I’m a dm for a homebrew adventure, my players main villain as far as they know is an archlich.
I wanted to throw a second villain at them and I wanted it to be a Paladin. I’m trying to figure out what subclass to make him or her. I don’t want to do oath breaker.
Keep in mind that stating up an enemy as a PC generally doesn't work too well. At the very least you'll likely want to double their hit points, at least. You also might need to reduce their damage output compared to a normal PC paladin of their level, though as a conquest paladin that might not be necessary, since conquerors tend to do less damage by default, as they're more likely to spend spell slots on frightening spells rather than spiking out big damage with divine smite.
Otherwise, with divine smites a PC paladin can often do enough damage to drop another PC of their level in a single attack, potentially multiple in a single round with extra attack.
You actually might want to start with an appropriate monster statblock, maybe something like a Narzugon, then swap out individual abilities for relevant abilities from Conquest Paladin. The big ones to grab are Aura of Protection, Aura of Conquest, Frightening Presence, and the ability to cast a handful of useful & thematically appropriate spells, including Command, Wrathful Smite, and depending on the level you're looking to represent, Fear. Additional spells to consider are Armor of Agathys and Spiritual Weapon, but more spells means more book keeping, which isn't always desirable for an enemy stat block, particularly if you plan to throw him against the party in a large group encounter with a bunch of minion soldiers, and/or as a tag team supporting the liche.
On the other hand, if you plan to throw him out as a solo encounter against the whole party, you'll want to raise his HP even more - as much as 4 times or more what he would have as an equivalent leveled PC - and you'll also want to give him legendary saves, legendary actions, maybe lair actions, maybe more attacks and so on, so that he's not completely overwhelmed in terms of action economy.
The other thing to watch out for is a PC paladin. If you don't have a party paladin you can ignore this bit, but if you do have a paladin in the party then once they hit level 10 they'll have an aura that makes them and nearby allies immune to frighten, which can take a lot of wind out of an enemy conqueror's sails. That doesn't mean you shouldn't use a conquest paladin antagonist - if anything you should be rewarding a paladin who stayed with the class instead of multiclassing out, and I'd encourage you to make sure they have some encounters with the dude before hitting level 10 so that they can really appreciate the aura when it comes online. Maybe have the guy open with 'conquering presence' and 'fear' in an earlier encounter to lock down the party and prevent their escape, then have his allies knock the party out instead of killing them for a classic 'escape the dungeon' adventure.
Regardless, once it's time for the actual big fight with him, if you have a level 10+ paladin in the party you'll need to put in some extra work to make sure the final encounter with your dark knight isn't anticlimactic. Make sure some enemy minions have AOE damage effects to make bunching up around the party paladin more of a trade-off. Maybe add in some tricky terrain and or forced movement from environmental effects, traps, or enemy actions to push the party out of position exposing some of them to the conqueror's frighten abilities. Even something as simple as the conqueror ordering some minions to 'shove' instead of attack to try to force party members out of aura range of their paladin.
I’m a dm for a homebrew adventure, my players main villain as far as they know is an archlich.
I wanted to throw a second villain at them and I wanted it to be a Paladin. I’m trying to figure out what subclass to make him or her. I don’t want to do oath breaker.
Suggestions would be helpful?
Also God’s they might serve?
To me that screams Conquest Paladin.
He/she could serve an Arch Devil or a Demon
Sounds perfect
Conquest Paladin is good.
Keep in mind that stating up an enemy as a PC generally doesn't work too well. At the very least you'll likely want to double their hit points, at least. You also might need to reduce their damage output compared to a normal PC paladin of their level, though as a conquest paladin that might not be necessary, since conquerors tend to do less damage by default, as they're more likely to spend spell slots on frightening spells rather than spiking out big damage with divine smite.
Otherwise, with divine smites a PC paladin can often do enough damage to drop another PC of their level in a single attack, potentially multiple in a single round with extra attack.
You actually might want to start with an appropriate monster statblock, maybe something like a Narzugon, then swap out individual abilities for relevant abilities from Conquest Paladin. The big ones to grab are Aura of Protection, Aura of Conquest, Frightening Presence, and the ability to cast a handful of useful & thematically appropriate spells, including Command, Wrathful Smite, and depending on the level you're looking to represent, Fear. Additional spells to consider are Armor of Agathys and Spiritual Weapon, but more spells means more book keeping, which isn't always desirable for an enemy stat block, particularly if you plan to throw him against the party in a large group encounter with a bunch of minion soldiers, and/or as a tag team supporting the liche.
On the other hand, if you plan to throw him out as a solo encounter against the whole party, you'll want to raise his HP even more - as much as 4 times or more what he would have as an equivalent leveled PC - and you'll also want to give him legendary saves, legendary actions, maybe lair actions, maybe more attacks and so on, so that he's not completely overwhelmed in terms of action economy.
The other thing to watch out for is a PC paladin. If you don't have a party paladin you can ignore this bit, but if you do have a paladin in the party then once they hit level 10 they'll have an aura that makes them and nearby allies immune to frighten, which can take a lot of wind out of an enemy conqueror's sails. That doesn't mean you shouldn't use a conquest paladin antagonist - if anything you should be rewarding a paladin who stayed with the class instead of multiclassing out, and I'd encourage you to make sure they have some encounters with the dude before hitting level 10 so that they can really appreciate the aura when it comes online. Maybe have the guy open with 'conquering presence' and 'fear' in an earlier encounter to lock down the party and prevent their escape, then have his allies knock the party out instead of killing them for a classic 'escape the dungeon' adventure.
Regardless, once it's time for the actual big fight with him, if you have a level 10+ paladin in the party you'll need to put in some extra work to make sure the final encounter with your dark knight isn't anticlimactic. Make sure some enemy minions have AOE damage effects to make bunching up around the party paladin more of a trade-off. Maybe add in some tricky terrain and or forced movement from environmental effects, traps, or enemy actions to push the party out of position exposing some of them to the conqueror's frighten abilities. Even something as simple as the conqueror ordering some minions to 'shove' instead of attack to try to force party members out of aura range of their paladin.
On the other hand, sometimes the anti-climactic fights make for the best stories.
Think One Punch Man.