Ultimate Paladin Class Guide | Baldur's Gate 3

the night in shining armor the protector of the weak and helpless the holy Avenger the Paladin is a class that invokes certain imagery when it is mentioned usually resembling some kind of heavily armored Knight in full plate using the Divine powers of their deity to Smite their foes and drive evil itself from the land welcome back Travelers I'm glad to see you made it I'm Colo and today we're going to be talking about the Paladin class in balers Gate 3 we're going to be taking an in-depth look into all the skills and abilities you'll earn as you level up with your Paladin as well as each specific subass so you know what each one of those offers you in this video I will be using a bunch of information and images from the balers Gate 3 Wiki at bg3 dowi those guys over there do a really good job setting up and maintaining the site I highly recommend you check them out I'm going to leave a link to the Wiki in the video description below definitely show them some love they do really good work now let's get started with character creation as soon as you choose the Paladin class when you're creating your character you're going to gain proficiency with all weapons all armor and shields so you can pretty much use anything this also means that you don't need to get these proficiencies from your race just look through the races and decide for yourself whatever race you want to be if you see something if you want to be a halfling paladin and you think that looks cool go for it make one if you want to be a half orc Paladin make one the game's not going to hold you back for doing that there are races that are probably optimal but play what you want once you've chosen your race you'll be able to start looking over the first level class bonuses that the Paladin gets first of all the Divine sense ability this is a bonus action ability that will grant you advantage on attack roles against celestials fiends and and Undead for two turns your Paladin can cast this on thems once per short rest and there are quite a few instances in the game where this could come in handy I don't think you're going to regret having it you'll probably put this to pretty good use secondly you'll get the lay on hands class ability this is a short range heal that can be used to either heal the target for a small amount use more lay on hands charges which is the resource you use to cast this if if you use more charges you can cast a bigger heal or instead of healing somebody you can alternatively choose to cure them of all diseases and poisons each time you cast this ability it's going to let you pick which version of it you want to cast so just use it as needed lay on hands is great you're going to love having this and you will use this tons of times throughout the entire game the heal that it provides you is very very respectable you're going to be using this heal for a long time the Paladin will also be required to choose an oath to which they will swear their loyalty the different Oaths are the Paladin subclasses these are the oath of the Ancients oath of devotion and oath of Vengeance each oath has a list of tenants that you must uphold as a paladin during your adventures and will provide you with unique Divine Powers because of the oath that you swore if during your travels you perform an action that violates the tenants of the oath you swore you're likely going to run into this sweetheart the oath breaker Knight you see the Paladin has three Oaths that constitute their subclasses but they actually have four subclasses the fourth being the oath breaker this subass is for anyone who accidentally violates an oath violates it on purpose anyone who just doesn't want to be bound by the rules of an oath whatever it is if you want freedom from your restrictive oath break it become an oathbreaker it's a perfectly viable way to play the game you can't choose to make an oathbreaker Paladin at character creation you have to pick one of the three Oaths and then break it if you wish to be an oath breaker then you'll have to go back to Camp do a long rest the oathbreaker KN will show up in your Camp he'll talk to you and he'll explain the situation about what's going on with your new subass if you break the oath there's also ways to undo it which we'll talk about later it's not that big of a deal paladins earn something at pretty much every level which makes each level feel really nice and special because you always feel like you're just a few experienced points away from something new and cool so the way we're going to break this down in this video is I'm going to go through all the generic Paladin levels where each subass gets the same stuff and then after covering all the basic Bas Paladin levels Paladin levels we will go back to the beginning and I'll cover the subclass specific bonuses individually that way we can tell which subass is giving you what and when you're going to get it let's get to it when you hit second level on a paladin you're going to be offered another very important choice which is your fighting style these fighting styles are passive Buffs that affect your Paladin depending on what kind of gear they're using and they include things like defense which will grant you a plus one bonus to your armor class if your Paladin's wearing any armor this is always a safe bet if you're not sure which one to pick you're perfectly fine to just choose def fence and then for the entirety of the game you'll have this plus one bonus to your armor class you'll never regret that that's always a good choice to make and all it requires is that your Paladin is wearing some kind of armor and as we said before the Paladin is usually wearing full plate on armor or some at least some kind of armor I'm sure there's a a naked Paladin running around out there that is about to message me in the comments put some clothes on bro put some clothes on before you get in these comments nobody wants to see that the next fighting style dueling will provide you with a plus two bonus to any damage rolls when you hit with a one-handed weapon while not using a weapon in your offand so as long as you're either using a one-handed weapon in your main hand and nothing in your offhand or if you're using a shield that's also fine then you'll gain this plus two bonus to your damage rolls which can be an insane damage increase because if you're using a weapon that hits for 10 damage two additional damage is 20% added if you're hitting with a weapon that deals 20 damage which is good in this game then two extra damage is still a 10% buff that's huge that's a big deal so this will be good the entirety of the game this plus two damage doesn't seem like much this is massive especially at low levels it's ridiculous you could be doing like massive amounts of bonus damage the next fighting style great weapon fighting is an option for players that want to use a two-handed weapon which is also a perfectly viable Choice uh the difference between this and dueling is that dueling increases the damage you do directly this one's more of a luck based thing where it's kind of instead of an increase to your damage it's more of a bad luck protection the way it works is this when you land a hit with a two-handed weapon if you roll a one or a two for how much damage that hit is going to do the game will roll that die one time and then use the new roll for the damage roll so is it possible that you roll two ones in a row or a one and then a two or a two and then a one yes it is it's very very very rare for that to happen and this just kind of gives you a a do over on a bad roll you could still roll a bad roll again twice it it will happen but the odds of it happening twice in a row are much lower than the odds of them happening once anything in the game that will allow you to roll a bad roll is good having that safety net excellent the final fighting style protection this one is very very different from the rest the rest of them all you have to worry about is what gear you're wearing basically and then after that point the passive ability just does its own thing you set it and forget it you never think about it again protection like I said is its own animal if your Paladin is using a shield they see an enemy attacking one of your allies while they're standing within five ft of that Ally then your Paladin can throw up the shield and try to block the attack and what it actually does in game terms is it imposes disadvantage on the attack roll against your ally in theory this is a cool idea your Paladin sees someone getting ready to attack your Ally and they're