Details for the Oath of the Ebon Blade and Forsaken Species

 Insight Check recently posted a video with a bit of content out of the upcoming D&D World of Warcraft book related to the Oath of the Ebon Blade subclass for Paladins, which allows us to create the equivalent of WoW's playable Death Knights, as well as the Forsaken species, which equates to WoW's playable Undead race.

Notably, both of these are doing some unprecedented things.

Let's actually hit up the Forsaken first, as I think it's less dramatic:

Forsaken are free-willed, sentient undead. Mostly former humans, the collective identity is linked less to their original species than their shared experience of having come back from the dead and reconciling their free will and memories of life with the grim reality of being a walking corpse.

For the first time in all of 5E, the Forsaken are a species with the undead creature type (something even Reborn don't have). This, thankfully, is much more viable now that healing spells like Cure Wounds work on Undead and Clerics' Turn Undead allows you to pick which targets are affected. Note, though, that Raise Dead and Resurrection won't actually work on them. Crazily enough, True Resurrection will actually turn them back into humanoids, so you might want to talk to a DM if that means you become a Human (or High Elf, potentially, depending on your backstory). Revivify and Reincarnate will both still work, though. Given the special nature of your undeath, I would talk with DMs to see if you could get special dispensation to allow you to be brought back with these spells.

(As a note, in WoW, despite the race being called, literally, just Undead, your creature type is actually humanoid, for game balance reasons.)

From there, the features are a little more standard. You are Medium or Small, have a 30 foot movement speed, and 60 feet of darkvision. You get resistance to Necrotic damage as well, and like Reborn, you don't have to eat, drink, or breathe, and you only need to stay inert for 4 hours to get a long rest.

Touch of the Grave lets you, once per long rest, add a number of d4s equal to your PB of necrotic damage when you deal damage to a creature, and then you regain HP equal to the amount rolled.

Finally, Will of the Forsaken gives you advantage on saving throws to avoid or end the Charmed or Frightened conditions.

    So, overall, I think this reflects the WoW race pretty effectively. I do think the issues with resurrection magic might potentially pose a challenge, though I think at the very least, building some alternate means of bringing a fallen Forsaken PC back ought to be in the cards. Frankly, I think it would be reasonable to allow Animate Dead to work in place of Raise Dead, for example, or maybe you need to conduct some kind of necromantic ritual that works similarly to Raise Dead.

Now, let's talk Ebon Blade Paladins, aka Death Knights.

Here, the video doesn't get the whole subclass, but we get a number of interesting features that are, interestingly enough, for levels 1 and 2, which you'll note is not a pair of levels that any established subclasses get anything for.

That's because while Ebon Blade Paladins use the Paladin class as a framework, they aren't actually meant to be Paladins. Even if a lot of canonical Warcraft Death Knights were Paladins in life, not all of them were. Essentially, this isn't going so far as to make a whole new class, but it's retrofitting the 5.5 Paladin to make it fit the Death Knight better.

First off, more of a flavor thing, you can carve a rune into your weapon, giving you the flavor of Blood, Frost, or Unholy - the three Death Knight specs in WoW. According to the video, this doesn't have extensive mechanical implications, but we'll just have to see.

Next, the first big change: like Forsaken, Death Knights are undead. Similarly to all the issues we discussed before, this will give you immunity to certain spells that affect humanoids, but it also means you have to worry about resurrection magic not working. Once again, the funny thing is that in WoW, even if Death Knights were raised in undeath, they're mechanically still humanoids for game balance (though they do have a class ability called Lichborne that temporarily turns you undead for various reasons, including something we're going to touch on right now:)

Death Coil fully replaces Lay on Hands. Yeah, that's right: you don't get Lay on Hands as an Ebon Blade Paladin. Instead, Death Coil lets you use a bonus action to send out necrotic damage or bursts of healing that affect only undead targets. You have a pool of d8s equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1). As a bonus action, you can spend up to your Charisma modifier of those d8s (makes me wonder if our pool gets bigger at higher levels, otherwise this limitation seems redundant) to force a creature you can see within 60 feet to make a Con save. On a failure, they take damage equal to the number rolled, or half as much on a success. You can also target an undead creature (and you are an undead creature) and heal them for the amount rolled.

You regain these d8s on a long rest.

