D&D 5E Basic Build Series: Paladin

Author: SmugLookingBarrel

The Paladin is an excellent piece of support for any party, thanks to its access to the incredible Aura of Protection, boosting the saving throws of the entire party. It can also contribute reasonable damage to the group with its solid martial prowess backed by Divine Smite. This build, part of our Basic Build Series, uses the Oath of Devotion to add additional party protection in the form of charm immunity.

Race: Human (Variant)

Ability Score Increases – +1 Str, +1 Cha.
Feat – Polearm Master. Given that the Paladin wants feats to boost its martial prowess, its casting ability, as well as having two primary ability scores, getting this one extra feat is a big increase in our competence. Polearm Master gives us an additional attack with a bonus action after we take the attack action, and it also gives us a reaction attack whenever a creature enters our reach. Having both these options will increase our average damage per round significantly. 
Skill – Insight. A useful social skill, plus it seems fitting for a Paladin to know when someone is lying.
Languages – Common and Dwarvish. The language choice doesn’t really matter, as it is campaign dependent and should be discussed with the DM. It can be useful to speak different languages from the rest of the party, or to have one obscure non-Common language that the entire party shares, so you can converse without the NPCs knowing what you’re talking about. 

Class: Paladin

Skills – Athletics, Persuasion. Athletics allows us to grapple if we want, to resist an opponent’s grapple, and for other Strength-based activities. Persuasion is a commonly used skill based on Charisma. 
Divine Sense – 4 times per long rest, we can detect Celestials, Fiends, and Undead.
Lay on Hands – This is a 5 hit point heal, about as good as an average healing word cast at first level, and we can also use it as 5 1 point heals, potentially bringing up 5 allies up if they’re unconscious. It will scale well as we level up, adding an additional 5 HP to our pool, granting us a decent store of health to use.

Ability Scores

15+1 Str, 8 Dex, 14 Con, 8 Int, 10 Wis, 15+1 Cha

Strength and Charisma are our two primary ability scores as a Paladin, so we’re starting with a 16 in each after racial bonuses. Constitution is an important stat for any character, doubly so for those looking to utilize concentration, and the best we can afford is a 14. Wisdom is an Ability Score we don’t want a penalty in, so it gets a 10, which leaves Dexterity and Intelligence at 8.
This guide treats Paladin as a Charisma primary class rather than Strength for the purpose of enhancing the strong points of Paladin, an approach encouraged for all Paladins.

Background (Sailor)

Skills – Intimidation, Perception. Perception is the most used skill in the game and important to every character. Athletics from Sailor we already have, and can thus replace with any other skill. We’re going for Intimidation, as another commonly applicable Charisma skill. 
Tools – Navigator’s tools, vehicles (water).
Feature – Ship’s Passage. This is situational, but being able to secure free passage on a ship can be a boon in some campaigns. 
Creator’s Note – Making a custom background is RAW, the PHB on page 125 states, “The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions…To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds.” For the sake of simplicity, the Sailor background was chosen here, but feel free to create a background that suits your character.

Equipment

Paladin Starting Equipment

• A glaive and a shield
• A quarterstaff
• An explorer’s pack
• Chain mail and a holy symbol

Sailor Background Starting Equipment

• Belaying pin (club)
• 50 feet of silk rope
• Random Trinket
• A set of common clothes 
• 10 Gold

Purchasing Goals

• Splint armor, then plate armor.
• A magic weapon. This is likely out of your control, but for this build, a magic spear or quarterstaff would be ideal. If you find a magic halberd or glaive, you can work with those too. Some monsters have resistance or immunity to non-magical weapon attacks, and being able to bypass that resistance with your attacks is important. 

Level 1 Strategy

In combat, we want to be attacking twice with our glaive while wearing our chain mail. Whenever an enemy enters our reach (which will be 10 feet at this point), take the free opportunity attack.  Save Lay on Hands for between combat healing unless an ally has gone down, in which case you should give them one point of healing.

