Paladin Week: Paladins in the Game
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As a Player:
A paladin is the archetypal hero class. They are often lawful good and do not use underhanded tactics to win battles, only their skill, mettle, and the holy power of their deity to help them hit really hard. It should make a good paladin uncomfortable to be sneaking around in the dark or taking out a guard from behind. Most players forget this and often just play along with the party’s plans. While yes, this is mechanically favorable in D&D to sneak up on enemies, this isn’t what the paladin is all about. The paladin meets foes loudly, honorably, and on equal terms. It makes for interesting roleplaying situations with the party, with NPCs, and even with enemies.
Paladins as a class are without a doubt the best suited for roleplaying. They even have a set of rules depending on your chosen Oath for how you should play your character: your Vows. The vows are listed in the Players Handbook and restrict what the paladin can and can’t do. Always play this up and use it to develop your character. How does your character feel about your vows? Are there some that you adhere to better than others? Is sticking to them at all a burden for you? Whenever a test of your vows comes up in a game, it should always be a big deal for you. It’s a moment that defines what the future holds for your character. If you fail at your vows, you may start on a path away from the paladin class, or potentially even an oathbreaker paladin!
Please note, however, that having vows doesn’t mean you have to root out all the evil in the playgroup and slay them. Paladins can work with less-than-reputable characters and still not break their vows. They could even hope to change such characters’ ways over time through example. Come up with a reason to work with a player if their character is overtly evil. This is meant to be a cooperative game, so you will need them! And minor evils are nothing to get worked up about. Remember, you may have taken these vows but your allies didn’t!
If you don’t like some of your vows, try inventing some of your own! Just make sure that you run them by your DM and that each vow sets a real boundary for your character. Make them something that you know will come up in-game. “Be a murder hobo” is not a good vow. “Show no mercy to the wicked” is a good vow because now you cannot ever save a bad guy, even if you need information from them or a favor from them!
Playing a paladin mean no one will ever die easily while you are conscious. Every point of Lay on Hands in your pool of HP can stabilize a dying creature in a pinch, and neither diseases nor poison will ever harm you or your party for more than a day. Paladins are also ridiculously powerful in terms of damage, able to burst down big creatures with only a spell slot or two. However, the real guesswork with a paladin comes from rationing your resources. If you spend all of your Lay on Hands points in one go, a single poison, disease, or death saving throw can drastically harm your party. If you use too many Divine Smites, you lose the utility offered by your spells. To capitalize on the paladin’s abilities, you want to carefully decide when healing is necessary. As long as you keep players above a one-hit KO, you won’t waste your turn and theirs to revive them. Remember to use special attacks like Shove or Grapple to save on some of your crowd-controlling spells later. Don’t waste smites or spell slots on weak creatures. You are a paladin! Save your divine smites for powerful fiends and undead!
Oh and stay close to your low-WIS allies (fighters, barbarians, and arcane spellcasters) with your auras of anti-fear, anti-charm, and saving throw bonuses. Your mere presence can aid those currently at their weakest, whether you stand in the thick of battle or on the sidelines protecting the casters. The safest place for anybody in your party is at your side.
As a DM:
Dealing with paladins that grind the game to a halt.
As a minor warning, some paladins can bring the game to a grinding halt by following their vows to the letter and forcing their vows upon others. Remember, in this edition paladins cannot detect the alignment of regular people. This is a huge help because now potentially evil players can play alongside good paladins without turning the campaign into a PvP slugfest. Paladins that still want to try and do this will often try to make Insight checks to determine whether a PC’s alignment or actions are evil. Don’t let them do this forever until they succeed. Only offer this check when the paladin witnesses a player committing an evil act. Otherwise, that’s just prejudiced. Maybe the wizard is just going through a goth phase. That doesn’t mean you can just "Insight" that they are evil by looking at them. Don’t let the paladin break your game and be the moderator you have to be. On the flipside, don’t let evil players get away with anything and everything, either. Occasional group tension is actually good for character development. Just make sure all parties are aware it’s intended purpose.
To challenge a paladin is merely a matter of endurance. Since most of playing a paladin is resource management, long drawn-out dungeons or periods without rest will force a paladin to either get creative or risk running out of steam before the final boss. Another simple way to challenge them is to give them swarms of weaker creatures. It will usually be fun, at the time, to romp through hordes of kobolds and smashing them with a hammer, but if the paladin is managing their spells and abilities wisely, it will start to wear upon them as they start to take hits here and there.
Challenge a paladin’s roleplaying ability is with a moral quandary every now and then. Put some evildoers in danger from a greater evil. Depending on the paladin’s vows, they may either be required to save them or let them die. Make sure there are tangible consequences on both sides of the coin. Take note of your paladin character’s vows and make sure your moral tests specifically challenge those vows. If they follow their vows, there will be consequences. It should be obvious for a player, mechanically, to follow their vows. That’s how you’re supposed to play a paladin. If there is a downside to following their vows this time, then the decision won’t be so clear. This will make them work hard for it: Do they follow their vows and cause harm to the party or their mission? Or do they break their vows and need to atone? If atonement is a-ok for your player, then add consequences to both sides of a moral quandary until it starts to actually become difficult.
Moreover, make sure that the paladin grows with every moral test. When they encounter a new one, remind them what they did with the last moral test and how that turned out. They will be forced to think even harder each time, eventually becoming a hardened paladin that follows their vows without question or else falling, either becoming an oathbreaker paladin or simply multiclassing into a new class.
@wearepaladin