    So, to break this down: this is obviously more aggressive than Lay on Hands, which is purely defensive. Makes sense given the priorities of a Death Knight. The damage will be great at early levels, but I think unless that pool expands to, like, twice your Charimsa modifier or somehow also gets expanded, I'm not sure that this is quite the compensation for the loss of Lay on Hands. Again, unless we get a larger pool later on, we're talking like 5d8 at most extra damage once per day by level 17.

    As self-healing, or potentially healing for minions or allies (maybe you have a non-Death Knight Forsaken party member in the group?) it's a bit better, though again, I think it starts to fall behind Lay on Hands pretty quickly.

Runic Smite replaces Divine Smite.

Here, there's a much more direct parallel to the Paladin feature. Runic Smite has the Rune Strike spell always prepared, and lets you cast it once per day for free.

Rune Strike works identically to Divine Smite except for the following changes:

Its damage is Necrotic, and rather than dealing an extra d8 of damage to Fiends and Undead, it instead deals an extra d8 to Celestials.

    This makes perfect sense as a flavor change. But we do run into a couple problems: First off, more monsters can resist or be immune to necrotic damage than radiant damage. Second, there are far more Fiends and Undead monsters that we tend to fight in D&D than Celestials. Even in an Azeroth-based campaign, we're far more likely to be fighting Fiends like the demons of the Burning Legion or Undead monsters in the Scourge. In fact, the only creatures I can think of off the top of my head that would inevitably be Celestials are the Naaru, who are both rare and usually friendly (in fact, when they go "dark," they probably become aberrations). Maybe Val'kyr?

Obviously, we need to get the full picture before we can really get a sense of how the subclass transforms the Paladin into the Death Knight. These changes certainly don't make the class unplayable or anything, and I really applaud the boldness to tinker with the inner workings of the base class beyond simply plugging in subclass features at the appropriate levels.

Indeed, if this proves effective with the Death Knight and Demon Hunter, this could be some exciting "tech" for WotC to bring to other supplemental products outside of the Universes Beyond line.

Undead Paladins and the Current State of the Forsaken

 You know, when I first started playing WoW, I kind of rolled my eyes at the Undead, the chosen playable race for the most edgelord players.

But the thing is, the deep, dark truth in my soul, is that I'm a bit of an edgelord myself.

Yeah, I freaking love these guys. The truth is, that while there was some precedent for my affinity for spooky vibes (my favorite holiday as a kid was Halloween,) I truly think that World of Warcraft coaxed forth a lifelong fondness for the grim and macabre, and my amoral little Undead Rogue, who cut his teeth assassinating the leadership of Hillsbrad, has always been one of my most beloved WoW characters, even as my love of the Rogue class fluctuates (actually, I really adore the way Subtlety plays currently, though Goremaw's Bite being part of the recommended talents does mess up my comfortable action bar placements).

I also love Paladins... though I'll confess that while Protection Paladins remain my "comfort class," as my main has been my human Prot Paladin since early 2008, I don't terribly care for the current state of Retribution. And I've genuinely never played as Holy outside of the artifact quests in Legion. If I tank well enough, they won't make me heal!

But if you asked me which race would be the absolute last to get Paladins, I'd have assumed Undead.

Perhaps that was too quick a judgment.

In I believe 12.2, we'll get an expansion to the available classes for Paladins, adding Night Elves, Trolls, and Undead.

For Night Elves, this is honestly a long time coming. Delas Moonfang was one of our class champions in Legion, and the ghost of Nerus Moonfang (I believe her ancestor) was another one. There were, thus, more Night Elf champions than there were Dwarves and I believe Draenei, both races that can and always have been able to play as Paladins. While Night Elves don't worship the Light in the same way that Humans, Dwarves, and to an extent Blood Elves do, we've seen how the Paladin tradition need not all derive from Uther the Lightbringer's example, with Draenei Vindicators, Zandalari Troll Prelates, and Tauren Sunwalkers. It stands to reason that Night Elf Paladins could emerge from a combination of their Sentinel warrior traditions and their Elune-worshipping priestly traditions.

Then, with Trolls, it seems likely that the example of the Zandalari Prelates would simply be something the Darkspear incorporate into their traditions. Interesting that the Darkspear were once this minor, pariah tribe amongst the Gurubashi nation and now are more or less on equal footing with the traditionally most powerful Troll tribe. While there were rough patches (Garrosh,) it sounds like joining up with the Horde has worked out quite well for the Darkspear.

