Are Paladins OP?

[24601]

I'm playing a Vengeance Paladin with a 2h weapon and the damage he puts out seems to eclipse all my other companions - yet my AC is also excellent, I have outstanding manoeuvrability with Misty Step and I can heal large amounts of health.

Basically, I'm starting to think that a lot of fights are meant to be quite a bit more difficult on Balanced, yet I almost never need to reload.

[Kyutaru]

Paladins miss out on Action Surge which can end up doing more damage than smites can do. They also don't get their third attack at lvl 11 like Fighters do. It's big bursty damage but lots of martials can do big bursty damage. Guys with swords are just better than casters.

[Shicki]

dunno but I am loving the Paladin and elemental monk im rolling with

[ACS36]

No -- the game is just really easy, even on tactician. There are a few fights that gimmicky, but that doesn't have much to do with the strength or weaknesses of the classes.

All the martial classes, besides the monk, are great. Monk is fine. The game is busted in several ways that give big advantages to the player. The lack of a DM to moderate abusing mechanics is a big problem with the game economy the developers chose to use.

[Doctor Zomg]

they are not OP in pure damage, but oh boy theyr resistances and 25-27 armor is nice to have. Plus, one of the best weapon in the game (at the moment) synergies with paladins well.

[Asgo]

they are pretty burst damagy with their smites in particular with higher spellslots. The main advantage they draw in BG3 vs DnD is that long rests are so easy to come by - an advantage for all front loaded classes with long rest based limited resources.

[ChalkStorm]

every class is op with misty step

[Quothe]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

Paladins miss out on Action Surge which can end up doing more damage than smites can do. They also don't get their third attack at lvl 11 like Fighters do. It's big bursty damage but lots of martials can do big bursty damage. Guys with swords are just better than casters.

The obvious solution is just dip two levels of fighter.

Also, casters do amazing AoE damage and when you factor in their summons (or globe of invul!) they offer their own utility

[Dre G Writer]

Yea, my paladin is the same. Multiple smites taking out multiple enemies in a single turn. Its ridiculous and i love it.

My sorcerer is my power house tho. Casting two fireballs each turn with the fire dragon subclass is kinda hard to beat.

paladin gets even more crazy with multi class fighter with action surge and haste

[Quothe]

I would also suggest anyone interested in damage trying monk with tavern brawler (start as a fighter for armor prof) because you'll get to apply your strength twice to strength based attacks that use unarmed/improvised/throwing weapons which breaks the game really badly.

[24601]

That reminds me of Pillars Of Eternity 2 - Druid wildshape counted as unarmed so you could dip into Monk for a bear that could do karate

[Yossarian]

"I'm playing a Vengeance Paladin with a 2h weapon"

why are you using a weapon that lasts only for two hours?

[Quothe]

Originally posted by Yossarian:

"I'm playing a Vengeance Paladin with a 2h weapon"

why are you using a weapon that lasts only for two hours?

If it lasts for more than that they need to see a cleric about the side effects.

[Hoss]

Yes they're OP. I'm playing in a full mutiplayer party with a Thief, Wizard, Druid and paladin. We recently reached levl 12. I'm pretty sure the Pally could solo the game at this point. He does more damage than the rest of us combeined and self heals every time he attacks. Kinda making the game unfun. The fight against Raphael was trivial.

[Xrystus]

Paladins are very powerful in terms of versatility. The joke is "If you don't know what you want to do, but want to do it well, play a paladin". So far the only thing they have an actual hard time doing is ranged combat. Given their armor and strength score, closing the gap is hardly an issue. However, it can serve as a damage dealer with smites, tank with heavy armor and saving throws at level 6, healer with lay on hands, and the face of the party due to having charisma as their spellcasting modifier.

[Quothe]

If you want the paladin to fight at range, just throw weapons. There are a few weapons that return to you automatically when thrown.

Nothing a paladin can do comes close to a tavern brawler monk though. Current attack is +18 to hit, dealing 24 to 44ish damage per strike, with two bonus actions and an action each turn for 6 attacks, with self healing once per turn. Action surge for another two attacks, haste for another two, get a kill with bloodlust elixir, and then wholeness of body for a grand total of 14 attacks, dealing a total of 336 to 616 in a single turn once everything is set up (which really only takes a single turn). That's almost enough to down Raphael and about double what you need to kill the big brain and massive overkill on both the red dragon and the dragon in the keep assuming max damage, or just "plenty" if you take the average of 476 damage with all of that.

Elixir of the colossus is also a solid choice for an extra 1d4 if you want pure single target killing power, or the helmet of grit for another two attacks (but 1d4 less per attack) at 50% or less HP. Crits basically don't matter because on average they'll only add 14 damage over a normal hit, meaning for every single number in your crit range, crits on average only add about 0.7 damage (14 * 0.05 if you only crit on a 20, 1.4 if you crit on 19-20, etc etc)

Now, the damage is spread between bludgeoning (which is the majority at 1d6+17 from 24 STR and monk unarmed strikes), necrotic (1d4, forget which helmet), radiant (1d4 + 3, but this can be swapped to psychic or necrotic too from open palm) and force (1d10, gloves of soul catching), which can be both good and bad depending on the enemy.