Baldur's Gate 3: Paladin Class Overview

foreign [Music] what's going on everybody mortum here this time continuing our Baldur's Gate 3 class overview series with the Paladin often seen as a righteous Crusader both heavily armed and proficient in melee to say the least or a protector of the downtrodden and the weak but the thing about beacons of light is that they inherently cast Shadows which is where the opportunity for potentially more Sinister underpinnings come into play that said while this video will be focusing on the class fantasy of a palette and some of the things you can do with it alongside the class mechanics specifically how they relate to Baldur's Gate 3. it's important to mention that they have made some changes from The Source material here that in some ways limit the role playing a little bit because the role-playing involved with the Paladin is fairly substantial especially with the ttrpg so understand a lot of this isn't a one-for-one translation in some ways I think that is better and other ways somewhat worse to be honest I want to kick this video off like the others with the class fantasy of a paladin now historically paladins have been on the side of righteousness and were required to be lawful good as part of being a paladin you see this a lot in earlier editions of DnD where there is a literal alignment associated with the Paladin class which is lawful good however 5th edition d d in particular worked to move away from the alignment system alongside even complete Devotion to a deity here and while a lot of that still exists which we'll talk about in just a second I think it's important when you're talking about a paladin in 5th edition d d to understand that for the sake of capturing the Nuance of what a paladin is or can be a fair amount of that has been Stripped Away so to speak it is very possible albeit rare for a paladin to be very much so evil with that in mind let's talk about the overview of it here very much so paladins are at least the vast majority of them Defenders of the week and beacons of holy righteousness who attempt to meet out Justice to Sinners and fight evil wherever it may be typically speaking this power is granted by a deity and depending upon the oath they swear the exact nature of their service and the morality of it can differ quite a bit but again for the most part this is a class that pushes you towards being righteous and everything that goes along with that while at the same time being heavily armored and dealing quite a bit of damage which plays pretty well into that standard holy Warrior archetype but being a paladin is more than that their dedication to their oath is very much so an almost holy act and it is in keeping with the tenants of said oath that they gain their power and can manifest the Divine powers granted to them so simply being a warrior who believes in a deity in the Forgotten Realms isn't enough to truly be a paladin however much of that is relevant to both lawful good or potential a much more evil characters now depending on the oath you swear is what is going to change a lot of it and this is where I think the role play of Baldur's Gate 3 can actually be a little more limiting than the tabletop because with the tabletop versions you're able to adjust say like an oath of Devotion to be more tailored towards something a bit more Sinister or an evil Paladin just right out of the gate that's not really an option in a video game which will lead into how we become a sort of evil Paladin in Baldur's Gate 3 but at the base of it a paladin is a warrior for a deity that follows a strict code of conduct known as a sacred oath the deity you serve and how important that is to you is largely up to you for role-playing purposes even in Baldur's Gate 3 we don't actually pick a deity and I'm not sure if that will be added on launch or not so most of that is going to be role play but your ability to keep up with the Oaths and actually uphold them is important so with that in mind let's start talking a bit how this works mechanically in Baldur's Gate 3. first up we're going to be talking about our general information just as a paladin in general what you need to know in terms of stats and armor proficiency our primary stats are going to be strength followed very closely by Charisma though depending on if you multi-class you do have a little bit of leeway here but in very general terms strength and Charisma are what are most important and then proficiency wise we are proficient with all armor light medium and heavy on top of Shields and simple and martial weapons so we'll be able to use most all the equipment right out of the gate as a paladin which is why most of them are heavily armored but now let's actually talk about these sacred Oaths ultimately there will be four in Baldur's Gate three three of them are in Early Access and one will be added later with the actual launch these are the oath of devotion ancients Vengeance or the last one oath breaker which is to say you didn't uphold your oath which means your power with that oath was taken from you and replaced with something else while I won't go over every single power available to every single oath as the role play I think in this instance is more important the oath can be divided into a few important things one the tenants that is required to uphold them an oath of devotion Paladin for instance is bound to uphold the ideals of Justice virtue and simply order so doing things that would go against that would strip you of your oath the oath of the Ancients is more about mercy and being a Beacon of Hope to the desperate as an example which is a subtle difference but still important but then we have things like the oath of Vengeance which are more about swearing to take vengeance upon those who have committed especially Grievous sins this particular oath is less about protecting the weak and upholding righteousness as it is punishing wrongdoers Beyond just the tenets however these Oaths will grant us individual Powers as they are effectively our subclasses for starters each oath will grant you a small list of extra spells as paladins are half casters how however each oath also gives us the ability to channel our oath in the tabletop version this is known as Channel Divinity and in Baldur's Gate 3 it is known as channeling oath this will give you a variety of powers and this is probably a good time to mention that Baldur's Gate 3 has a pretty big variance in how you choose an oath when you level up here versus the tabletop version in Baldur's Gate 3 you pick a subclass right at level 1 or at least an oath to uphold which will give you a couple of small features right out of the gate in