like no way dude and they jump up and throw the shield up and try to block their friend it makes sense that's what paladins do in movies and shows that's that's what your Paladin does you're the holy Defender dude you're there to jump in front of the arrows to protect your teammates the problem is in practice this ability requires that you be standing within 5 ft of one of your allies while also in line of sight of an enemy that's attacking that person while also wearing a shield it it also requires a reaction to use I forgot to mention that so you also have to have a reaction available on top of it there's a lot of stuff going on with this it's very very difficult to play around I'm sure somebody out there swears by playing a protection Paladin but man I I find this really hard to recommend because of how tough it is to actually get use out of this if you're playing a sword and board character that's using a shield anyway you could take dueling and get a plus two damage roll to every hit you land with your weapon at all times no questions asked plus two damage or if you're wearing armor which you probably are you could take defense and get a plus one AC bonus flat plus one Armor class ah it's really hard for me to recommend protection over one of these other things so anyway just do what you want I I'm sure that there's instances where you're going to love having this fighting style but I can't recommend it let me know in the comments if I'm you know just totally stupid about this somebody out there's dual wielding Shields and you know blocking arrows left and right like a failinks or something but anyway along with choosing your play style defining fighting style you'll also be granted two level one spell slots and all the paladins level one one spells this is a very important level because mixed in amongst those level one spells there are a few real Heavy Hitters these are the Smite spells one of the signature features of the Paladin class these smites are the main thing people usually bring up when they're talking about paladins and balers Gate 3 and for good reason they're very versatile and Incredibly powerful at second level you will be granted four total Smite spells these are searing Smite thunderous Smite and wrathful Smite which are all similar to each other we'll discuss that here in a second and then a fourth one which is divine Smite we'll cover that on its own searing Smite thunderous Smite and wrathful smite are all similar you'll spend an action a bonus action and a level one spell slot and they're going to add Elemental damage and or status effects to your swing if your Smite attack misses it doesn't charge you the bonus action or the spell slot just the action so it's a same as just missing a regular swing not that big of a deal the fourth Smite Divine Smite functions differently from the rest you can activate this like a regular spell just like the others but it will also function as a reaction you go into your reactions menu you set up these options you can have it either trigger every time you land a hit never Trigger or ask you every time you land one if you want to I always choose to have it ask me because I sometimes you don't want the extra damage times a guy has one Health left and you don't need to blast him for 27 radiant damage to kill him you can just do something else that you know will do one damage and finish him off but having the option is always nice cuz sometimes you do need to kill that guy that has one Health left just because he's about to do something bad it's also important to note that even though this functions like a reaction it doesn't actually charge you your reaction when you use it so if you land multiple attacks on your Paladin in a single turn each one of those hits will allow you to trigger a Divine Smite if you have the spell slots to do it the reason why this skill is so powerful and why everybody talks about it so much is because the way the game calculates damage when you trigger the Divine Smite you can hit an enemy with a very weak attack like pommel strike anything that strikes them with a weapon will allow you to trigger a Divine Smite which could do way more damage than the weapon SM weapon strike you hit him with so you can use this to just pile on on damage in single turns Divine Smite also has the potential to trigger other sources of damage that activate upon your Paladin dealing damage so you can use this to snowball a bunch of effects chaining together triggering a ton of damage and you'll notice when your Paladin hits over in the combat log you'll see like five or six different sources of damage times where different things are activating it's really good at third level the Paladin will receive another level one spell slot the Divine Health ability which is a passive buff that makes you immune to diseases immunities in this game is always good to have anything you can become immune to is just something you don't have to worry about and you will also be granted a subclass specific bonus at third level but like I said before we're going to come back later and talk about those all together at the end fourth level is going to Grant you another lay on hands charge which brings you up to four total at this point since you started with three and you'll be able to select your first feat as always ability Improvement is a great option because the main stats are very very powerful in a game like this so if you just want to increase your stats that's always a strong Choice as long as you understand what the stats are doing strength Constitution and Charisma are the three stats that you're most likely going to be dealing with on a paladin but somebody's probably yelling at me in the comments right now about how they're playing intelligence dexterity Paladin whatever it is let me know about that too cuz I want to hear about it you also may want to look into to some of the specific Feats some of them provide passive bonuses or crazy effects that you might want to have on your Paladin there's the war Caster feat which will help you out pretty dramatically if you're using a lot of concentration spells it'll help you with your saving throws for concentration spells or Shield Master might be interesting to you if you're interested in improving your paladin spell mitigation there's tons of options out there look through the Feats if you see something that looks cool for your character it's most likely cool to use if you pick something and don't like it go talk to Withers pay them a couple bucks respect your character and change your Feats it's no big deal as I discussed in one of my other videos Shameless self-promotion right here you can just pickpocket Withers and get all your gold back after you pay him to Respec so technically it doesn't even cost anything if he catches you pickpocketing him he doesn't care he'll just stand there and let you do it 100 times till you get your money back there's no negative consequences whatsoever to pickpocketing your money back from Withers I highly recommend it he's like a freaking walking loot pinata just like the other Marshall classes and in fact pretty much every class fifth level is a huge one for the Paladin fifth level is like a a turning point in this game this is where stuff starts to get real the Marshall classes get the extra attack passive ability at fifth level which will allow you to make two attacks per turn per action from now on so basically doubles the potential damage of your Marshall class at this level and then Caster classes also get really strong fifth levels they get access to really strong Spells at this level too but that's that doesn't affect your Paladin one of the main reasons why having more attacks per turn is important on a paladin is because each strike like we said before has the potential to trigger a Divine Smite so more hits is more smites and more smites is usually always the name of the game when you're playing this pallet and you're going to be stacking up some big damage with these smites there's also a couple of racial bonuses that are interesting to think about interacting with multiple attacks and different smites like the half orc Savage attacks ability when you're playing a half orc and you roll a critical hit it lets you roll an extra damage die to calculate your damage so critical hits already roll double damage die so let's say you roll a damage ability that does 1 d10 okay well if you crit you'll roll two d10 so instead of being a 1 to 10 damage possibility now you have a 2 to 20 damage possibility on a crit pretty good basically doubles your damage well for the half orc