Anyway, when it comes to the Undead, it sort of simultaneously makes a ton of sense and also the least sense for them to be paladins.

After all, the Knights of the Silver Hand were quite prevalent in Lordaeron. I don't know how where Uther actually hailed from, but we've seen how Alonsus Faol, who literally is the one who imbued Uther with his holy power and co-founded the Knights of the Silver Hand, has remained a holy priest firmly dedicated to the Light, even if that light causes him pain as one of the undead.

While Faol is associated more with the Conclave now, as he is a Priest rather than a Paladin, I think he stands as a great example of how the Forsaken might embrace ways that seemed to be lost to them with their descent into undeath.

Culturally, I think that Sylvanas' regime as head of the Forsaken (and in fairness, she more or less founded the Forsaken as a unified people) discouraged association with old identities from when they were living. While Sylvanas seems on the road to reformation, she's also decidedly not the leader of the Forsaken anymore, though at least in-game we haven't seen anyone really take her place (Calia Menethil might play such a role, but I think reestablishing the Menethil dynasty is maybe not the best choice for them, even if she's about 1000% better than her brother was.)

The point is, the Forsaken, who have always leaned pretty hard into their dark and spooky aesthetic (prior to Cataclysm, towns like Bree were just ruined versions of human architecture found in Elwynn Forest, but they had created new types of buildings in Wrath of the Lich King, which they then carried over with the world revamp, dialing the spooky gothic vibes up to 11). And that extended to their behavior, with a fair number of actions that were straight-up evil, with just the lightest justification that it was in the name of self-defense.

Sylvanas amped up this kind of behavior, eventually forcing the Horde to turn on her after she had become Warchief, and outside of the game, she even had an emerging independent Forsaken government, the Desolate Council, killed.

Without Sylvanas, and after the betrayal by Sylvanas in her alliance with the Jailer, the Forsaken have not really been in the spotlight as much, but I suspect that, absent her influence, it might be less taboo for them to embrace some of their old identities as humans. Particularly given the much less hostile relations between the Alliance and Horde, it's not quite as important to the survival of the Forsaken to be so utterly hostile to living humans.

And I think that these factors all combine to allow them to start embracing the role of the Paladin.

Now, at least according to some very old lore, it's unlikely that any Undead Paladins would have been living paladins prior to their initial deaths. Back in early WoW lore, Paladins were immune to the Plague of Undeath, and thus would not have been turned even if slain by the Scourge (they could still be resurrected as Death Knights, of course).

This is the kind of minor lore thing that could very easily be retconned away, but I think it might be interesting, culturally, if we conceptualize Undead Paladins as embracing it as newcomers - a movement to honor the history of Lordaeron, and a test of their convictions to endure the power of the Light in order to protect their people.

Look, as I said, I really only love playing Protection, so I don't know how likely it is I'll have some really prominent Undead Paladin alt (I already have a Lightforged Draenei and Tauren Paladin sitting there as well). But it would be really cool if we get an exploration of the way that Forsaken culture has evolved in recent years.

Baseless Speculation on the Oath of the Ebon Blade Paladin

 As I've documented on this blog many a time, I have a deep love for the "dark is not evil" trope, where you have heroic people who nevertheless give off scary, sinister, macabre vibes. And WoW's Death Knights are... well, it's complicated.

At least prior to Shadowlands, when post-Cataclysm races weren't able to be Death Knights, all members of the class went through the "Death Knight Starting Experience," starting you at level 55 (you needed to have a character of at least level 55 to make one, but it's still a fully separate character - I just happened to delete my Draenei Shaman to make room on my server for my Death Knight, and re-created his appearance and name, flavoring it as the Shaman being raised as a Death Knight). Anyway, the DKSE, as I don't think anyone has abbreviated it, had you fighting for the Scourge (the iconic undead villain faction, led by the Lich King) against the Scarlet Crusade (who are basically the evil fundamentalist zealots, though they do have civilians among them). Most of your quest-givers here are actually bosses from the Naxxramas raid (which originally released as the final raid of Vanilla WoW, but was revamped for level 80 when Wrath of the Lich King came out to serve as the expansion's starter raid).