the tabletop version you actually don't pick your subclass until Level 3 is a paladin so many of our abilities that come with channeling our oath we still don't get until level three even though we pick the oath right at level 1 and get some small powers to go with it that are separate channeling our oath usually gives us one of a couple different options that at the cost of some action type or another will grant you some unique effect which will vary by oath for instance the oath of Vengeance can Channel Divinity to gain advance on attack rolls against a target for one minute or until it drops whereas the oath of the Ancients can potentially allow you to channel nature to restrain enemies with vines various little things like that and then at level 7 in addition to our normal class mechanics each oath you take will provide you an aura of some sort for the oath of devotion this is the aura of devotion which makes sure that allies within 10 feet of you can't reach harmed as long as you're conscious whereas the oath of the Ancients gives us resistance to damage from spells to you and everyone within 10 feet of you oath of Vengeance however gives you something else for level 7 called Relentless Avenger which lets you move a bit after making an opportunity attack that said now I want to talk about Oath breaker very specifically because in Baldur's Gate 3 it is absolutely possible to break your oath and because we have to pick one of the Oaths available to us right at the beginning we're kind of immediately role-playing as a good Paladin no matter how you spin it and then you have to make the conscious decision if you want to be an evil Paladin to do something that would break your oath like say kill someone or steal or lie to someone Swear to protect them and then kill them just generally evil things to do it will vary a little bit by what oath you took specifically but generally just be evil and you'll wind up breaking it however you have two options at this point you can perform a Penance of sorts by paying the oath breaker Knight who shows up when you break your oath which will restore your oath and thus your powers or you can let the oath breaker Knight remake you as an oath breaker Paladin opening up our fourth subclass which will grant you abilities and spells more befitting of someone who is no longer upholding their sacred oath but rather having fallen to Darkness and while I think this is very cool I do think it undercuts some of the potential role-playing of just immediately playing a paladin that is simply working for an evil deity which isn't a big limitation but it is there from there though let's talk about the rest of the paladins class mechanics because really we're kind of just getting into it right out of the gate a paladin will be able to use Divine sense and lay on hands lay on hands allows us to either heal someone or cure poison or disease at the cost of lay on hands charges how many times you can do this and how effective it is will increase as you level up but then we have Divine sense Divine sense is actually reworked from the tabletop version in the tabletop version Divine sense is simply the ability to detect Celestial or fiendish creatures and know exactly what type of fiend or Angel it is you can also even detect places that have been consecrated or desecrated however in Baldur's Gate 3 what this actually allows you to do is gain advantage on your attack rolls against celestials fiends or Undead which simply makes them easier to hit so a bit different there though arguably more useful in a video game now at second level paladins also get to pick one of four fighting styles either defense dueling great weapon fighting or protection these are going to let you specialize in a type of fighting and also gain benefits for doing so defense simply gives you a plus one to AC dueling gives you a plus two to damage rolls if you're using a one-handed weapon and nothing in your offhand great weapon fighting will actually re-roll any one or two damage dice you roll with a two-handed weapon equipped though just once so if you roll it one twice in a row it still sucks and then there is protection if you are wielding a shield and an ally nearby is attacked you can force the enemy to take disadvantage on the role against that enemy but we're not done yet with second level because second level is also when paladins gain access to the first bit of their spell casting for the most part paladins are very similar to a cleric in terms of spell casting they gain all their Spells at once they simply have to prepare the ones that they want to use for the day so they are prepared casters however we will only get up to fifth level spells with a paladin at a maximum and specifically with Baldur's Gate 3's level 12 cap we're only going to get up to third level spells however while the spell casting is useful in many circumstances sure what you're more likely to be using those spell slots for is divine Smite at second level as well when they gain their spell casting paladins can when they hit a creature with a melee weapon attack expend one of their spell slots to deal radiant damage to that Target in addition to the regular hit this is 2d8 initially but as you start learning higher spell slots you can expend higher level spells thoughts like a second or third level one to increase that damage by another d8 though this does max out at 5d8 however you get another 1d8 if the target is Undead or a fiend now in Baldur's Gate 3 specifically you can set up your reaction window to prompt exactly how you would like to deal with this and you can either set it up to ask you very specifically or you can choose a paladin icon that can be added to your hotbot that will let you just activate Divine Smite as an attack without you having to worry about the game asking you or anything so you can either activate it as an ability when you attack or simply let the reaction do its thing as well then at fifth level paladins will gain the extra attack that pretty much every martial class gets at fifth level then at sixth level we pick up Aura of protection which will allow ourselves and nearby allies to add the paladins Charisma modifier as a bonus to any saving throws provided the Paladin is conscious then at 10th level they pick up Aura of Courage which makes you and friendly creatures nearby immune to fear effects or becoming frightened then at 11th level we pick up improved Divine Smite this adds 1d8 radiant damage as a baseline to your melee attacks you don't have to activate Divine Smite anymore to get that Baseline effect if you choose to activate Divine Smite as well though it's in addition to that regular damage so at