you would roll another die so now it's 3 d10 potentially tripling your normal damage and then on top of that Divine Smite when you crit with a weapon attack the Divine Smite itself will also roll the critical version of the half orc Savage attacks ability procs with that and rolls additional die for the Divine Smite crit and you you can really really drop some nukes on your turns if you guys know of any other cool interactions like this racial bonuses and stuff let me know I guarantee there's some I don't know about there's some that I've not looked into but I always love hearing your guys different combinations along with this extra attack passive your Paladin will also be granted another level one spell slot two level two spell slots and access to their level two spells once again mixed in amongst these spells is another Smite spell which functions very similarly to searing and thunderous Smite from before except that it requires a level two spell slot instead of a level one spell slot and branding Smite can actually be used with a range weapon attack so all the other smites require a melee weapon hit this one you can fire a bow and arrow across the room and Trigger branding Smite with it it has a chance to Mark the target with light magic preventing them from stealthing and stuff like that it's not a bad ability to have just another Smite on your bar for sure you will also be granted another subass bonus at fifth level but we're going to cover those here in a bit so fifth level is massive for paladins upon reaching sixth level the Paladin will receive another class defining feature their first Aura spell Aura of protection is a buff that the Paladin will cast on thems but it will also benefit any allies within 10 ft of the Paladin after it's cast it's a permanent bug you click this and it should in theory stay on your Paladin forever after that point but you lose the effect if they lose Consciousness there's a couple different things that'll take these oras off your Paladin so keep them on your action bar where you can see the ability if it's gray out you can actually Mouse over it and it'll tell you whether it's on there if you're in combat this is an important note here about auras if you are in combat and you realize oh man I forgot to cast all my auras and now my Paladin's like massive debuffed because I don't have all these passive Buffs it's not that big of a deal so in one turn you can apply pretty much all your Paladin's auras there is an exception that one's different cuz it's actually a spell it doesn't function like the other auras so as you can probably imagine uh these can be really powerful there's the buff from Aura of protection will grant the Paladin and their nearby allies a bonus to all saving throws equivalent to the Paladin's Charisma modifier so as you can probably imagine that can be extremely powerful especially when your Paladin starts getting up to really high levels of Charisma you're going to be adding quite a bit to saving throws so that's good to have excellent seventh level will grant you one additional level two spell slot and a subass bonus that we're going to discuss here in a bit at eighth level the Paladin will receive their second feat so like before you either boost your main stats with ability Improvement or look through more of the specific Feats see if there's something cool that interests you try it out ninth level you're going to unlock two level three spell slots and your Paladin's level three spells and once again there's a Smite in here blinding Smite will allow you to deal additional radiant damage to your target with an added chance to Blind them as well having access to various different types of crowd control is very powerful because some enemies are going to be resistant or immune to certain types so there might be somebody that you can't cast hold person on but you can blind them and this might be a good choice to use in that situation you will also be granted your final subass bonus at Ninth level but you guys know the drill we're going to cover that here shortly at 10th level you'll gain your fifth and final lay on hands charge so you in the game with five started with three now you have five and you're going to get another Aura spell this one the aura of Courage prevents the Paladin and any nearby allies from being frightened so another crowd control immunity that you just have set it and forget it basically and Paladin can't be frightened anymore it's excellent to have upon reaching 11th level you'll gain your third and final level three spell slot as well as the excellent improved Divine Smite passive ability this is very different from the regular Divine Smite because this is just an always active passive ability you don't have to do anything and automatically it's going to add 1 d8 radiant damage to all of your melee weapon attacks from this point forward this is just a free 1d8 radiant added to your attacks for nothing you don't spend a spell slot you don't do anything and then you can trigger Divine Smite on top of this to do a Divine Smite as well so it's just icing on the cake here and finally ladies and gentlemen we've reached 12th level you're going to be granted a third and final feat so as before buff your main stats or look through the list and pick a feat I know how much you guys like feet that covers all the generic Paladin levels so now we're going to rewind back to first level and cover the subass bonuses and when you get each of those first up we have the oath of the ancient subass you fight on the side of light in the cosmic struggle against Darkness to preserve the sanctity of life and the beauty of nature the tenants of your oath are Kindle the light shelter the light preserve your own light and be the light oath of the Ancients paladins have a deep connection with nature light and love you'll be defending these ideas against the encroaching swell of darkness and hatred in the world when you first choose the subass you'll be granted the healing radiance Channel oath ability you're going to be granted some Channel oath charges that you can use to activate your oath abilities on each subass healing Radiance costs a bonus action and a channel oath charge and will cause an AOE explosion of healing in a 10t radius around the Paladin any allies inside the radius including the Paladin thems will be healed for a good amount and then healed again next turn this can be very powerful especially if you're able to get multiple Targets in it at once multiple Target heels are very very good in a game like this at third level the oath of the Ancients Paladin will receive two always prepared oath spells speak with animals and in snaring strike speak with animals is incredible and I highly recommend having access to the spell in some manner you're probably going to want it to be the the person who you talk to most NPCs with because they're going to be better at speech checks and stuff like that but there's a couple of animals that you can have conversations with that will actually progress quest lines faster provide you with shortcuts and information and stuff like that a great spell to have you never know when that totally inconspicuous animal in the corner might have a few words of wisdom for you in snaring strike works pretty similarly to your Smite spells it costs an action a bonus action and a level one spell slot and has a chance to insens snare your target with thorny vines that will deal damage to them each turn that they're stuck there is definitely nothing wrong with having access to more potential crowd control options anything you can use to disable or slow your opponents and mess up their plans on their turn always great to have when you land a hit within snaring strike you can also trigger Divine Smite off that hit which can lead to massive damage on top of your crowd control you can snare them and blast them to Oblivion at the same time on top of these two oath spells you'll also receive two more Channel oath abilities the first of these is Nature's wrath this will allow the Paladin to spend an action and an oath charge to attempt to root an enemy who is within 10 ft of the Paladin this will prevent the target from moving Grant the target disadvantage on their attack roles and dexterity saving throws and will grant attack roles against the target Advantage though pretty strong way to shut somebody down you can Roo them make them have disadvantage on their saving throws and attack rolls and give yourself advantage against them but it costs an action and the odds of me choosing to spend my action for that turn to route a Target in