranger's access to magic gives some other options, here's a copy of what I came up with at the time. I haven't really had a go at trying to do the same with UA options – it's a lot easier to mess around with ideas when something is fully implemented in D&D Beyond. 😉
Also I enjoyed the first season of the Witcher TV series, it's just a shame they shat the bed with seasons two and three, and then doubled down on everything they'd done wrong with the Blood Oranges spin-off which absolutely, relentlessly terrible from start to finish.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I mean, even if you manage to finesse your way into using CHA for your weapon attacks, you can't completely dump STR if you plan to wear Heavy Armor; at best you can use Medium instead and still need to have a DEX score of 14 for a lower AC. The theoretical possibility of people tacking together separate class features or feats into an optimized build that will at best only slightly redistribute your stats seems like a flimsy basis for saying Paladins should stop using CHA for Aura, or features in general. Finding some way to keep a one level dip into Warlock from giving the feature and leaving Magic Initiate as-is solves the problem much better than nerfing a Paladin feature.
heavy armor is overrated. I would 100% rather have a 14 dex, and medium armor for 1 less AC than I would heavy armor. 14 dex is much higher value than 15 str, unless I need the str to make my attacks with.
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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.
I mean, even if you manage to finesse your way into using CHA for your weapon attacks, you can't completely dump STR if you plan to wear Heavy Armor; at best you can use Medium instead and still need to have a DEX score of 14 for a lower AC. The theoretical possibility of people tacking together separate class features or feats into an optimized build that will at best only slightly redistribute your stats seems like a flimsy basis for saying Paladins should stop using CHA for Aura, or features in general. Finding some way to keep a one level dip into Warlock from giving the feature and leaving Magic Initiate as-is solves the problem much better than nerfing a Paladin feature.
heavy armor is overrated. I would 100% rather have a 14 dex, and medium armor for 1 less AC than I would heavy armor. 14 dex is much higher value than 15 str, unless I need the str to make my attacks with.
So you’ll save yourself a whole 1 ability point for less AC, a slight increase in turn order on average, and slightly better performance on DEX saves for a class that already has strong saves and has an extremely efficient independent healing mechanic that’s becoming a bonus action? If “whelmed” was sea level, my impression of this prospect would be at crush depth. There’s superficial gains in an abstract white room way, but the actual practical impact on performance seems negligible at best.
I mean, even if you manage to finesse your way into using CHA for your weapon attacks, you can't completely dump STR if you plan to wear Heavy Armor; at best you can use Medium instead and still need to have a DEX score of 14 for a lower AC. The theoretical possibility of people tacking together separate class features or feats into an optimized build that will at best only slightly redistribute your stats seems like a flimsy basis for saying Paladins should stop using CHA for Aura, or features in general. Finding some way to keep a one level dip into Warlock from giving the feature and leaving Magic Initiate as-is solves the problem much better than nerfing a Paladin feature.
heavy armor is overrated. I would 100% rather have a 14 dex, and medium armor for 1 less AC than I would heavy armor. 14 dex is much higher value than 15 str, unless I need the str to make my attacks with.
Heavy Armor means you can dump Dex down to 10 or even 8 without tanking your AC. For a class like paladin that wants high Str, Con and Cha, that's a great build option, especially since we can smite with thrown weapons now. (Divine Smite says "with a melee weapon" but several melee weapons have the Thrown property.)
Yes, Dex is a god stat, but when you have as strong defenses as a paladin does you don't need to go first.
I mean, even if you manage to finesse your way into using CHA for your weapon attacks, you can't completely dump STR if you plan to wear Heavy Armor; at best you can use Medium instead and still need to have a DEX score of 14 for a lower AC. The theoretical possibility of people tacking together separate class features or feats into an optimized build that will at best only slightly redistribute your stats seems like a flimsy basis for saying Paladins should stop using CHA for Aura, or features in general. Finding some way to keep a one level dip into Warlock from giving the feature and leaving Magic Initiate as-is solves the problem much better than nerfing a Paladin feature.
heavy armor is overrated. I would 100% rather have a 14 dex, and medium armor for 1 less AC than I would heavy armor. 14 dex is much higher value than 15 str, unless I need the str to make my attacks with.
In the proposed you got Chr to be your attack stat you are right. A straight paladin build though, going with strength and heavy armor is the better option.