this point all of your attacks will at least be doing an extra 1d8 radiant damage now with the level cap of 12 that is pretty much everything to expect from a paladin mechanically which brings us to how playing a paladin actually feels now overall I would say the heavily armored melee-oriented Paladin is very much so the way to go almost all of their mechanics specifically revolve around melee combat for instance Divine Smite technically doesn't work if you're using a bow as it has to be a melee hit and that combined with all of their defensive abilities such as all of their auras that can protect nearby allies they are ideally suited for either front row DPS or a tank either or really can work as they can deal incredible damage just with Divine Smite and a two-handed weapon if you get a lucky crit you can hit for like 50 damage at level 2 which is huge so their damage potential is very much so there but because of all their defensive abilities and support they can also play the role of a party tank and combined with their spell casting they even have a little bit of support potential thrown in there and just that stuff is really what makes Paladin such a popular class even outside of their class fantasy because mechanically they are a very strong class that can do a lot of things basically as long as you're not trying to hit something with a bow you're pretty much golden and then a lot of the Nuance to playing them comes down to knowing when it is better to do things like hit with Divine Smite or cast a spell to Aid your allies and it's a bit of a balancing act of those two things typically and how well you manage to juggle being either damage a tank or potentially a little bit of support is what's going to make the biggest difference when it comes to actually playing as a paladin in combat but with paladins there also comes the role-playing aspect of playing a paladin which is down to how you treat and talk to people because as I mentioned it is very possible to break your oath and if that's not something you want to do you need to make sure you are picking dialogue options and taking actions that actually represent the oath you swore to uphold that very much so matters for a paladin because otherwise if you don't want to become an oath breaker you're going to constantly be paying gold to restore your oath so just as a class they have a role play element sort of baked into what they're doing mechanically and then naturally I want to leave off with a bit of multi-class options as I like to mention these at the end of the videos paladins as a heavily armored charisma-based class can be very useful as a multi-class for a few other classes so some popular ones here are to start with the sorkidin is one of the best combinations in D and D in my opinion and it allows you to either turn your spell Caster into a much tankier version with just a couple levels of Paladin or with just a couple levels of sorcerer and going all in on Paladin you can make use of these Sorcerers metamagic to alter a paladin spells could also be pretty useful depending on exactly how some of that pans out in the release version but sorkiden is a very strong multi-class and there's a few different ways you can play it another option is mixing Paladin with warlock which might seem a little awkward at first but ultimately they both use Charisma with the hex blade warlock being absent from Baldur's Gate 3. they are retooling a few of the warlock's abilities one of which is causing pact of the blade as a warlock to use your charisma modifier on your attack rolls this will allow a paladin to use Charisma for their attack rolls and everything and then coupled with Divine Smite and some of the other warlock abilities like using their spell slots to fuel Divine Smite for instance could be a very strong way to go or on the other side of that if you just take two levels of Paladin and go all in on warlock you'll be giving your warlock Divine sins fighting styles lay on hands not to mention Divine Smite which in combination with a warlock's abilities could be really strong as well so another great option and those are certainly the ones you'll probably see the most often but even then you could still mix this with other Marshall classes like say a fighter to get access to action surge which will let you you divine Smite twice potentially so you have a few different options in terms of multi-classing but overall to sort of wrap this video up the Paladin is such an interesting class from a role play perspective then combined with really strong mechanics which can make it one of the more interesting classes to play If you're willing to do some of the head Canon around how this is going to work and while I do think their implementation in Baldur's Gate does limit the role play a little bit just because of how things work there mechanically in a video game especially in regards to the Oaths and how they get broken and things like that it can be a bit awkward to role play certain things but I still think it's a really great class to play because combining it with something like the dark urge origin which we'll see our main character being given violent urges they have to fight combined with having to uphold a Paladin's oath could be a really interesting take and way to role play a class and ultimately because of that paladins can be righteous Warriors dark Avengers helmites and many things in between because what defines a paladin and their own perspective on the Oaths they are sworn to uphold is really down to you the player that I think is the most interesting part about them with that however we are going to wrap this particular video up I certainly hope you enjoyed it if you did like comment subscribe all that YouTube jazz but regardless of any of that truly just thank you so much for watching I really do appreciate it the channel just hit 200 000 subscribers which means the world to me and I can't say thank you enough so thank you may you wander in wisdom and have an amazing day [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Mortismal Gaming

Views: 190,416

Keywords: Mortym, Mortismal Gaming, Baldurs Gate, BG3, BG2, BG1, Baldur's Gate, Connections, baldur's gate 3 story, baldurs gate 3, bg3 story, baldurs gate 1 & 2 before 3, bg3 multiplayer, bg3 gameplay, bg3 panel from hell, bg3 panel from hell recap, bg3 final panel from hell, bg3 release showcase, baldurs gate 3 release showcase, baldurs gate 3 panel from hell, bg3 multiclassing, baldurs gate 3 multiclassing, bg3 classes, bg3 paladin, bg3 paladin overview, bg3 paladin guide

Id: 90m3UVuQf0A

Length: 18min 51sec (1131 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 18 2023