Protection Fighting Style

The AI in this game loves to focus attacks on whoever has the lowest AC. This gives tanking characters a lot of work to do. Protection l꧅ets you ward off a key attack against an a🐻lly.

Feat: Ability Improvement (dexterity, charisma)

This brings your attacking and spellcasting stat up to 18. The dexterity bonus lets you dodge fireballs slightly𒅌 better.

Feat: Ability Improvement (charisma +2)

Maxing your core stat is never a poor build choice in this game. You can choose to take the level 12 feat here instead and♊ delay your attack progression.

Mage Slayer

The Oath of the Ancients Paladin is great at defending against spellcasters and this lets you better attack them.

The temporary hitpoints each turn add up to an astounding 50HP for a first-level spell, but you'll rarely make perfect use of them. The immunity to fear is amazing due to how strong the debuff is in this game. It will eventually be made obsolete by the level 10 ability Aura Of Courage.

Knocking an enemy prone will help other melee attackers, especially rogues.

The go-to spell for when you don't need concentration for anything else. The best targets for this are allies who make multiple attacks per turn, such as dual-wielders.

Paladins have a limited number of spells that benefit from using higher-level slots. Your Lay On Hands will outperform the healing from this spell, but mor🐈e𒆙 healing is never a bad thing.

Other divine spellcasters will be able to upcast this f💯urther for a greater buff but are more likely to have other needs for their high-level slots.

The lynchpin of Ancients Paladin, lets you protect allies outside your aura and becomes available before level seven when Warding Aura comes online. Damage Reduction is applied to the redirected damage, letting you make amazing use of items like .

Ranged healing on a bonus action is great: paladins don't get access to healing word so this comes online a lot later than the same ability in other classes. Despite this, paladins have fewer uses for their bonus actions so can make better use of it.

You don't need to have this prepared at all times, but it's useful to remember so you save yourself the cost of a resurrection.

Both weapons use your charisma instead of dexterity on attacks

The Infernal Rapier is the stronger of the two weapons, but might already be needed for an ally's build. The Cambion it summons can help with tanking if you deliberately conjure it in an exposed position.

This heavy armour reduces all damage taken by t♍wo and negates critꦺical hits.

The Adamantine Splint Armour does everything a paladin needs and leaves rarer options like for the characters who benefit most from it. The damage reduction will apply to attacks bounced via Warding Bond, letting you safely have mult🦩iple bonds set up and not worry about absorbing too much.

Enemies have a disadvantage on spell attacks

Viconia's Walking Fortress further♏ doubles down on your defences against magic. If you make your defences too strong, enemies might ignore you for easier targets, so this is🔯 a double-edged option.

Expands range for landing critical hits

Multiplওying your critical hit chance is good on any paladin. Since this is a medium armour, it is unlikely to have been dibsed by an assassin rogue.

Raises constitution to 23

An Amulet of Greater Health will boost this character's constitution from 16 to 23, giving an extra three hitpoints per level, but will produce a much bigger gain when given to a character with a lower starting constitution.

Cannot be paralysed or hindered from moving

This item leaves you free to position your aura optimally, and you can prepare restꦰoration to cleanse paralys🐼is from allies.

Gives an advantage on all attacks and a disaღdvantage on all save🍨s

The Risky Ring is normally best used by assassin rogues, but an Ancients Paladin can use it to draw spells and attacks towards themselves while landing critical smites more often. Enemies love targeting the person who has a disadvantage on all their saves. The Ring of Free Action and Aura of Ward⛦ing will negate the worst consequences.

This is typical of all paladins: You want to hit enemies often and try to ဣget lucky critical hits you can turn into boosted smites.

This requires you to play on the front lines, fighting in melee and rarely sparing actions for spellcasting or other tasks.

This part is unique to the Ancients Paladin, where you want to make the most of your warding aura and defensive skills to negate as much damage as possible. Allies can only benefit ꦐfrom your aura when standing very close to you, meaning a lot of the time you'll only be providing 🦹these bonuses to other melee fighters and possibly a mid-range fighter such as a polearm master.

Allies that are routinely outside your aura can be protected using Warding Bond. If you have a start-of-day list of buffs you always cast, add this to it.

Healing abilities you'll largely be using outside of combat to top people up. Moving to heal a person often requires breaking formation, and this can lead to other allies takꦰing more damage than you 🎃removed with the healing.