Solasta - The Paladin Class

[HiddenX]

Learn more about the Paladin class:

Dev Update #07 - Class Spotlight: The Paladin

For whom the blade smites, It smites for thee.

Hello, faithful readers!

From Rogues straight to Paladins, what a trip! It is no secret that those two classes can easily clash due to how they are typically represented - with Rogues often being depicted as thieves and used as an example of Chaotic Neutral characters, and the Paladin formerly being locked into the Lawful Good alignment in previous D&D editions with a strict moral code to follow lest they lose their power. Buuut when there’s a will, there’s a way - it’s up to the players to figure it out!

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It is by smiting that one becomes a Paladin
Fun fact, we French don’t say “Practice makes perfect”, but “It is by smithing that one becomes a smith” - and it’s surely by smiting that one truly becomes a Paladin, for Divine Smite is most definitely their most well known power. A huge burst of guaranteed radiant damage that you can decide to add after you hit your target - and up until the 2024 ruleset, usable multiple times per turn for free, making them the terror of bosses (and DMs) alongside high-level monks spamming Stunning Strike.

For the Paladin comes with a fairly strong fantasy - a holy warrior following a strict moral code of conduct and, in return, being empowered by that very same oath they swore. They are durable frontliners with access to divine magic and great damage output, whose only weakness lies in their fairly limited mobility and range options.

Another class-defining feature is their Aura, granting incredible boons to their party members. Even just the base Aura of Protection boosts Saving Throws to such amounts that it easily breaks the concept of bounded accuracy when compared to parties without Paladins - prompting some to say that if this feature never existed and was instead revealed today in an Unearthed Arcana supplement, many would consider it too powerful.

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Thanks Henriquejr!

More information.

 

[rjshae]

The Oath of the Motherland Paladin was a must-have character in my Solasta parties. Since they said there would only be two sub-classes per class, I'm a little surprised to see them keep all of the Solasta 1 Sacred Oaths. Or are we just getting two of those?

 

[Hastar]

Paladins are so amazing in 5e that in Solasta, it was hard to make a barbarian for a 4-person party and I never made fighters. A paladin that can cast haste or a fireball would have been the stuff of dreams to my 12-year-old self.

 

[Carnifex]

You always need a robust paladin for when the stuff gets super-hard/evil!!

 

[JDR13]

Paladins are so amazing in 5e that in Solasta, it was hard to make a barbarian for a 4-person party and I never made fighters. A paladin that can cast haste or a fireball would have been the stuff of dreams to my 12-year-old self.

Maybe I'm still mentally stuck in 2E, but a Paladin casting fireballs just feels wrong to me.

 

[Zloth]

Maybe I'm still mentally stuck in 2E, but a Paladin casting fireballs just feels wrong to me.

I'm still trying to deal with clerics using anything other than blunt weapons (preferably a mace). Yeah, your deity uses a trident. So what? You're a cleric, you don't draw blood. Not even if you're chaotic and go out of your way to break rules, you stick to the sticks!

Everyone being able to use crossbows I got used to in about 5 seconds. Young wizards trying to throw darts at everything was pathetic.

Clerics using crossbows leaves me confused.

 

[Stingray]

Young wizards trying to throw darts at everything was pathetic.

I always gave them slings...

 

[Zloth]

I always gave them slings...

Dagger/dart/staff are the only choices in 1st edition. At least they get a ranged weapon. Clerics can use a club, flail, hammer, mace, or staff. Druids can use slings - which is good, because underground their spells were really terrible.

 

[Stingray]

Yep, slings for wizards/clerics were a 2E era thing, I think? At least in all the computer games.

 

[rjshae]

Maybe I'm still mentally stuck in 2E, but a Paladin casting fireballs just feels wrong to me.

Well the good news is that you can still play that Paladin philosophy today. The better news is that there are other ideations of the Paladin concept that the rest of us can try out.

 

[Carnifex]

Nod, clerics with blades will never sit right with this bloke.

 

[fadedc]

I'm still trying to deal with clerics using anything other than blunt weapons (preferably a mace). Yeah, your deity uses a trident. So what? You're a cleric, you don't draw blood. Not even if you're chaotic and go out of your way to break rules, you stick to the sticks!

Everyone being able to use crossbows I got used to in about 5 seconds. Young wizards trying to throw darts at everything was pathetic.

Clerics using crossbows leaves me confused.

I grew up with the whole cleric blunt weapon thing too, but it never quite made sense to me. I'm pretty sure that beating someone to death with a mace draws a lot more blood than a clean sword strike. Plus it's hard to justify why a follower of the god of war and violence would be forbidden from using a sword.

At the same time, clerics using maces is iconic, at least for an old schooler like me. So in my mind's eye it's still always what I imagine.

 

[Philistine]

I always though about clerical weapons as being primarily ceremonial items that function as weapons in a pinch, so like a staff was a crook, a mace was a scepter, and so on. A crossbow... that's hard to rationalize. As for paladins, I understand holy warriors can take many forms, but that is why other classes like rangers, monks, and assassins exist.

 

[fadedc]

I do kind of miss the old lawful good paladins, or at least paladins with more strictly defined codes.

In general 5e paladins can't cast spells like haste or fireball. They mostly get traditional holy type spells. But every subclass gets access to a few bonus spells that are themed around what type you are. I can't think about any subclass that would get fireball, but by now 5e has so much printed material that it wouldn't surprise me if there was some kind of fire worshipper paladin with spels like fireball and fire shield. Paladins get spells much slower than true spell casters though, so by the time they got fireball they might be so high level that a 3rd level attack spell is no longer all that useful.