Opinion on 5e Paladins

[Karam]

This discussion is both about BG3 and DnD 5e, I just want to hear some opinions.

I used to play dnd since I was a child and not long ago I started my first 5e campaign after not playing for about 5 years or so, and I discovered via the PHB (and Baldur's gate) that a Paladin does not require a patron deity, and now paladins get their divine power through their strong conviction in the oath itself, Which sounds like a lame excuse to me, but that's just my opinion.

So I want to hear some opinions on the matter, when you play a paladin in your table do you prefer keeping him godless or roleplay as a servant to a Deity?

And in BG3, do you think they made the right decision removing the option to choose a Deity as a Paladin and keeping it a cleric exclusive thing? Because honestly I'd be happy to play as a Paladin of Bahamut without taking a dip into a cleric for that.

[Raz]

Chaosolous の投稿を引用：

I made Karlach a paladin on my first run.

She smited everything. It was a bit OP.

Playing a pally though, is super boring.

Paladin was one of Karlach's initial classes. Then Sorcerer. They landed on Barbarian after. I'll have to check my digital art book but I do believe there is drawings of her as either classes. Though, they are with her older appearance rather than her current.

[Sentient_Toaster]

TG zac の投稿を引用：

BigJ の投稿を引用：

So it's instead replaced with rogue kills monster? Or Druid wild shape is just druid but temp hp and no uniqueness to it.

That is something I have always found weird about 5e vs pathfinder 2e.

5e the druid wild shape gives temp HP and the forms have an natural attack & that animal's move speed but that is about it.

5E (2014) druids are... in an odd spot. Early on, moon druids are unusually tanky for their level w/ the temp hp. After a few levels, this falls off, but comes back a little with elemental forms. And... if the campaign is one of the very few that ends up at high levels, they have absolutely amazing high-level class features like essentially permanently having a better version of Subtle Spell (no need for vocal or somatic components, and only caring about material components that are consumed or have a cost -- which means, for instance, that they're generally immune to Counterspell), or the ability to cast almost all their spells while in a seemingly innocuous animal form.

Where things get really fuzzy is which abilities druids retain while in wildshape. Jeremy Crawford once opined (on Twitter, not as an official ruling for Sage Advice) that, for instance, a dragonborn druid would still be able to use their dragonborn breath weapon when wildshaped, because the wildshape form was capable of breathing. This... was not universally agreed with.

[Raz]

Sentient_Toaster の投稿を引用：

Where things get really fuzzy is which abilities druids retain while in wildshape. Jeremy Crawford once opined (on Twitter, not as an official ruling for Sage Advice) that, for instance, a dragonborn druid would still be able to use their dragonborn breath weapon when wildshaped, because the wildshape form was capable of breathing. This... was not universally agreed with.

I just read this and do not agree. They are transforming, fully, into the animal in question. Where the eff is the flame sac within, say, a Bear, or a Badger? Where is the flame sac within a household cat? That makes zero sense to retain this one organ when you gain/lose so much on transforming.

[[TG] zac]

Minnzy の投稿を引用：

I honestly thought the change was just so people would play them. In my 2e and 3e lifetime the amount of times people would refuse to play them, I kid you not because "I'm an atheist" was more than the 0 it should have been. The few others that weren't that dumb seemed to always believe Paladins were lawful stupid so not much better honestly.

The few times I've played one in 5e I still attach myself to a deity. I do think removing it was silly but I am happy to see people actually playing Paladins now since they were almost never seen at my table before then.

2e I can get that but 3e had a number of subclasses and variant paladins that could be any alignment.
It also had the favored soul, warpriest, crusader etc... for other martials with divine abilities.
(Pathfinder 1 expanded on it even further.)

There was literally 0 reason for them to play it that way unless they wanted to play lawful stupid.

[[TG] zac]

Sentient_Toaster の投稿を引用：

TG zac の投稿を引用：

That is something I have always found weird about 5e vs pathfinder 2e.

5e the druid wild shape gives temp HP and the forms have an natural attack & that animal's move speed but that is about it.