place is is pretty low this early in the game before you have extra attack you might make use of this but as soon as you can get two attacks and two smites out of that action it's really hard to justify spending it on this ability I'm sure there's going to be useless for it though the second Channel oath ability you get at this level is turn the faithless this is a 30ft radius AOE centered on the Paladin and will turn any Fay or fiends that it hits turned as a status effect that will force the target to move as far away from the Caster as possible preventing them from triggering reactions and will only be able to use Dash as an action on their turn in order to get away from that person even faster so they have to do everything in their power to Sprint away from your Paladin as fast as possible the turn debuff is removed if the target takes any damage so if you can use it properly it can be very strong needless to say but if you're in combat with a bunch of enemies and none of them are Fay or fiends it's worthless there's going to be times where you're going to be cursing the spell out for being a waste of space on your action bar and then you'll run into a room full of fiends and you'll be absolutely ecstatic to have this spell so great to have when you need it at fifth level along with the other massive bonuses you'll be getting two more oath spells Misty step and moon beam both of these spells are great and you will likely find various uses for both of them moon beam is a beam of moon that will cause radiant damage to any Targets that enter it or if they begin their turn inside the radius they also get hit you have to maintain concentration to keep the spell going and you can move the beam each turn for the cost of an action but no additional spell slots so basically you call down a beam of moonlight each turn you can move it around for the cost of Your Action if you want and it'll burn targets for radiant damage that are standing inside the Moonlight this is good on various certain encounters where targets are really weak to radiant damage or radiant damage will prevent them from healing or something like that it's not a huge area of effect but you can burn a couple targets with this thing usually and the fact that you can move it also makes it more versatile Misty step though is one of the best spells in the entire game no questions asked at all for the price of a bonus action and a level two spell slot the Caster can teleport to any unoccupied space within 60 ft of where they're currently standing that they can see they have to be able to see the area they're teleporting to as well in a game like balers Gate 3 where tactical combat is involved warrier characters are standing in relation to other characters is very important Mobility is one of the most important things that you can focus on anything you can use to get your guys from one side of the field to the other in or out of combat situations where you need them properly is amazing Mobility is King in this game and Misty step is pretty much the king of Mobility seventh level for the oath of the Ancients Paladin is also very rewarding you will obtain the aura of warding ability this one functions just like the other auras that we talked about before but it grants the Paladin and all nearby allies resistance to damage from all spells yes that's correct your seventh level ancients Paladin is going to take half damage from all spells from now on basically I don't think I need to stress how strong that is but I'm going to that's strong at Ninth level you'll gain your final two oath spells protection from energy and plant growth protection from energy is a single Target concentration spell that will grant the target resistance to either acid cold fire lightning or thunder damage until they long rest or the Caster loses concentration this buff can be powerful getting resistance to to spells like I just said is very strong but it's a single Target concentration spell I'm not a very big fan of those because there's much stronger ways you can use concentration in most situations I'm sure somebody's getting use out of this it's not bad to have you just probably won't be using it a whole ton plant growth it's an area denial spell you choose a circular area and it grows these crazy plants all over the place that will massively slow down anybody that's walking through them it cuts your movement speed down to a quarter of its normal amount which means that you're basically going to be stuck in there for forever and it does not require concentration to maintain this on the ground the catch here for plant growth because that sounds busted the catch is that if any fire touches any area on the plant growth radius that you chose the entire circle of plants Burns immediately it'll do fire damage to the people that are inside of it basically turning the plants into a fire trap but the plant growth is gone it doesn't slow them down anymore they're just standing in fire now that can be used as a strategy or it can accidentally happen like it's happened to me 400 times in this game where you cast plant growth somewhere and there happens to be a candle sitting over there that you didn't notice one of the plants touches the candle burns all the plants and your entire plant growth is gone immediately so you know don't be me be better than me so to sum up the oath of the Ancients Paladin in a nutshell you have all the tools that every Paladin gets access to those levels we talked about before everybody gets those all the smites those two auras we talked about you're going to get all that stuff plus multiple potential crowd control abilities the ability to speak to animals and do some nature related stuff and Misty step and Aura of warding ridiculously strong abilities so healing Radiance too don't forget about that the channel oath ability healing Radiance very very strong this is a really powerful subass if you want to go this route you get plenty of utility plenty of mobility and you still have all the damage of a normal Paladin dropping smites like it's going out of style next up we've got the oath of devotion following the ideal of the night in shining armor you act with honor and virtue to protect the weak and pursue the greater good the tenants of the oath that you'll be defending are honesty courage compassion honor and Duty when you first choose the subass you will be immediately granted the holy rebuke Channel oath ability this will allow the Paladin for the cost of a bonus action and oath charge to grant their target a buff for two turns the buff will cause 1 D4 radiant damage to any enemies that strike the target during those two turns is this good it depends there's certain situations depending on how many people are getting ready to attack the person you're going to cast this on where you can get a pretty good chunk of damage out of this if you got four or five people that are getting ready to swing on somebody and you hit them with this you could put out a decent chunk of damage for casting this but if nobody's close to your guys or you're not about to take a bunch of attacks on one character or you don't know who's about to get hit it can sometimes be tough to justify spending your bonus action and oath charge on this you might be better off using them on something else it's not bad it's just not the best spell there is you'll probably use it at third level the oan Paladin will receive two more Channel oath abilities sacred weapon and turn the Unholy first of all turn the Unholy tool tip here is incorrect it says on this page that it turns Fay and fiends when it in fact turns Undead and fiends this is functionally the same exact spell as turn the faithless except it works on Undead and fiends instead of Fay and fiends so great crowd control AOE ability just just like the other one you're fighting Undead or fiends you can get them to run away from you sacred weapon is a bit unique it costs an action and an oath charge to cast lasts 10 turns and will grant your Paladin a buff that adds their Charisma modifier to their attack roles during that time this will increase your chances of Landing attacks by a good amount but it won't actually increase the damage of those attacks when they land attack rolls as just to see whether or not the attack hits then you do a damage roll afterwards to see how much damage it does so this just affects the accuracy not the damage you'll also gain two oath spells the protection from evil and good and Sanctuary spells protection from evil and good is interesting and it actually has some Quest related uses in the game there's a couple of