The Paladin Nobody Asked For
Clad in plate armor that gleams in the sunlight despite the dust and grime of long travel, a human lays down her sword and shield and places her hands on a mortally wounded man. Divine radiance shines from her hands, the man’s wounds knit closed, and his eyes open wide with amazement.
A dwarf crouches behind an outcrop, his black cloak making him nearly invisible in the night, and watches an orc war band celebrating its recent victory. Silently, he stalks into their midst and whispers an oath, and two orcs are dead before they even realize he is there.
Silver hair shining in a shaft of light that seems to illuminate only him, an elf laughs with exultation. His spear flashes like his eyes as he jabs again and again at a twisted giant, until at last his light overcomes its hideous darkness.
Whatever their origin and their mission, paladins are united by their oaths to stand against the forces of evil. Whether sworn before a god’s altar and the witness of a priest, in a sacred glade before nature spirits and fey beings, or in a moment of desperation and grief with the dead as the only witness, a paladin’s oath is a powerful bond. It is a source of power that turns a devout warrior into a blessed champion.
The Cause of Righteousness
A paladin swears to uphold justice and righteousness, to stand with the good things of the world against the encroaching darkness, and to hunt the forces of evil wherever they lurk. Different paladins focus on various aspects of the cause of righteousness, but all are bound by the oaths that grant them power to do their sacred work. Although many paladins are devoted to gods of good, a paladin’s power comes as much from a commitment to justice itself as it does from a god.
Paladins train for years to learn the skills of combat, mastering a variety of weapons and armor. Even so, their martial skills are secondary to the magical power they wield: power to heal the sick and injured, to smite the wicked and the undead, and to protect the innocent and those who join them in the fight for justice.
Beyond the Mundane Life
Almost by definition, the life of a paladin is an adventuring life. Unless a lasting injury has taken him or her away from adventuring for a time, every paladin lives on the front lines of the cosmic struggle against evil. Fighters are rare enough among the ranks of the militias and armies of the world, but even fewer people can claim the true calling of a paladin. When they do receive the call, these warriors turn from their former occupations and take up arms to fight evil. Sometimes their oaths lead them into the service of the crown as leaders of elite groups of knights, but even then their loyalty is first to the cause of righteousness, not to crown and country.
Adventuring paladins take their work seriously. A delve into an ancient ruin or dusty crypt can be a quest driven by a higher purpose than the acquisition of treasure. Evil lurks in dungeons and primeval forests, and even the smallest victory against it can tilt the cosmic balance away from oblivion.
Creating a Paladin
The most important aspect of a paladin character is the nature of his or her holy quest. Although the class features related to your oath don’t appear until you reach 3rd level, plan ahead for that choice by reading the oath descriptions at the end of the class. Are you a devoted servant of good, loyal to the gods of justice and honor, a holy knight in shining armor venturing forth to smite evil? Are you a glorious champion of the light, cherishing everything beautiful that stands against the shadow, a knight whose oath descends from traditions older than many of the gods? Or are you an embittered loner sworn to take vengeance on those who have done great evil, sent as an angel of death by the gods or driven by your need for revenge? The Gods of the Multiverse section lists many deities worshiped by paladins throughout the multiverse, such as Torm, Tyr, Heironeous, Paladine, Kiri-Jolith, Dol Arrah, the Silver Flame, Bahamut, Athena, Re-Horakhty, and Heimdall.
How did you experience your call to serve as a paladin? Did you hear a whisper from an unseen god or angel while you were at prayer? Did another paladin sense the potential within you and decide to train you as a squire? Or did some terrible event—the destruction of your home, perhaps—drive you to your quests? Perhaps you stumbled into a sacred grove or a hidden elven enclave and found yourself called to protect all such refuges of goodness and beauty. Or you might have known from your earliest memories that the paladin’s life was your calling, almost as if you had been sent into the world with that purpose stamped on your soul.
As guardians against the forces of wickedness, paladins are rarely of any evil alignment. Most of them walk the paths of charity and justice. Consider how your alignment colors the way you pursue your holy quest and the manner in which you conduct yourself before gods and mortals. Your oath and alignment might be in harmony, or your oath might represent standards of behavior that you have not yet attained.