5E (2014) druids are... in an odd spot. Early on, moon druids are unusually tanky for their level w/ the temp hp. After a few levels, this falls off, but comes back a little with elemental forms. And... if the campaign is one of the very few that ends up at high levels, they have absolutely amazing high-level class features like essentially permanently having a better version of Subtle Spell (no need for vocal or somatic components, and only caring about material components that are consumed or have a cost -- which means, for instance, that they're generally immune to Counterspell), or the ability to cast almost all their spells while in a seemingly innocuous animal form.

Where things get really fuzzy is which abilities druids retain while in wildshape. Jeremy Crawford once opined (on Twitter, not as an official ruling for Sage Advice) that, for instance, a dragonborn druid would still be able to use their dragonborn breath weapon when wildshaped, because the wildshape form was capable of breathing. This... was not universally agreed with.

I can see them keeping an ability like smite but anything tied to physiology should be a no.
And honestly they should be more clear on a number of things those animal forms can do.

[Raz]

TG zac の投稿を引用：

There was literally 0 reason for them to play it that way unless they wanted to play lawful stupid.

To paraphrase Agent K, "A person is smart, people are dumb [...]"

[Karam]

Triumph.Talbot の投稿を引用：

Minnzy の投稿を引用：

I honestly thought the change was just so people would play them. In my 2e and 3e lifetime the amount of times people would refuse to play them, I kid you not because "I'm an atheist" was more than the 0 it should have been. The few others that weren't that dumb seemed to always believe Paladins were lawful stupid so not much better honestly.

Eh, IDK, I get not wanting to be forced to play a religious character if that's not appealing to you. Like if someone likes the idea of Paladin because they think a heavy knight with a code and minor spellcasting is cool but their character concept doesn't jive with being a zealot, that's valid, whether or not they're an IRL atheist.

I actually think the oaths are good workaround for that, though IMO may as well let Paladins do oaths and/or deities, just for more options.

I always thought the concept was to make the oath in the name of your Deity, that always made sense to me.

[Dusk_Army]

Raz の投稿を引用：

Sentient_Toaster の投稿を引用：

Where things get really fuzzy is which abilities druids retain while in wildshape. Jeremy Crawford once opined (on Twitter, not as an official ruling for Sage Advice) that, for instance, a dragonborn druid would still be able to use their dragonborn breath weapon when wildshaped, because the wildshape form was capable of breathing. This... was not universally agreed with.

I just read this and do not agree. They are transforming, fully, into the animal in question. Where the eff is the flame sac within, say, a Bear, or a Badger? Where is the flame sac within a household cat? That makes zero sense to retain this one organ when you gain/lose so much on transforming.

There's an argument that a dragon's (and related creatures') breath weapon is a magical rather than biological process, hence it being classed as a Supernatural Ability in 3.5. But on the other hand, it's also called out as something you lose when transforming IIRC, and I don't really trust any reasoning coming from Jeremey "roll a single d4 to determine the damage of all the Magic Missiles" Crawford.

On a related note, Druid spells are also frequently lacking in mechanical clarity.

[Raz]

Dusk_Army の投稿を引用：

I don't really trust any reasoning coming from Jeremey "roll a single d4 to determine the damage of all the Magic Missiles" Crawford.

What... the eff? This would absolutely bork the damage of Magic Missile. It will either hit like an absolute meteor, or a limp noodle. No range.

[hilburnashua]

One thing I find really surprising in BG3 is that tempest clerics and druids don't get chain lightning.

With druids calling down fire and lightning is something that druids have always had decent access to, and the limited spell selections in BG3 would make chain lightning a seemingly easy include in the druid list since they put it in for wizards/sorcerers.

Tempest clerics not getting Chain Lightning but getting Destructive Wave just seems like a horrible miss.

[Mike Garrison]

Chain Lightning has always been a wizard spell.

And the druid spell Call Lightning is supposed to only work outdoors, because they literally summon a thunderstorm cloud.

[Raz]

hilburnashua の投稿を引用：

One thing I find really surprising in BG3 is that tempest clerics and druids don't get chain lightning.