times where you're going to run into creatures that are among those that this will protect you from and you can actually use this to solve certain puzzles from what I've read and there might be other stuff that people haven't found yet so this is a good one to have on your bar and if you feel like it might work for something just if you're just imagining some off thewall hey maybe protection from evil and good will help me get through this test it out and see because there's a decent chance that laran made it to where it will help you get through that and you might be able to cheese your way through a whole quest with the spell you never know Sanctuary is an entirely different story you don't even have to think about when you're going to use this one anytime you need to protect somebody from taking hits you can hit them with Sanctuary it costs a bonus action and a level one spell slot and it is easily one of the strongest most important spells in the entirety of the game that sounds like hyperbole but I promise you it isn't I promise I have complet completely turned fights around because of this spell on multiple occasions you got your healer or one of your squishy cters surrounded by enemies that just came out of nowhere and you can't move without taking a ton of opportunity attacks or something they're in a really bad position you can just slap Sanctuary on them and then they cannot be targeted that's what the spell does it makes it to where enemies can't Target the person that is affected by Sanctuary at all you can't tar tar him with an attack you can't Target him with a spell nothing the person under the effects of sanctuary can still take damage like for instance if someone's standing next to you and you have Sanctuary on you and someone casts a fireball at the guy standing next to you he can still be targeted and that fireball is going to explode and blast you because you're standing next to him but they can't cast a fireball at you so if no one's standing near you you're basically you're good I mean the AI especially doesn't deal with Sanctuary very well you hit somebody with sanctuary and they basically just like treat them like they don't exist if the person that is under the effects of sanctuary attacks or harms any creature in any way Sanctuary is immediately removed from them and it's going to give you a debuff that won't let you receive the effects of sanctuary again for one turn at fifth level the devotion Paladin will gain two more oath spells lesser restoration and silence lesser restoration is a nice cleansing spell that will remove disease poison paralysis and blindness from a creature within 5 ft of the Caster so you basically have to run up and touch them and it'll cure them of all those things having debuff cleanses on your bar is always great you never know when you're going to run into it you might catch a disease while you're at chess's caress and your Paladin will be able to fix that right up for you silence is a cool spell for multiple reasons first off it's a ritual spell that means that if you cast it out outside of combat it doesn't cost you a spell slot so as long as you're not in combat you can just throw down silence whenever you want now there are consequences if you silence the wrong person they might turn hostile on you so just don't be throwing it down willy-nilly everywhere but it won't cost you anything if you do why would you use silence outside of combat well there's a bunch of uses with plenty that I'm sure I'm not even remotely aware of but you can use it to sneak past enemies without making sound you can use it to uh commit crimes that people might overhear from the next room over you can throw silence down on yourself and be able to get away with crimes that way um or you can drop it on top of somebody else in order to initiate combat and they'll start combat out silenced which is a very weak position to be in obviously the spell itself creates a dome of Silence which will prevent creatures inside of it from speaking or casting any spells that require uh spoken words to cast it also and this is very important to remember it also makes Every Creature inside of the Dome of Silence immune to thunder damage so don't forget that and try to drop a shatter on them and waste your Wizard's entire turn immediately after casting silence that's a really specific example coo how' you think that up I don't want to talk about it at seventh level your oath will grant you the aura of devotion spell this functions the same way as the other auras we've discussed and will prevent the Paladin and any nearby enemies from being Charmed while it is active so this is another set it and forget it permanent buff that makes you immune to a form of crowd control I like it just like the others and finally upon reaching their ninth level the oath of devotion Paladin will be granted two more oath spells remove curse and Beacon of Hope remove curse is a fantastic spell that you are going to be really glad at certain points in the game that you have because some Story related things can put curses or hexes on your party members Beacon of Hope is an interesting one this is a 10 turn buff your Paladin can cast on thems and it does require concentration to maintain the spell and the buff will also affect allies within a 30ft radius of the Paladin granting them each advantage on on wisdom saving throws and death saving throws as well as guaranteeing that when they receive heals while they're under this effect instead of rolling to calculate the heal amount it just guarantees that they take the maximum number that they could from that heal this is really powerful if your party needs to be topped up really quickly and you can gather them up a little bit and hit them all with Beacon of Hope you drop one or two area of effect heels and hit all of them you'll put out out massive massive healing numbers because of this spell not too shabby so to sum up the oath of devotion subass you are the defender of the weak and the helpless you're the knight in shining armor striding gallantly across the land spreading hope and honesty to the People You Meet along the way and now it's time to go back to first level and talk about the final oath that you can select when you're creating your Paladin the oath of Vengeance you have set aside even your own Purity to write wrongs and deliver Justice to those who have committed the most Grievous sins the tenants of your oath are fight the greater evil and No Mercy For The Wicked the channel oath spell you'll acquire when you choose the subass is inquisitor's might for the cost of a bonus action and an oath charge Paladin can buff thems or an ally Within than 30 ft the buff will last two turns and will grant their attacks bonus radiant damage and the chance to Daz their targets for one turn the radiant damage added is based on your Paladin's Charisma modifier so you know what that means more Riz means more in quiz I'm so sorry at their third level the Vengeance Paladin will receive two more Channel oath abilities abjure enemy and a vow of enmity abjure enemy is a debuff you'll cast on an enemy Within 60 ft of the Paladin when the Spell successfully lands it will frighten your target for three turns which will prevent them from moving gives them disadvantage on attack rolles and ability checks if the target passes a saving throw against this they will be slowed instead of frightened for three turns or until they take damage while they're slow their movement speed is cut in half that's what that does vow of enmity is a pretty cool ability that will allow your Paladin to gain advantage on their attack roles against a targeted enemy for 10 turns it also only costs a bonus action and an oath charge whereas ABD your enemy costs an action in oath charge this means that vow of enmity can be cast on an enemy directly before you attack them so you get immediate return on investment for casting it you cast it you get to use it this turn and then whatever happens after that is extra but you get at least one turn of advantage on your attacks against the Enemy being able to Grant yourself 10 turns of advantage against the target can be really powerful especially if it's a boss fight where the boss is going to last for more than you know a few turns gaining advantage on your attack roles pretty drastically increases the chances that you're going to land some damage on that person during these 10 turns so for anyone who's not aware advantage means when you go to roll to see if your attack lands instead of rolling one die you roll two and you use the higher number of the two so your odds of