I mean, even if you manage to finesse your way into using CHA for your weapon attacks, you can't completely dump STR if you plan to wear Heavy Armor; at best you can use Medium instead and still need to have a DEX score of 14 for a lower AC. The theoretical possibility of people tacking together separate class features or feats into an optimized build that will at best only slightly redistribute your stats seems like a flimsy basis for saying Paladins should stop using CHA for Aura, or features in general. Finding some way to keep a one level dip into Warlock from giving the feature and leaving Magic Initiate as-is solves the problem much better than nerfing a Paladin feature.
heavy armor is overrated. I would 100% rather have a 14 dex, and medium armor for 1 less AC than I would heavy armor. 14 dex is much higher value than 15 str, unless I need the str to make my attacks with.
So you’ll save yourself a whole 1 ability point for less AC, a slight increase in turn order on average, and slightly better performance on DEX saves for a class that already has strong saves and has an extremely efficient independent healing mechanic that’s becoming a bonus action? If “whelmed” was sea level, my impression of this prospect would be at crush depth. There’s superficial gains in an abstract white room way, but the actual practical impact on performance seems negligible at best.
That ability point on point buy going from 14 to 15 is 2 points, that saves some dumping in other stats. And on top of that if Charisma is your attack stat, getting 15 strength just for AC seems off. Unless you plan on grappling or something its really not doing anything for you other than wearing armor. So its 1 less AC for higher initiative, 2 stat points to spread, a wider range of skills, leaving stealth as an option etc. You are not crippling yourself by going heavy armor, the differences are fairly small, but the dex medium armor route is a bit better if you manage to get charisma as your attack stat. I'd likely still go strength just as it feels right for a paladin to be in plate.
I wish strength did more, but it just doesn't do much in D&D. .
I mean, even if you manage to finesse your way into using CHA for your weapon attacks, you can't completely dump STR if you plan to wear Heavy Armor; at best you can use Medium instead and still need to have a DEX score of 14 for a lower AC. The theoretical possibility of people tacking together separate class features or feats into an optimized build that will at best only slightly redistribute your stats seems like a flimsy basis for saying Paladins should stop using CHA for Aura, or features in general. Finding some way to keep a one level dip into Warlock from giving the feature and leaving Magic Initiate as-is solves the problem much better than nerfing a Paladin feature.
heavy armor is overrated. I would 100% rather have a 14 dex, and medium armor for 1 less AC than I would heavy armor. 14 dex is much higher value than 15 str, unless I need the str to make my attacks with.
So you’ll save yourself a whole 1 ability point for less AC, a slight increase in turn order on average, and slightly better performance on DEX saves for a class that already has strong saves and has an extremely efficient independent healing mechanic that’s becoming a bonus action? If “whelmed” was sea level, my impression of this prospect would be at crush depth. There’s superficial gains in an abstract white room way, but the actual practical impact on performance seems negligible at best.
That ability point on point buy going from 14 to 15 is 2 points, that saves some dumping in other stats. And on top of that if Charisma is your attack stat, getting 15 strength just for AC seems off. Unless you plan on grappling or something its really not doing anything for you other than wearing armor. So its 1 less AC for higher initiative, 2 stat points to spread, a wider range of skills, leaving stealth as an option etc. You are not crippling yourself by going heavy armor, the differences are fairly small, but the dex medium armor route is a bit better if you manage to get charisma as your attack stat. I'd likely still go strength just as it feels right for a paladin to be in plate.
I wish strength did more, but it just doesn't do much in D&D. .
The point spread is again nominal, particularly if you have to get DEX to 14; Paladins don’t get DEX as class skills and there’s generally someone else in the party who will do them better so there’s little incentive to take them for your background, and a +1 bump to a mental stat for skills is nice but not game-changing. Someone who’s set on it might as well go for it, but this all is distinctly less paradigm-breaking than it gets made out to be, from everything I can see.
I'm taking the charisma skills on my paladin anyways, particularly if I am doing to SAD it up.
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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.