Level 2 Paladin

Fighting Style – Dueling. We’re choosing the Dueling Fighting Style, which will add a +2 bonus to damage rolls with our quarterstaff, notably including the extra attack we get from Polearm Master. Now that we have this Fighting Style, we’re trading our glaive for a quarterstaff, which will deal more with Dueling than a glaive would do with Great Weapon Fighting while also letting us use a shield. Note: Your reach is now 5 feet.
Divine Smite – A major contributor to the Paladin’s damage, this feature allows us to expend spell slots to deal extra damage with our weapon. Note that Divine Smite specifically says you deal the damage when you hit a creature, so it will never be wasted on a miss, and if you score a critical hit, you can choose to use a Divine Smite on that hit and double the damage. Unless you desperately need to drop a very high priority target, it’s ideal to save Divine Smite for critical hits. 
Spellcasting – Spellcasting is a hugely important piece of the Paladin class, and adds to your versatility and effectiveness beyond the simple damage increase from Divine Smite. Note that you are a prepared spellcaster, so you have access to the Paladin’s entire spell list, and can change your preparations at every long rest. While this guide will include a template spell list, if you know you’ll be in a situation where a different or more circumstantial spell would be more useful, you can freely change your prepared spells for a day and swap it back once it is no longer useful.

Bless – Adds +1d4 to hit and to saves for ourselves and two allies. If we can apply it before combat, it will boost the party’s effectiveness by a fair amount. 
Command – A good control spell that can force an enemy to spend its turn doing something advantageous to you. For example:
Command a creature in melee with you to flee to cause it to provoke opportunity attacks from you and any allies in melee with it. This was confirmed to not violate the restrictions for Command in Sage Advice. 
Command a flying creature to grovel to ground it. 
Command a creature in melee with you to drop its weapons, and pick them up using your Object Interaction, effectively disarming them. 
Command a creature to halt to keep it still but not give ranged characters disadvantage.
Shield of faith – A solid buff spell that increases AC by 2 and only takes a bonus action to cast. Bless is usually better, but sometimes you want this. 
Wrathful smite – For only a bonus action, this spell adds a bit of damage, and if the enemy fails a Wisdom save, they’re frightened of us, and can’t break the condition unless they use their action to attempt to steel their resolve, which uses a check rather than a saving throw and is thus at disadvantage. For such a low level spell, this effect is very powerful, and can severely hinder the large number of monsters who rely on attacks and are crippled by being frightened. However, this costs concentration both before and after the strike.

Level 3 Paladin 

Divine Health – Disease immunity rarely comes up, but this feature isn’t unwelcome.
Sacred Oath – Oath of Devotion.
Turn the Unholy (Oath of Devotion feature) – The Paladin equivalent of the Cleric’s Turn Undead, with the added benefit of also affecting fiends. In encounters against these creature types, this is very handy. 
Sacred Weapon (Oath of Devotion feature) – An amazing buff, if we have time to use it before combat, or if there’s a round of combat where we can’t get into melee anyways. Currently, it adds +3 to hit with our weapon attacks, which improves our odds of hitting significantly. 
Harness Divine Power (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Optional feature) – If neither of those other abilities will be useful, we can also use our Channel Divinity to recover an expended spell slot. This is an optional class feature added in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, and while it does make this build better, it’s not essential. If you are about to short rest and have an unspent Channel Divinity, you can recover a slot for no cost. 
Spell Changes: +protection from evil and good, +sanctuary.

Protection from evil and good ^D – Situational, but very powerful if you’re fighting one of the creature types it specifies, not only giving those creatures disadvantage to hit, but preventing charms, fear, or possession.
Sanctuary ^D –  Also situational. In normal circumstances, you don’t want to use this spell and effectively remove one of your allies from the combat, but if they’re about to die, it could save them. If you happen to have a party member who can maintain their full combat effectiveness while under this spell’s effect, like a summoner Druid, this can become a very powerful defensive buff.

Level 3 Strategy

At this level, we get significantly better at taking on combats where we get a round to prepare, as we can set up Sacred Weapon and wrathful smite in one turn before combat starts. If we run up against undead or fiends, we also have a powerful tool against them in Turn the Unholy.

Level 4 Paladin

Ability Score Improvement – +2 Cha. While the main reason for this is to boost the power of Aura of Protection at level 6, this has some notable benefits for us now: It raises the DC of all of our spells, the bonus to hit from Sacred Weapon, and our number of spells prepared. 
Spell Changes: +heroism, +thunderous smite.

Heroism – Provides a modest amount of temporary hit points, but more notably, immunity to fear to an ally.
Thunderous smite – Another source of damage plus control, and uses a rare Strength save. 