With druids calling down fire and lightning is something that druids have always had decent access to, and the limited spell selections in BG3 would make chain lightning a seemingly easy include in the druid list since they put it in for wizards/sorcerers.

Tempest clerics not getting Chain Lightning but getting Destructive Wave just seems like a horrible miss.

From a quick look up, they don't seem to have that spell in 5e DnD so that would be the reason why. Not even Circle of the Storm Druid, a Druid completely about Cold and Lightning damage gets Chain Lightning.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Raz の投稿を引用：

Dusk_Army の投稿を引用：

I don't really trust any reasoning coming from Jeremey "roll a single d4 to determine the damage of all the Magic Missiles" Crawford.

What... the eff? This would absolutely bork the damage of Magic Missile. It will either hit like an absolute meteor, or a limp noodle. No range.

https://x.com/JeremyECrawford/status/774030989894955008
https://x.com/JeremyECrawford/status/774302859609251840

That's his opinion. He's labeling it as an AoE spell where the same damage is rolled once... ignoring the fact that it's usually not the case that magic missiles are distributed exactly evenly among all targets within an actual area of effect.

It's *not* an official Sage Advice ruling, so I don't think a DM running organized play (i.e. Adventurer's League) would be obligated to use it.

That ruling obviously makes a certain Evoker feature rather strong, because

Beginning at 10th level, you can add your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1) to one damage roll of any wizard evocation spell that you cast.

Now munchkin evoker players will claim that it's (1d4 + 1 + INT mod) x (number of missiles), and now suddenly they're very good at single-target damage. Like, a 7th-level Magic Missile firing nine missiles would be doing 9d4 + 54 automatic-hit force damage (avg 76.5). That's not far off a 7th-level Disintegrate ( 13d6 + 40, average 85.5) but Disintegrate does nothing at all if the target passes a Dexterity save; and that saving throw passing is probably more likely than, say, the target being able to cast Shield to negate the MMs.

[Raz]

Sentient_Toaster の投稿を引用：

Now munchkin evoker players will claim that it's (1d4 + 1 + INT mod) x (number of missiles), and now suddenly they're very good at single-target damage. Like, a 7th-level Magic Missile firing nine missiles would be doing 9d4 + 54 automatic-hit force damage (avg 76.5). That's not far off a 7th-level Disintegrate ( 13d6 + 40, average 85.5) but Disintegrate does nothing at all if the target passes a Dexterity save; and that saving throw passing is probably more likely than, say, the target being able to cast Shield to negate the MMs.

And you haven't even taken into consideration Critical Hit chance/damage which one of those Missiles being a Critical Hit statistically skyrocketing compared to Disintegrate's one chance. Christ above and below on a pogo stick; now that's a lot of damage!

[[TG] zac]

Sentient_Toaster の投稿を引用：

Raz の投稿を引用：

What... the eff? This would absolutely bork the damage of Magic Missile. It will either hit like an absolute meteor, or a limp noodle. No range.

https://x.com/JeremyECrawford/status/774030989894955008
https://x.com/JeremyECrawford/status/774302859609251840

That's his opinion. He's labeling it as an AoE spell where the same damage is rolled once... ignoring the fact that it's usually not the case that magic missiles are distributed exactly evenly among all targets within an actual area of effect.

It's *not* an official Sage Advice ruling, so I don't think a DM running organized play (i.e. Adventurer's League) would be obligated to use it.

That ruling obviously makes a certain Evoker feature rather strong, because

Beginning at 10th level, you can add your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1) to one damage roll of any wizard evocation spell that you cast.

Now munchkin evoker players will claim that it's (1d4 + 1 + INT mod) x (number of missiles), and now suddenly they're very good at single-target damage. Like, a 7th-level Magic Missile firing nine missiles would be doing 9d4 + 54 automatic-hit force damage (avg 76.5). That's not far off a 7th-level Disintegrate ( 13d6 + 40, average 85.5) but Disintegrate does nothing at all if the target passes a Dexterity save; and that saving throw passing is probably more likely than, say, the target being able to cast Shield to negate the MMs.

Don't forget combining it with hex or hunters mark.
Congrats you now have the = of a nuke that cannot miss.