The Paladin
| Level | Proficiency | Features | Zeal | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | +2 | Divine Sense, Zeal | 1 | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2nd | +2 | Fighting Style, Spellcasting, Divine Smite | 2 | 2 | — | — | — | — |
| 3rd | +2 | Sacred Oath, Divine Mandate | 3 | 3 | — | — | — | — |
| 4th | +2 | Ability Score Improvement | 4 | 3 | — | — | — | — |
| 5th | +3 | Extra Attack | 5 | 4 | 2 | — | — | — |
| 6th | +3 | Aura of Protection, Devotion | 6 | 4 | 2 | — | — | — |
| 7th | +3 | Sacred Oath Feature | 7 | 4 | 3 | — | — | — |
| 8th | +3 | Ability Score Improvement | 8 | 4 | 3 | — | — | — |
| 9th | +4 | — | 9 | 4 | 3 | 2 | — | — |
| 10th | +4 | Divine Recovery | 10 | 4 | 3 | 2 | — | — |
| 11th | +4 | Improved Divine Smite | 11 | 4 | 3 | 3 | — | — |
| 12th | +4 | Ability Score Improvement | 12 | 4 | 3 | 3 | — | — |
| 13th | +5 | — | 13 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | — |
| 14th | +5 | Aura of Authority | 14 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | — |
| 15th | +5 | Sacred Oath Feature | 15 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | — |
| 16th | +5 | Ability Score Improvement | 16 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | — |
| 17th | +6 | — | 17 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 18th | +6 | Aura Improvements | 18 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 19th | +6 | Ability Score Improvement | 19 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 20th | +6 | Sacred Oath Feature | 20 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
Class Features
As a paladin, you gain the following class features.
Hit Points
- Hit Dice: 1d10 per paladin level
- Hit Points at 1st Level: 10 + your Constitution modifier
- Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d10 or 6 + your Constitution modifier per paladin level after 1st
Proficiencies
- Armor: All armor, shields
- Weapons: Simple weapons, martial weapons
- Tools: None
- Saving Throws: Wisdom, Charisma
- Skills: Choose two from Athletics, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Persuasion, and Religion
Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:
- (a) a martial weapon and a shield or (b) two martial weapons
- (a) five javelins or (b) any simple melee weapon
- (a) a priest’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack
- Chain mail and a holy symbol
Divine Sense
The presence of strong evil registers on your senses like a noxious odor, and powerful good rings like heavenly music in your ears. As an action, you can open your awareness to detect such forces. Until the end of your next turn, you know the location of any celestial, fiend, or undead within 60 feet of you that is not behind total cover. You know the type (celestial, fiend, or undead) of any being whose presence you sense, but not its identity (the vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich, for instance). Within the same radius, you also detect the presence of any place or object that has been consecrated or desecrated, as with the hallow spell.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier. When you finish a long rest, you regain all expended uses.
Zeal
Starting at first level, as a reward for becoming a newly anointed crusader of your deity, they gift you with a fragment of zealous power. You have an amount of Zeal available to you listed in the Zeal column of the Paladin class table. You regain all spent Zeal after finishing a long rest.
Lay on Hands
Your blessed touch can heal wounds. As an action, you can touch a creature and expend 1 Zeal to restore 1d8 hit points to that creature. You can spend additional Zeal to increase this effect by an additional 1d8 per Zeal spent, unto a maximum of 5d8.
This feature has no effect on undead and constructs.
Divine Health
The divine magic flowing through you can cure the sick. As an action, you can touch a creature and expend 1 Zeal to cure the target of one disease or neutralize one poison affecting it. You can cure multiple diseases and neutralize multiple poisons with a single use by expending an additional Zeal for each.
This feature has no effect on undead and constructs.
Fighting Style
At 2nd level, you adopt a style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.
Defense While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.
Dueling When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.
Great Weapon Fighting When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit.
Protection When a creature you can see attacks a target other than you that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. You must be wielding a shield.
Blessed Warrior You learn two cantrips of your choice from the cleric spell list. They count as paladin spells for you, and Charisma is your spellcasting ability for them. Whenever you gain a level in this class, you can replace one of these cantrips with another cantrip from the cleric spell list.
Blind Fighting You have blindsight with a range of 10 feet. Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn’t behind total cover, even if you’re blinded or in darkness. Moreover, you can see an invisible creature within that range, unless the creature successfully hides from you.
Interception When a creature you can see hits a target, other than you, within 5 feet of you with an attack, you can use your reaction to reduce the damage the target takes by 1d10 + your proficiency bonus (to a minimum of 0 damage). You must be wielding a shield or a simple or martial weapon to use this reaction.
Spellcasting
By 2nd level, you have learned to draw on divine magic through meditation and prayer to cast spells as a cleric does. See Spells Rules for the general rules of spellcasting and the Spells Listing for the paladin spell list.
Preparing and Casting Spells
The Paladin table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your paladin spells. To cast one of your paladin spells of 1st level or higher, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.
You prepare the list of paladin spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the paladin spell list. When you do so, choose a number of paladin spells equal to your Charisma modifier + half your paladin level, rounded down (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.
For example, if you are a 5th-level paladin, you have four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots. With a Charisma of 14, your list of prepared spells can include four spells of 1st or 2nd level, in any combination. If you prepare the 1st-level spell cure wounds, you can cast it using a 1st-level or a 2nd-level slot. Casting the spell doesn’t remove it from your list of prepared spells.
You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of paladin spells requires time spent in prayer and meditation: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.