Level 4 Strategy

It is around this level when Lay on Hands starts showing its merit as an in-combat healing effect. In a pinch, you can spend your entire healing pool to heal yourself or an ally you touch for 20, which is probably the biggest single heal in the game at this point. While it’s still best used between combats, Lay on Hands will continue to be effective as an emergency big heal for the rest of your career. 

Level 5 Paladin

Extra Attack – Doubles the effectiveness of your Attack action. With no resource investment, you’re now making three attacks per turn for a total of 2d6+1d4+15 damage. This also allows you to apply three Divine Smites in a single turn, if you really need to deliver burst damage. 
Spell Changes: +aid, +find steed, +lesser restoration, +zone of truth, –heroism, –thunderous smite.

Aid – This spell grants three creatures, which can include yourself, 5 extra hit points, and lasts for 8 hours with no concentration. You can use it as a heal to bring your allies up from 0, or as a buff for the following day by casting it near the end of a long rest, or to start the day. 
Find steed – Summon a permanent warhorse mount, which improves our mobility drastically. It also duplicates the effect of any spell we cast that targets only ourselves, so it gets a free shield of faith or protection from evil and good when we buff ourselves with those spells. You can learn more about this spell in our Spell Spotlight: Find (Greater) Steed.
Lesser restoration ^D – Cure nasty status effects like paralysis if a party member is inflicted by them. 
Zone of truth ^D – Useful to solve certain social challenges.  

Level 6 Paladin

Aura of Protection – This ability is a big part of the reason to play a Paladin. We’re now granting our entire party a +4 bonus to all of their saving throws, which is an extremely valuable asset for any party, and will only get stronger as we improve our Charisma. 
Spell Changes: +heroism. 

Level 6 Strategy

Now that you have Aura of Protection, you might want to stay closer to your allies during fights where saving throws are common, so you can shield them from debilitating effects. You can also be more liberal with your concentration spells, as this bonus, which is currently superior to having Constitution save proficiency, will help you keep your concentration up. For many multiclassed builds, Paladin 6 is where you might consider stopping within the Paladin class, because Aura of Protection is so powerful.

Level 7 Paladin

Aura of Devotion (Oath of Devotion feature) – This gives any allies within our aura range immunity to charm effects. If you’re playing with an ally who has access to it, they can now cast hypnotic pattern in the heat of combat without any worry about friendly fire. It also makes our party immune to any charm effects our enemies might try on us, which can be some of the most debilitating effects in the game.

Level 8 Paladin

Ability Score Improvement– +2 Cha. We now have 20 Charisma and thus grant a +5 to all saving throws for the whole party, as well as maximizing our spell DC and the attack bonus of our Sacred Weapon. 
Spell Changes: +warding bond, +thunderous smite.

Warding bond – Another way to improve the party’s defenses, providing a +1 to AC and all saving throws to one ally, while allowing us to share damage in situations where the enemy team is focused on attacking the most vulnerable PCs.

Level 9 Paladin 

Spell Changes: +beacon of hope, +dispel magic, +revivify, +spirit shroud, -warding bond, -thunderous smite.

Beacon of hope ^D – A great defensive spell that stacks with Aura of Protection to make our party nearly immune to Wisdom save effects. 
Dispel magic ^D – End the effects of harmful spells on our allies, remove buff spells on an enemy, and solve certain exploration challenges. Every party needs it, and duplication isn’t unwelcome.
Revivify – This allows us to raise a dead party member if one should die. Someone else in the party might have already been doing this for 4 levels, but now you can bring them back. 
Spirit shroud – A self buff that only requires a bonus action and adds to your damage while also slowing your enemies. Effective in combination with Polearm Master.   

Level 10 Paladin

Aura of Courage – Similar to Aura of Devotion, this grants allies in our aura range immunity to being frightened. It can be very helpful when fighting dragons, or other monsters with debilitating fear effects. 
Spell Changes: +aura of vitality, +warding bond, -heroism.

Aura of vitality – This is best used as a strong heal outside of combat (20d6 total, divided how you choose), but in a combat where the party members keep falling unconscious, you can use this to bring them back from 0 repeatedly and keep them in the fight.