Which arrives at the point that ability score influence on skills is honestly overrated after you make your initial array; the +1 at level 4 and again at level 8 only slightly improve performance. There's a reason they shifted from skill points to proficiency bonus and made Expertise a thing for the skill monkey classes. Particularly as skills are rolled relatively infrequently in most games and are more heavily dependent on individual rolls, so your +5 or +10% from making CHA the main stat doesn't hold as much practical sway in that context as it does on attacks and saves. You will average higher rolls across the breadth of your campaign, but in the moment itself I find the die has much more sway over non-expert skills than ability mods. I can't recall if I said it here or in a different thread, but the crux of the issue isn't that switching to CHA gives you no benefits at all, it's that the benefits are marginal, not paradigm changing. The "incentive" to pursue this is honestly more based on perceptions than substantial mechanical benefits. Which isn't to say the multiclass doesn't lend itself to some high-powered builds; dip one more level and you've now at least 3 extra spell slots for Smiting, two of which return on a Short Rest. Just that using CHA as your weapon stat doesn't actually alter the balance of power by much.
I mean, even if you manage to finesse your way into using CHA for your weapon attacks, you can't completely dump STR if you plan to wear Heavy Armor; at best you can use Medium instead and still need to have a DEX score of 14 for a lower AC. The theoretical possibility of people tacking together separate class features or feats into an optimized build that will at best only slightly redistribute your stats seems like a flimsy basis for saying Paladins should stop using CHA for Aura, or features in general. Finding some way to keep a one level dip into Warlock from giving the feature and leaving Magic Initiate as-is solves the problem much better than nerfing a Paladin feature.
heavy armor is overrated. I would 100% rather have a 14 dex, and medium armor for 1 less AC than I would heavy armor. 14 dex is much higher value than 15 str, unless I need the str to make my attacks with.
So you’ll save yourself a whole 1 ability point for less AC, a slight increase in turn order on average, and slightly better performance on DEX saves for a class that already has strong saves and has an extremely efficient independent healing mechanic that’s becoming a bonus action? If “whelmed” was sea level, my impression of this prospect would be at crush depth. There’s superficial gains in an abstract white room way, but the actual practical impact on performance seems negligible at best.
That ability point on point buy going from 14 to 15 is 2 points, that saves some dumping in other stats. And on top of that if Charisma is your attack stat, getting 15 strength just for AC seems off. Unless you plan on grappling or something its really not doing anything for you other than wearing armor. So its 1 less AC for higher initiative, 2 stat points to spread, a wider range of skills, leaving stealth as an option etc. You are not crippling yourself by going heavy armor, the differences are fairly small, but the dex medium armor route is a bit better if you manage to get charisma as your attack stat. I'd likely still go strength just as it feels right for a paladin to be in plate.
I wish strength did more, but it just doesn't do much in D&D. .
The point spread is again nominal, particularly if you have to get DEX to 14; Paladins don’t get DEX as class skills and there’s generally someone else in the party who will do them better so there’s little incentive to take them for your background, and a +1 bump to a mental stat for skills is nice but not game-changing. Someone who’s set on it might as well go for it, but this all is distinctly less paradigm-breaking than it gets made out to be, from everything I can see.
I did say it was fairly minor. It is technically more optimal unless you have plans for strength outside armor. But it really doesn't make much of a difference. One is just a bit more optimized.
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You can do it with tomelock too, by picking up Shillelagh. With feats on the table now and IIRC being able to pick your casting stat, you can pick up Shillelagh with a feat. You'd be limited on your mastery properties, but it is an option.
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
I mean, even if you manage to finesse your way into using CHA for your weapon attacks, you can't completely dump STR if you plan to wear Heavy Armor; at best you can use Medium instead and still need to have a DEX score of 14 for a lower AC. The theoretical possibility of people tacking together separate class features or feats into an optimized build that will at best only slightly redistribute your stats seems like a flimsy basis for saying Paladins should stop using CHA for Aura, or features in general. Finding some way to keep a one level dip into Warlock from giving the feature and leaving Magic Initiate as-is solves the problem much better than nerfing a Paladin feature.
Lack of reason to invest in strength is a legit problem with the 2024 paladin, but not because of heavy armor; it's problem because it mostly kills synergy with PAM/GWM, and without those feats there's not much reason to use strength based weapons.
Umm, have you seen the Masteries the polearms and other big weapons get? Contrary to what people keep insisting, there's little tangible benefit to DEX over STR based on what gets the mod, and Cleave and Graze are easily the best Mastery options to improve DPR. Besides, PAM and GWM seriously needed to be nerfed, and arguably they still work with Paladin if you want to be something besides a spambot for Smites.