rolling two terrible rolls at the same time is very very slim compared to just rolling one bad one and one decent one maybe so it increases your odds of Landing hits always good to have the dice in this game are in charge of your fate so why not tip the scales towards your side a bit you can weight it a little bit towards your side I'm all for it along with these two oath abilities you also get two oath spells Bane and Hunter's Mark Bane is essentially the exact opposite of the spell bless which Buffs your party members with a 1 D4 bonus to their attack rolls and saving throws Bane's the opposite it debuffs three targets you can upcast it to have it affect even more people if you use a higher level spell slot but it debuffs the targets gives them a minus 1 D4 penalty to their attack roles in Saving throws so same deal as bless except it's the minus 1 D4 instead of plus 1 D4 this is the bad version you can even tell they have the same icon they're just different colors you do have to maintain concentration to keep the effects of Bane on all these targets also so that's something else to keep in mind Hunter's Mark is the more aggressive option for a bonus action and a level one spell slot you can debuff a Target within 60 feet of your Paladin whenever the Paladin lands a weapon attack against the target they will deal an additional 1d6 physical damage just adds 1 D6 damage to all your weapon attacks when they land the debuff lasts until long rest technically but it requires the Paladin to maintain concentration to keep it up and uniquely to this spell if the target happens to die while they're under the effects of Hunter's Mark you're you're going to get another skill on your bar that's reapply Hunter's Mark and all it costs is another action it doesn't cost you another spell slot to put it on somebody but basically if you mark someone to be hunted and then you successfully hunt and kill them you can Mark somebody else at fifth level the Vengeance Paladin will get two amazing spells Misty stat which we've already covered this one is the teleport ability that I was talking about earlier easily one of the best spells in the game hands down no questions asked the second spell is hold person hold person is an extremely powerful crowd control ability that can be used to remove one or more humanoid targets from the fight for up to 10 turns is it going to last 10 turns no it's probably not going to last 10 turns but it can last 10 turns it does require concentration to maintain and the affected enemies are going to be held in place you're going to see them they're kind of like ah they can't take actions or reactions and all attacks against them from within a 10t range of their body will will be guaranteed critical hits you can upcast the spell by using higher level spell slots to make it affect more targets per spell slot so you can take quite a few people out of a fight for multiple turns using this spell which is incredibly powerful even if you only get one turn of use out of it if you've ever lost a fight where you got to take two turns in a row from your whole team let me know in the comments I want to hear about this disaster because that doesn't happen very often so fifth level is really strong for every class like we've discussed before and the oath of Vengeance Paladin is another one where it feels disgustingly good seventh level is a different story for this subass you're going to be granted the Relentless Avenger passive ability which this one's kind of strange when your Paladin hits an enemy with an opportunity attack which can be caused by a couple of different things you will gain an additional 15 ft of movement speed on your next turn thetically this ability fits perfectly you're the guy handing out Vengeance left and right like Batman in an Arkham Halloween party they're attempting to get away with their crimes what are you going to do you're going to chase that dude down and you're not letting him go so you're trying to get to them you're pursuing them as hard as possible so it increases your movement speed it makes sense and there are definitely ways to utilize triggering opportunity attacks on purpose to get use out of this and you can play around it for sure so this is a good ability but it's kind of hard to compare it to some of the other Oaths seventh level abilities some of them get really really strong abilities at seventh level and I just don't feel like this one Stacks up it is good though and when it works you're going to be glad you have it and finally we've arrived at Ninth level where we're going to receive our final two oath related spells haste and protect protection from energy we've already discussed protection from energy before this is the one that lets you choose an elemental damage type and Grant your target resistance to it until long rest while you maintain concentration I don't think it's the best spell in the world I don't think it's awful but you probably won't use it very often haste on the other hand this spell is special remember how I said earlier that I knew you liked beet well these two spells right here are probably my favorite feet ever okay I love these things all kidding aside haste is absolutely absurd this thing basically doubles the effectiveness of whatever character it's cast on there are some things you need to know about haste though firstly what does it do when you hasten a Target they are going to be granted a plus two bonus to their Armor class and advantage on dexterity saving throws which basically both of those things just mean that they're harder to hit by pretty much all sources of damage their movement speed is going to be doubled and they're going to get an additional action every turn that they're under this effect you like I said you're basically doubling the effectiveness of that character for the duration and don't forget each action after fifth level grants you two attacks per turn so if you have two actions you get to do four attacks per turn and on on top of that each one of those hits has the potential to trigger a Divine Smite if you wish so you can basically turn your normal two attacks two smites into a four attack four Smite Massacre now for a public service announcement about haste before you go out there and start casting it all willy-nilly you need to know how this thing works because there are definitely some drawbacks when the Spells effect ends for any reason whether that means 10 turns went by and it ran out of duration or you lost concentration by getting hit and failing your concentration saving throw you cast another concentration spell on accident if either of these things happens whenever the spell ends your character immediately gets struck with lethargic debuff for one turn what does this do well they used up all their energy blending up bad guys in the Holy Smite storm and now they're tired they're sleepy so for one turn they can't move take actions bonus actions or reactions of any kind you can't do jack you are worthless for one turn all right Colo why is that such a bad thing well I have a whole section of the video warning people about this well if you're anything like me first of all I'm sorry to hear that secondly I can't even tell you the amount of times that I've forgotten that I had haste cast on somebody and then went and cast another concentration spell even on the same turn I've done it I've done it so many times it's not even funny like haste needs a a confirmation box that comes up or something anyway they need to put that in there for dumb people like me what actually what does this look like when it happens casting haste on somebody and then immediately ending it will you guessed it immediately slap them with a lethargic debuff this skips their turn it's just terrible if you mess this up and you cast haste and then cast another concentration spell you going to be cussing like crazy it sucks when you break haste but all that being said probably one of the top three or five strongest spells in the entirety of the game Sorcerers are the ones that really love haste but we'll get into that in the sorcerer video stay tuned ah anyway also some of your smites require concentration so you need to know which ones are or which which smites can you cast while you're concentrating and which ones can you not cast while you're concentrating on something else here you go don't do these don't be me be better than me Travelers that's everything from the oath of Vengeance Paladin you're essentially the judge jury and executioner when it comes to punish evildoers you don't forgive and you don't forget you literally cannot