Level 11 Paladin

Improved Divine Smite – This adds an extra 1d8 damage to all of our weapon attacks. Since our attacks are currently hitting for 1d6+5 or 1d4+5, adding that extra d8 is a 50% increase in our damage, which is potentially better than the third attack the Fighter gets.

Level 12 Paladin

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Resilient (Con). Now that our Charisma is at its maximum, we’ll be taking a feat to boost our concentration saving throws. With Constitution save proficiency from Resilient and the bonus from Aura of Protection, we reach a +11 bonus to our Constitution saves, which is enough to automatically succeed on any concentration save resulting from 23 damage or less. This also gives us a +1 Constitution, which we’ll be making use of with our next Ability Score Improvement to get to 16 Constitution. 
Spell Changes: +detect magic.

Detect magic – This can provide minor utility. Pick something else if you like.

Level 13 Paladin

Spell Changes: +aura of life, +find greater steed, +freedom of movement, +guardian of faith, -find steed, -detect magic.

Aura of life – Grants some decent defensive bonuses, but it also gives all of your allies one hit point whenever they start their turn with 0, which frees up actions that might normally be required to heal them.
Find greater steed – A strict upgrade to find steed, we can now summon a Pegasus that has a fly speed of 90 and is more durable than our warhorse. You can learn more about this spell in our Spell Spotlight: Find (Greater) Steed.
Freedom of movement ^D – A situational spell that is excellent when the situation comes up. 
Guardian of faith ^D – Deal 60 damage over a few turns if we can keep enemies nearby it. With such a long duration, you could cast it during a long rest if those slots would otherwise be wasted.

Level 14 Paladin

Cleansing Touch – Use an action to neutralize one spell effect on a willing ally, 5 times per long rest. 
Spell Changes: +aura of purity.

Aura of purity – Protect our entire party from status conditions. While we don’t need help vs charm or fear, being able to resist blindness, paralysis, and stun is very significant when it comes up.

Level 15 Paladin

Purity of Spirit (Oath of Devotion feature) – Permanent, cannot be removed with dispel magic, non-concentration protection from evil and good. If you regularly face Aberrations, Celestials, Fey, Fiends, or Undead, they now always have disadvantage to hit you.

Level 16 Paladin

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Crusher (+1 Con). Once per turn when we hit a creature with an attack that deals bludgeoning damage, we can slide that creature 5 feet, and if we ever get a critical hit, all further attacks against that creature have advantage until after your next turn. Two nice benefits, on top of raising our constitution to 16.
Spell Changes: +detect magic.

Level 17 Paladin

Spell Changes: +commune, +flame strike, +holy weapon, –detect magic.

Commune ^D – Ask your god a question. The perfect spell to end a slower day where you didn’t use your 5th level slot. 
Flame strike ^D – The damage is very poor at this level and you will essentially never use this. 
Holy weapon – This is a significant damage increase for us, adding 2d8 damage to each of our attacks, and if we no longer need the buff, we can trade it in for an area of effect burst that can blind.

Level 18 Paladin

Aura improvements – The radius of all of our auras increases from 10 to 30 feet, which will help us ensure that the entire party is protected by them as often as possible. 
Spell Changes: +circle of power.

Circle of power – This gives the entire party advantage on saves against spells, and if the saves are successful, they take no damage from them. While holy weapon is still the spell you’ll likely be casting in most days, being able to effectively nullify an encounter with enemy casters is excellent if it comes up, and damaging spells tend to be commonplace at higher levels.

Level 19 Paladin

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – War Caster. Yet another feat to help our concentration. With all of our bonuses, we now have a +14 bonus to our concentration saving throws and we make them at advantage, which will provide solid protection for our important spells. We can also cast a spell as a reaction to an opportunity attack, should that be relevant. Dispel magic can be an interesting choice for War Caster triggers.

Level 20 Paladin

Holy Nimbus (Oath of Devotion feature) – Once per day, we can shed bright light, which deals 10 damage to every enemy that starts its turn within 30 feet of us, and for the duration, we have advantage on saves against spells cast by Fiends or Undead. The save advantage is pretty marginal, though in the right campaign, it could be excellent, and while 10 points of damage to a creature isn’t very much at level 20 (it’s about the same as a Cleric could get at level 5 with spirit guardians), free damage is free damage.
Spell Changes: +destructive wave.

Destructive wave – A reasonable area of effect option even at this level (unlike flame strike), which has good damage types and knocks prone.