The Oath of Noble Genies Paladin is among the strongest subclasses in Heroes of the Forgotten Realms, and quite possibly the strongest Paladin subclass in 2024 D&D (maybe even all of 5E).
One of the intriguing notions about the subclass is Genie's Splendor, a passive feature that effectively gives you Unarmored Defense, using Charisma in addition to Dexterity to determine your AC.
Paladins generally favor Strength - indeed, officially you need a 13 or more in Strength to multiclass into or out of Paladin. But aside from the Barbarian (who loses their rage bonus if their attacks aren't made with Strength,) any melee build in D&D can go for Dexterity instead by focusing on finesse weapons.
While this will typically come at a slight cost in terms of Armor Class, as without epic boons, feats, or magic items, Medium and Light armor values cap at 17, while Heavy Armor can get you to 18, Genie's Splendor, with the right stat spread, can actually get you beyond what a suit of plate can get you - with +5 to Dex and +3 to Cha (something you can achieve as early as level 8 with point buy/standard array stats) you can get an 18 AC, and this is, in my experience, usually around the level that a character can first afford to buy a set of plate armor. But if you push these stats and cap out your Charisma as well, you can get an AC of 20, which doesn't count wearing a shield.
You will, however, struggle a little to keep up in damage for a couple reasons, which we're going to get into.
As a note: if you plan on a sword-and-board build, there's practically no difference. A strength-based Paladin wielding a Longsword is going to do the same damage (before getting into the intricacies of weapon masteries) as a dex-based one with a Rapier (actually, a Strength paladin can also use a Rapier just as well).
But if you want to maximize your damage output, going Dex is going to mean leaving Great Weapon Master and all the big two-handed melee weapons on the table.
Generally, a character that is going with finesse weapons and wants to maximize damage output will want to go with a dual-wielding set-up. The best weapons for this are a shortsword in your "main" hand and a scimitar in your off-hand (though I believe the order in which you attack with these doesn't necessarily matter - I'd still use the Shortsword for the main attacks because of its Vex property). Each does a d6, and the Scimitar's Nick property (I believe it's the highest-damage Nick weapon) means that your "off-hand" attack (or, to be more precise, the extra attack granted by the light property) is made as part of your attack action, rather than your bonus action.
Nick is crucial here, because it frees up our bonus action for Divine Smite, which is extra-powerful as a Genie Warlock.
However, one challenge you might encounter is that Dual Wielding builds tend to benefit from the Dual Wielder feat, a feat whose wording can be misinterpreted, but here's the power it holds: If you make an attack with a light weapon, you can make an attack as a bonus action using another one-handed weapon.
Unlike the old version, which was there to let you dual-wield non-light weapons, this version instead grants you another attack: because your bonus action is no longer required to make that extra attack with your bonus action, your bonus action is now freed up to do... another attack. Note that this one will not inherit the Two Weapon Fighting feat, so it will only be the damage die and any extra damage from being a magic weapon or other effects.
Now, about a year ago, when the 2024 PHB came out, I did an analysis of dual-wielding builds, and while the Paladin benefits a lot from them once you get Radiant Strikes at level 11, I believe that Great Weapon Master still outperforms it.
One of the reasons why Paladins in particular might shy away from the Dual Wielder feat is that we need our bonus action to cast Divine Smite, and so each turn we're going to be torn between making that extra attack or using this spell. A Fighter, by contrast, is only using their bonus action if they need to Second Wind (which is only occasional).
Still, that bonus action attack does benefit from Radiant Strikes.
If I recall my math (which I'm slightly hesitant to recreate here) the dual-wielding build is not terribly far behind, but we should also bear this in mind:
In order to actually out-class the AC of a heavy-armor build, we're going to need to fully commit to pumping these stats. That likely means skipping some other general feats in favor of ASIs.
If we assume we're starting off with a 17 Dex and 16 Cha (doable with Point Buy/Standard Array) we can certainly pick up a general feat at level 4 to bump up Dexterity (Dual Wielder can do this, but Defensive Duelist and Mage Slayer are both strong options). However, this means that if we want to cap out both Dex and Charisma, we'll need to take ASIs at 8, 12, and 16 (while a buff overall to D&D characters, getting an Epic Boon at level 19 means we're less likely to choose a simple ASI at that level for our final feat).
In other words, I think the subclass certainly allows for an unarmored build, but it might lag slightly behind a standard strength/plate build if you're trying to maximize damage output.
That said, there are advantages to being unarmored: for one, you'll always have a decent AC, even while you're sleeping. You will also be more likely to succeed on stealth checks (and you'll have the Dex to support it.)
Another option we naturally must consider is multiclassing, particularly with Warlock. You will need to have a 13 Strength to do so, which does spread us out (making it tough to get even a +2 to Con). This will allow you to go Pact of the Blade (and probably Genie Patron for subclass, right?) to attack with Charisma. While we'll still want a decent Dexterity, we can now focus on maxing out our Charisma first, which will help with both our weapons and our AC (practically doing everything Dexterity had been doing). Indeed, if we did this, we wouldn't even be limited to finesse weapons, as we could just as easily get a Greatsword pact blade that is using our Charisma for attacks. We'd also qualify for fantastic feats like Great Weapon Master because we're already required to have a 13 in Strength anyway.
But this will also delay some of our power progression. It's the kind of build that looks great at level, like 7, but will be a bit awkward at first - do you use a crappy Strength while you head straight for Extra Attack, or do you delay that and Aura of Protection for your Pact of the Blade?
You'll also still probably want some Dexterity, as you're still relying on it for your AC.
All in all, I think the route I'd take is just straight Paladin unarmored. It's just a cool vibe.
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