allow an evil person to go unpunished otherwise it counts as breaking your oath and you'll be forced into the Paladin's fourth and final subass the oath breaker you have broken your sacred oath in pursuit of power and ambition only Darkness remains to fuel you now there are no tenants for this one because there's no oath you broke your oath so you don't have any tants to uphold you can pretty much do whatever you want as an an oathbreaker Paladin you can be a straight up evil Paladin by playing oathbreaker but critically for new players you're going to see oath breaker you're going to say oh man well that sounds terrible that sounds like this is a bad guy you don't have to be an evil oath breaker the oath breaker Knight even tells you that when you first do it tells you a story about how he became an oath breaker the first one tells you what went down with that he sounds like he's a pretty decent guy actually based on what went down in his story and he tells you straight up you can use these powers for good or evil the powers come from a dark Source but they don't have to be used for dark reasons if that makes sense the choice is going to be entirely up to you I think it's actually a really cool idea going down kind of an evil path but like forcing yourself towards the good side of things and I think the dark urge good run is another instance of something like this you could do a dark urge oath breaker good run and I think that'd be pretty awesome you can actually break your oath at pretty much any level so you might be gaining these abilities one by one while you level up like normal like we've been discussing or you might already be 12th level as an oath of devotion Paladin and then decide you want to break your oath and try out oath breaker or you accidentally broke it and you know now you're going down this path whatever it is if that happens if you're at 12th level when you break your oath you're going to get everything all at once you won't have to level up you're already 12th level you're just boom here's you go here's all your oath breaker stuff but we're going to go through this as though you are breaking your oath at first level and then leveling up through the entirety of the game as an oath breaker and I'm going to tell you what levels they get certain things at so you know where your Milestones are at first level the oath breaker will gain the channel oath ability spiteful suffering this is a three turn debuff that you can cast on an enemy for the cost of an action and an oath charge each each turn while under the effects of this the enemy will take necrotic damage based on your charisma modifier and all attack rolls against them will have Advantage this one can be pretty strong depending on your group's composition if you're able to make the best of three turns of advantage against the specific Target this can be insanely powerful you can get a ridiculous amount of attacks on certain targets with Advantage if you have certain people in your party it's great to have it is disappointing that it costs an action to use though because once you get to fifth level like we talked about before it's really hard to justify giving up potentially two attacks and two Divine smites in that turn to use this ability instead most of the time slamming all that damage into your enemies is going to be the way to go the oath breaker's third level bonuses are two more Channel oath abilities control Undead and Dreadful aspect control Undead will allow the Paladin to spend an action and an oath charge to take control of a targeted Undead creature until long rest the creature will follow the Paladin around like a summoned minion and will attack your enemies when you're in combat but you don't actually get to control this thing like a pet Dreadful aspect will cast a 30ft radius explosion of fear around the Paladin potentially frightening any enemies caught in the blast once again it costs an action and an oath charge but this one can be quite handy because an area of effect crowd control ability under the right circumstances can be one of the most powerful things you can do in a turn if you're really really bad off in a fight and you can scare five or six people away from you by casting this and save your party members life absolutely going to be worth using in those situations you'll also gain spells that are they're not oath spells cuz you don't have an oath but they work the same as oath spells so they're oath spells we're just going to pretend they're different because of lore reasons they're anti oath spells oath break spells anyway whatever you want to call them the Spells are hellish rebuke and inflict wounds hellish rebuke is a reaction spell that will allow the Paladin to blast an enemy with 2 d10 fire damage when they deal damage to the Paladin you retaliate you blast them back with fire damage when they hit you if you choose to trigger this reaction and the enemy succeeds a dexterity saving throw they still take half damage from it so it's guaranteed retaliation damage under normal circumstances there's going to be times when that's just not the case you can also upcast hellish rebuke when someone attacks you if you want to use a higher level spell slot it'll retaliate with even more damage that's up to you sometimes that's going to be a good idea it is cool because you can retaliate against range attacks someone hits you from across the room you blast them with fire damage sometimes your Paladin just can't get over there to hit them but you can blast them with this and do some damage and it's not a bad amount of damage either it's pretty good inflict wounds is a melee range spell that will deal three d10 necrotic damage to your Target and it can be upcast to deal an additional 1 d10 necrotic damage per spell slot level this thing can do quite a bit of necrotic damage and there will be times when putting out that much necrotic damage can be a really good idea but you have to pretty much be in melee range and anyway and while you're standing in melee range instead of casting this once you could hit that person and smite them twice so you really got to weigh your options here are they immune to certain damage types are they resistant to physical damage and uh inflict wounds might do more damage are they super vulnerable to necrotic damage you got to look at everything weigh your options see if this is worth casting sometimes it's not going to be sometimes it might sometimes being a paladin is tough because you're like you have two to many good options you have all this crowd control and all this built-in utility and stuff in your spells but they cost action that you can use to be a Smite turret instead for that turn and absolutely annihilate somebody in a storm of Steel and radiant damage but you know throwing a plant growth across a room sometimes is going to be a smarter choice and if your Paladin is the only one that has that you got to give up the Smite storm for that turn to do the plant storm across the room Instead at fifth level the oath breaker will gain two more non oath anti- oath oath break spells crown of Madness and darkness crown of Madness is a single Target debuff the Paladin can cast on a humanoid Enemy Within 60 ft it lasts three turns and requires the Paladin's concentration to maintain during this time the affected enemy will attack attack the creature that's nearest to them on their turn whether or not that's one of their friendlies or one of your guys doesn't matter whoever's closest to them they're going to swing on them this spell is pretty awesome it's a form of crowd control but it's also a potential source of damage from across the room this thing has a long range 60 ft and if you just can't make it 60 ft to do damage that turn but the enemies are standing right next to each other and you can maybe have one of them do some Dam damage to the other one hit one of them with it see if they'll beat each other up while you're on your way over there sounds good to me sweet sweet betrayal it's delicious darkness is a great spell for your group to have access to it can be used in combat to block off enemy sight lines or prevent them from making ranged attacks into and out of a certain area because you can't use ranged attacks through this projectiles won't go through Darkness they get blocked by it and you can cast a spell on any area that you can see within 60 ft and it creates a 17 ft wide cloud of darkness in that area as long as your Paladin maintains concentration to keep it up any creatures inside the area are going to be both heavily obscured and blinded and it's important to note besides