Spellcasting Ability
Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your paladin spells, since their power derives from the strength of your convictions. You use your Charisma whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Charisma modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a paladin spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.
Spell Save DC
Spell attack modifier
Spellcasting Focus
You can use a holy symbol (see the Adventuring Gear section) as a spellcasting focus for your paladin spells.
Divine Smite
Starting at 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target, in addition to the weapon’s damage. The extra damage is 1d8 for a 1st-level spell slot, plus 1d8 for each spell level higher than 1st, to a maximum of 5d8. The damage increases by 1d8 if the target is an undead or a fiend, to a maximum of 6d8.
Sacred Oath
When you reach 3rd level, you swear the oath that binds you as a paladin forever. Up to this time you have been in a preparatory stage, committed to the path but not yet sworn to it. Now you choose the Oath of Devotion detailed at the end of the class description or one from another source.
Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th, 15th, and 20th level. Those features include oath spells and the Channel Divinity feature.
Oath Spells
Each oath has a list of associated spells. You gain access to these spells at the levels specified in the oath description. Once you gain access to an oath spell, you always have it prepared. Oath spells don’t count against the number of spells you can prepare each day.
If you gain an oath spell that doesn’t appear on the paladin spell list, the spell is nonetheless a paladin spell for you.
Channel Divinity
Your oath allows you to channel divine energy to fuel magical effects. Each Channel Divinity option provided by your oath explains how to use it.
When you use your Channel Divinity, you choose which option to use. You must then finish a short or long rest to use your Channel Divinity again.
Some Channel Divinity effects require saving throws. When you use such an effect from this class, the DC equals your paladin spell save DC.
Divine Mandate
Starting at 3rd level, the power of your divine energy, combines with your poise in battle. Whenever you cast a Paladin spell of 1st level or higher, you can expend a number of Zeal equal to the spell's level. If you do, you do not need to make concentration checks to maintain concentration on the spell for it's duration.
Ability Score Improvement
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.
Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.
Martial Versatility
Whenever you reach a level in this class that grants the Ability Score Improvement feature, you can replace a fighting style you know with another fighting style available to paladins. This replacement represents a shift of focus in your martial practic
Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Aura of Protection
Starting at 6th level, whenever you or a friendly creature within 10 feet of you must make a saving throw that they are not proficient with, the creature gains a bonus to the saving throw equal to your Charisma modifier (with a minimum bonus of +1). You must be conscious to grant this bonus.
Additionally, you can grant your companions a bit of divine aid. As a bonus action and expending 1 Zeal, a creature within your Aura of Protection gains a Protection die, a d4. Once within the next 10 minutes, the creature can roll the die and add the number rolled to one saving throw it makes. The creature can wait until after it rolls the d20 before deciding to use the Protection die, but must decide before the DM says whether the roll succeeds or fails. Once the Protection die is rolled, it is lost. A creature can have only one Protection die at a time.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet and the Protection die becomes a d8 instead of d4.
Devotion
Starting at 6th level, you gain a added benefit provided by your god whilst you honor your oath. Choose one of the following devotions.
Unyielding Prudence. While following the tenets of your oath, and you suspect another creature is lying to you, you can force that creature to make a Charisma saving throw against a DC equal to your passive Insight score. This save is made with disadvantage if the creature has tenets that go contrary to yours and it is done in secret by the DM. On a failure, you get a strong sense that they are being untruthful. Once you have used this feature you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.
Rebuke Heresy. While following the tenets of your oath, you can grant yourself advantage on intimidation checks made to intimidate others with opposing views to your tenets or those making obvious efforts to avoid or rebuke you. Once you have used this feature you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.
Truth in Conviction. While following the tenets of your oath, whenever you are telling the truth and make any Charisma ability check to do so, you can use this feature to reroll the check. You use this feature before determining the outcome of the roll. Once you have used this feature you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.
Divine Recovery
At 10th level, you gain the ability to swiftly recover. After finishing a short rest, you regain an amount of Zeal equal to your proficiency bonus.
Rejuvenation
Your divine touch improves and rejuvenates the crest fallen. As an action, you can touch a willing creature and expend 5 Zeal. That creature's exhaustion level is reduced by 1.
A creature can't benefit from this feature more than once in a 24 hour period.
Cleansing Touch
The divine energy flowing through you can extinguish the damnations of other magic. As an action and expending 5 Zeal, you can end one spell on yourself or on one willing creature that you touch.
Improved Divine Smite
By 11th level, you are so suffused with righteous might that all your melee weapon strikes carry divine power with them. Whenever you hit a creature with a melee weapon, the creature takes an extra 1d8 radiant damage.
Aura Improvements
At 18th level, the range of your auras increase to 30 feet and the size of their respective dice becomes a d8 instead of a d4.
Sacred Oaths
All published Sacred Oaths are available for play without modification with this homebrew.