The main difference is strength gets cleave and graze and sap and dex gets better ranged attacks.
Cleave is good in situations where it applies, particularly if you have static damage bonuses such as improved smite. Graze is something I can't figure out why you think is good. Being able to effectively use a longbow is far more valuable than either of them, and at typical combat durations the initiative difference is actually important.
Because the circumstances where a longbow is useful but a melee weapon isn't aren't nearly as common or useful as the "DEX is OP" bloc makes it out to be, and how do you think that literally guaranteeing damage on every attack is better than attacking with a weaker weapon die? Besides, Paladins can't Smite with ranged weapons in any case, so it's fairly pointless to discuss them in the context of what's good for Paladins.
I have read the Last Wish, and played Witcher 3. We don't talk about the TV series. I don't know what you mean about taking turns, but in the book, Geralt uses signs in tandem with weapon attacks a few times. And I know that Sorceresses in that universe look down on the Witchers. That doesn't change that Witchers utilize magic during their sword fighting to gain some advantages. Because of the speed in DnD, you cannot really make much use of many effects or conditions without either making the effect last longer (and become extremely powerful) or you have to be confined within your own turn. The prone condition is my favorite to bring up as the condition is neutralized rather trivially in 5e.
Depending on whether they return the feat Eldritch Adept in the 2024 PHB, you can do it with just that, picking up Pact of the Blade that lets your Paladin use CHA for weapon swings. And if not, multiclassing is optional but I believe most groups should allow it, and it's just a 1 level dip into Warlock. (This could obviously be reasons to lock the Pact invocations deeper within Warlock somehow, at all the expense that is associated with)
Pact of the Blade extends to the Graze mastery, so you never need to invest in STR beyond your desire for armor. The Cleave mastery property doesn't utilize your ability modifier.
And lets be real: What's the difference between a 15 STR plate armor wielder and a 10 STR plate armor wielder? 10 ft. of movement and worse ability checks - once we hit lvl 6 the saving throws are taken care of. Picking up the Mobile feat fixes that issue and effectively "buys" you 5 stats worth of points. So your point-buy array can look something like 10 STR/14 DEX/14 CON/8 INT/10 WIS/15 CHA. Picking up DEX for the initiative bonus - at which point we could also just opt for Half-Plate and forego the feat requirement entirely at the cost of 1 AC compared to Full Plate. Strength as a whole don't have that much incentive once you remove the weapon attack dependency, kinda similar to how intelligence works for Wizard but you get all the neat bonuses to knowledge checks. Strength checks are... not terribly useful.
The cost to not invest in CON is poor concentration checks if you happen to take damage - even with high AC you're likely to take some damage from breath weapons, AoEs, saving-throw magics - the higher CR you go the more likely the enemy will deal damage to you somehow. Not to mention that CON saves is one of the most common saves throughout the game. Not investing in CON would mean that such a Paladin is mostly devoting their spell slots to smiting and not much else as the best uses of Paladin spell slots is mostly within concentration-territory.
I get what Panta is going for. The aura can be a significant boost to the paladin and their team's survival on saving throws - making certain control spells near useless against your party as long as they huddle up - in the process becoming vulnerable to AoEs and de-facto be part of the frontline, so choose your battles where you stick to the Paladin wisely. Personally I would love for the aura to more easily affect your allies without piggybacking on the Paladin's back, but at the trade-off that it cannot be as strong. Normally CHA is a secondary stat for Paladin as they don't have the spell slots to become a full-time caster and thus needs to rely on their weapon attacks to be useful to the party.
Limiting the power of the aura "frees up" power within the class to put elsewhere.
On the other hand it is nice with more incentives to invest in CHA - but if the 2024 PHB would look at adding more control spell options for Paladin or possibly reactive defense spells... that might be covered.
Imagine if Paladin (and Cleric, why not) had a spell that functions similarly to the concept of Cleric's Spiritual Weapon but with the effects of Shield - aka you cast it and then you can use it for its duration, no concentration, but it is a magical shield to assist rather than hurt. Whenever a non-hostile creature that you can see within range (including you) is hit by an attack but before the result of the attack is revealed, you can use your reaction to grant that creature a bonus to their AC equal to your spell casting modifier, possibly turning a hit into a miss.