some very very rare exceptions in the game there's almost no way to see through this form of darkness dark vision won't work potions and Scrolls work this is magical darkness and those things only work on non-magical Darkness there are ways to become immune to blindness and be granted Vision in magical Darkness but they are very very rare items mid to late game items or you have to be a warlock the cool thing is loadin are a thing which is a multiclass paladin Warlock and you can definitely do that you can mix and match if you want your Paladin to take a step more towards the the weird magic stuff you can kind of go down the Warlock route and gain some of the benefits of that it's all going to be personal preference if you don't feel like multiclassing full class Paladin is excellent the locked in's good uh sorcerer Paladin is a decent multiclass that a lot of people use these are really strong things and you can actually do people call it sorlockadin you can do a sorcerer warlock Paladin triple multiclass there's all kinds of things you can mix and match they all use Charisma as a casting stat so you've got Charisma you can mix and match these however you want just make sure you know the benefits and drawbacks of each level on top of the combat benefits that Darkness grants you it's also great for open world exploration because you can cast a spell near a doorway for instance if you need to pick the lock of a door and you're standing right in the middle of the main Town Square and balers gate or something like that you don't want anyone to see you throw down this cloud of Darkness stand in it pick the lock your heart's content walk through nobody saw you do it nobody's the wiser the oath breaker has a pretty awesome seventh level ability also the aura of hate this one functions just like the other auras we discussed but instead of granting you a defensive buff or some form of crowd control immunity this one is a purely offensive buff it will grant your Paladin and any nearby fiend or Undead allies extra slashing damage on their attack the amount of damage will be equal to your Paladin's Charisma modifier this is an excellent bonus for your Paladin even if they are the only one who receives it however if you manage to get multiple allies to benefit from this you can add up a ton of bonus damage pretty quickly through this ability and that leaves us back at Ninth level again for the oathbreaker's final subass bonuses bestow curse and animate Dead Two spells bestow curse is a pretty cool debuff spell it requires concentration and you have to be really close to cast it which I'm not a huge fan of but it will allow you to choose one from a list of several debuffs that you can put on this person for 10 turns the effects of these debuffs can be pretty powerful but once again it's hard to justify using this in most cases when being in range to use it means you're also in range to slam a hammer down on somebody's head and then debine SM their head into pieces so your mileage may vary with this one anime dead on the other hand you're probably going to use quite a bit this is like one of the signature things of the oathbreaker Paladin you can bring Undead people in to help you you're kind of like sort of like a death knight not exactly lorewise don't flip out guys I understand it's not the same thing but you're you're on your way there right but yeah you you gain control over Undead you gain bonuses to your Undead allies you could be walking around as like a general of the undead and fiends and leading this evil Army against your your enemies that's pretty cool uh casting animate dead allows you to Target a corpse and summon an undead companion to help you fight there's various different types of Undead you can choose from uh just know that if you pick the zombie they attack with their their bare hands and it doesn't count as weapon damage so Aura of hate doesn't actually add anything to them I don't know if that's on purpose but probably because Aura of hate is weapon damage so to sum up the oath breaker uh this is the Paladin you're going to want to play if you don't want to be worried about having to follow the the oath requirements if you don't want to be a good guy but you still want to be a paladin and put out truckloads of damage I I recommend trying it out honestly it's not a bad way to go I think most players if they're playing a paladin are going to end up being an oath breaker at some point most if not all players are going to break their oath on accident at some point you may end up just deciding well this is you know play the cards where they lay I I got in a bad situation and broke my oath and now I'm an oath breaker and if you want to go that route highly support it if you break your oath and you want to undo it and go back to being a non oathbreaker Paladin talk to the oath breaker Knight and he can basically witness you re-wearing a new oath and you can become an oath found Paladin again but it costs gold it starts out costing 1,000 gold and each time you do it the cost increases I think the second time it's 2,000 and then the third time it's 10,000 and I don't know what the maximum is if there even is one so if you're comfortable with it before you make any dialogue options you might want to quick save your game and then reload it if it breaks your oath and you didn't intend to and I know this is a kind of a a sore spot in the community or a topic of heavy debate safe scumming I I get it I understand both sides I personally don't have a problem with the way that anybody plays any single player games it doesn't affect me at all what you do while you're playing however you're going to have the most fun is the way you should play the game I don't mind reloading if I have to do it I will I've got so many saves in this game it's absurd it's not even funny and I can make an argument for this that I sort of already started to bring up earlier even if you're like super anti- reloading you believe that every situation happens because of the choices you made and you should live with the consequences of your actions which I don't disagree with if you want to play that way I I fully understand and support it I think that's a great way to play but the argument that I would make in this specific scenario is that like I said before if you were a real life Paladin and you dedicated your entire life to defending the tenants of a specific oath you would know whether or not you were getting ready to break your oath you would know because it would oh my gosh it would tear you apart you would be like disgusted by the idea of it and then have to actively choose nope I'm not following these rules anymore breaking this oath in balers Gate 3 sometimes dialogue options have unintended consequences that you're not aware of at the time and saying the wrong thing can start a fight that you weren't supposed to to start or get somebody killed and now all of a sudden you're an oath breaker because you click the wrong dialogue option it would be different if the dialogue options told you this is going to break your oath because like I said the Paladin wouldn't know that so I feel like honestly it should but with the way that things currently are I feel like just saving and then reloading it that's the next best thing no big deal if you don't want to do it that's fine I get it so with that being said we've covered pretty much everything that the Paladin class has to offer we talked about the the sub classes we talked about all the Spells and abilities we talked about how many smites you're going to be dropping per turn and how many millions of damage you're going to do that's an exaggeration now if somebody tells me in the comments that they've done millions of damage with smites I want to hear about it and I want to see screenshots because I think that's ridiculous and I don't believe you oh calling you out I don't believe you but if you have it please show me because I'm very very curious so which oath are you planning on swearing and defending on your Paladin or are you planning on playing an oath breaker whether good or evil don't you let me know in the comments below and while you're down there like And subscribe to the channel ring the bell so you get notified when I post more things and we'll come back here and do this again here soon so as always Travelers I'm glad you got to see me do your best to stay alive until next time I the first the

Channel: Panic Rolling

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Id: u_JUyQSZrkE

Length: 71min 52sec (4312 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 05 2023