What to do with the aura is a tricky one TBH. I don't feel like the aura is core to the Paladin feel - mainly because of how self-serving the range makes it - so nerfing it is not something I'm going to lament if the class instead gets increases on other areas.
Geralt doesn't do both sword & spell at the same time, he alternates between them because they serve distinct purposes. In Witcher 3 the animation time for a spell is at least as long as for a sword combo (i.e. full turn). And if you try to use a spell while an enemy is adjacent to you in Witcher 3 you are going to get hit while you do so because the enemies get effectively a turn while you are casting it. He never does anything akin to Thunderous Smite where spell & sword are combined into a single move. Rather he does thing like: use Thunderwave (aka Aard) to push enemies back and then moving away so they have to spend their next action moving up to him and he can use a potion or do something other than sword swinging, or uses Burning Hands (aka Igni) to trigger weaknesses or hit multiple enemies when fighting a group, or uses Magic Circle (aka Yrden) to avoid having to kill a "monster". Nearly all his spells are about giving himself some breathing room to reposition, or use a potion, to keep a monster where he wants it to be, or to trigger monster weaknesses.
Nearly all conditions in 5e last more than one round, push and prone it is a simple choice to make it last more than 1 round - simply move away from the creature you pushed or proned instead of moving towards it. Most monsters have the same move speed you do, so when in the face of an enemy, push it back 10 feet then using your full movement to move away will force it to Dash to get back into melee with you, same goes for prone. Knock it prone, move away, and watch it have to use it's next turn to Dash to get back to you.
Problem is, D&D players don't play like Geralt, not that the rules don't allow you to make Geralt (a Ranger with a Wizard or Alchemist Dip would be extremely close to Geralt). Geralt primarily uses his fast reflexes & movement speed to gain advantage in combat, he never ever just stands still next to a monster, and most of the time he lets the monster come to him. Whereas the majority of melee players in D&D run up to enemies and then just stand next to them and let the monsters hit them.
Even in the Witcher Geralt isn't really casting magic while attacking, it's just another type of attack for him, which is why it's quite a difficult thing to work into D&D with the way actions work and most classes only having two attacks per turn. If you want to cast as you attack then actually Battlemaster could be a better fit in some way as while it's not mechanically magical, nothing stops you from flavouring it as using "signs" to knock a target down, bolster your defence etc., and the damage that superiority adds, plus the speed of the Fighter, very much suits a Witcher-like.
With the UA changes Paladin also does work better now that the smite spells are actually things you might want to spend a spell slot on; most are bonus actions so they don't cost you any attacks, and the effects are all pretty good. While these too are riders on top of attacks, again nothing stops you from narrating it as some kind of quick magic you do mixed in with the attacking.
To "properly" represent a Witcher you'd really need a Fighter sub-class that can swap attacks for stronger magical (or magic-like) effects than the Battlemaster, but not quite the true spellcasting of an Eldritch Knight, but given we already have both of those it's a difficult niche to argue the need for.
Personally though if I were thinking of a "Witcher" class I'd say it should be more the Ranger than the Paladin; Paladin is much more your heavily armoured divine knight who mixes Fighter and Cleric, and it's really pretty dang solid at both as a Paladin without any spell slots is still a decent warrior, and it doesn't need slots for healing or support. Plus Ranger is (supposed to be) all about tracking etc.
Ranger is (or should be) the more mobile, adaptable half-caster, and there's more room in that for a sub-class that could mix in more active magic casting between attacks IMO, which could be as simple as giving a sub-class access to more of the Paladin's smite spells (though that's a little boring as a way to do it). I've tried to build a Witcher-like before and ended up using Gloom Stalker as I felt it captured the "feeling" the best with its extra speed and attack in the first round, and Ranger's access to magic gives some other options, here's a copy of what I came up with at the time. I haven't really had a go at trying to do the same with UA options – it's a lot easier to mess around with ideas when something is fully implemented in D&D Beyond. 😉
Also I enjoyed the first season of the Witcher TV series, it's just a shame they shat the bed with seasons two and three, and then doubled down on everything they'd done wrong with the Blood Oranges spin-off which absolutely, relentlessly terrible from start to finish.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I had a go at creating a Witcher. I used:
Race: Warforged (Witchers are created in order to fight), Skill: Acrobatics, Tools: Alchemist's Tools
Background: Folk Hero
Ranger (Hunter)-6 : Spells = Spike Growth (Yrden-ish), Zephyr Strike (this is their magically enhanced speed & reflexes), Absorb Elements (Quen-ish), Snare (Yrden-ish)
Favourite Enemies : Monstrosities, Undead (Necrophages)
Skills: Perception(Expertise), Survival, Athletics
Fighting Style: Dueling
ASI: +2 Dex
Fighter-4 (Eldritch Knight): Spells = Fire bolt (Igni), Friends (Axii), Burning Hands (Igni), Thunderwave (Aard), Protect G&E (book-Quen), Shield (game-Quen-ish)
Fighting Style: Blind Fighting
ASI: Dex
heavy armor is overrated. I would 100% rather have a 14 dex, and medium armor for 1 less AC than I would heavy armor. 14 dex is much higher value than 15 str, unless I need the str to make my attacks with.
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
So you’ll save yourself a whole 1 ability point for less AC, a slight increase in turn order on average, and slightly better performance on DEX saves for a class that already has strong saves and has an extremely efficient independent healing mechanic that’s becoming a bonus action? If “whelmed” was sea level, my impression of this prospect would be at crush depth. There’s superficial gains in an abstract white room way, but the actual practical impact on performance seems negligible at best.
Heavy Armor means you can dump Dex down to 10 or even 8 without tanking your AC. For a class like paladin that wants high Str, Con and Cha, that's a great build option, especially since we can smite with thrown weapons now. (Divine Smite says "with a melee weapon" but several melee weapons have the Thrown property.)
Yes, Dex is a god stat, but when you have as strong defenses as a paladin does you don't need to go first.
In the proposed you got Chr to be your attack stat you are right. A straight paladin build though, going with strength and heavy armor is the better option.
That ability point on point buy going from 14 to 15 is 2 points, that saves some dumping in other stats. And on top of that if Charisma is your attack stat, getting 15 strength just for AC seems off. Unless you plan on grappling or something its really not doing anything for you other than wearing armor. So its 1 less AC for higher initiative, 2 stat points to spread, a wider range of skills, leaving stealth as an option etc. You are not crippling yourself by going heavy armor, the differences are fairly small, but the dex medium armor route is a bit better if you manage to get charisma as your attack stat. I'd likely still go strength just as it feels right for a paladin to be in plate.
I wish strength did more, but it just doesn't do much in D&D. .
The point spread is again nominal, particularly if you have to get DEX to 14; Paladins don’t get DEX as class skills and there’s generally someone else in the party who will do them better so there’s little incentive to take them for your background, and a +1 bump to a mental stat for skills is nice but not game-changing. Someone who’s set on it might as well go for it, but this all is distinctly less paradigm-breaking than it gets made out to be, from everything I can see.
I'm taking the charisma skills on my paladin anyways, particularly if I am doing to SAD it up.
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
Which arrives at the point that ability score influence on skills is honestly overrated after you make your initial array; the +1 at level 4 and again at level 8 only slightly improve performance. There's a reason they shifted from skill points to proficiency bonus and made Expertise a thing for the skill monkey classes. Particularly as skills are rolled relatively infrequently in most games and are more heavily dependent on individual rolls, so your +5 or +10% from making CHA the main stat doesn't hold as much practical sway in that context as it does on attacks and saves. You will average higher rolls across the breadth of your campaign, but in the moment itself I find the die has much more sway over non-expert skills than ability mods. I can't recall if I said it here or in a different thread, but the crux of the issue isn't that switching to CHA gives you no benefits at all, it's that the benefits are marginal, not paradigm changing. The "incentive" to pursue this is honestly more based on perceptions than substantial mechanical benefits. Which isn't to say the multiclass doesn't lend itself to some high-powered builds; dip one more level and you've now at least 3 extra spell slots for Smiting, two of which return on a Short Rest. Just that using CHA as your weapon stat doesn't actually alter the balance of power by much.
I did say it was fairly minor. It is technically more optimal unless you have plans for strength outside armor. But it really doesn't make much of a difference. One is just a bit more optimized.