The quests here actually have you do some real nasty things, including killing fleeing civilians (while you were high-level, some of the people fleeing you were like, level 15). It's only after you defeat the Crusaders and turn your attention to the Argent Dawn (the good-guy faction focused on combating the Scourge) that events play out that both break your Death Knight's loyalty to the Lich King (upon finding you you've been sent basically as cannon fodder for the paladins of the Argent Dawn to kill and hopefully draw out Tirion Fordring, who was basically the greatest living paladin) but also, it's implied at least, that the holy power of the location severs the mental control the Lich King has over you. You then go to your faction's capital with a letter of introduction from Tirion that basically says "hey, I know this is a Death Knight, but they've broken free of the Scourge and could reintegrate into society). From then on, you're basically just another adventurer, and can be a real hero, even if your methods are... dark (well, I don't know, Frost Death Knights aren't too bad, except for the occasional undead dragon they summon to breath frost in a big line).

When Shadowlands came out, they opened up the class to all playable races, but given that many of these joined the game after the events of that starting experience, they instead had these Death Knight begin as lieutenants of Bolvar Fordragon, who heroically took on the role of Lich King after we defeated Arthas and, with some notable exceptions, mostly used his power to restrain the Scourge and protect the world. So, these Death Knights were basically heroes from the start, albeit using, you know, dark methods.

All that preamble aside:

Death Knights, of course, as precedented in D&D, had a lot of shared flavor with Paladins. Indeed, back in the original talent system, Retribution Paladins had a set of talents called Conviction, which increased their critical strike chance, while Blood Death Knights had Dark Conviction, which did the same. And, of course, in Warcraft III, it was the former paladin Arthas Menethil who served as the primary death knight character, with mirrored abilities.

Thus, it makes plenty of sense that D&D's approach to the Death Knight would be to make it a Paladin subclass. There's even some precedence, with the Oathbreaker Paladin functioning as a sort of proto-Death Knight.

But given that they've explicitly said this is a brand-new subclass, we have to wonder what it will look like as expressed as a 5E subclass, using the existing chassis of the Paladin.

That said, in an interview with James Wyatt, he mentioned that, true to the "hero class" origins of the Death Knight and Demon Hunter (an ironic term given that they're more like "anti-hero classes," though this was mainly that they started at higher level, which was also true for the Evoker,) you're expected to start these characters at level 3, as the subclass sort of needs to be there from the start for the character to make sense. He mentioned that the subclasses will go back to level 1 and 2 features for the classes and alter some features.

I suspect that one such thing might be that Divine Smite might be altered, giving us something like "Rune Strike" or maybe "Rune Smite" (to keep it in line with such spell names. Death Knights doing radiant damage feels weird, so we might get a version that does necrotic damage.

I also wonder if these two subclasses in particular will have a larger set of subclass spells - while I think you could reflavor something like Bone Shield to just be Armor of Agathys, there are so many iconic abilities that it might be weird to give to all Paladins.

Another challenge is going to be to allow for all three specs of Death Knight to find representation in a single subclass. In WoW, Death Knights have Blood, Frost, and Unholy as their three specs. Blood is the tanking spec, which is all about healing yourself by striking your foes (primarily through an ability called Death Strike) and maintaining a protective Bone Shield. Frost is all about lining up massive strikes, hitting like a truck with an attack called Obliterate, and radiating frost damage or sending waves of frost (and as a big cooldown ability, they can send a Frostwyrm - think Dracolich - to breathe on all foes in front of them). Unholy is WoW's closest equivalent to a Necromancer, having a permanent ghoul pet and summoning additional temporary ghouls and skeletal mages frequently over the course of combat.

I suspect we'll probably be able to distinguish the specs mainly via spell choice (and possibly using dual-wielding to go Frost - a spec that allows dual-wielding or using a two-handed weapon, while the other two are exclusively designed around using a single big weapon).

While Unholy gets a permanent ghoul pet, the other two specs can still summon a temporary one, and this ghoul actually lasts a minute, with a two-minute cooldown on the ability that summons it, so it can be up around 50% of the time.

Thus, I'm sort of inclined to imagine that we might get something like the UA Oathbreaker, which can use Channel Divinity to summon a skeleton or zombie as a pet. The one thing I'd really hope they do is make the summoned undead minion scale with our level. A zombie's +3 to hit is going to be pretty useless if you're in Icecrown Citadel at level 19 fighting Sindragosa (the mother, kind of literally, of all Frostwyrms, late consort to the Blue Dragon Aspect, Malygos).

Usually Paladins don't get much beyond a Channel Divinity option and Oath spells at level 3, though as we mentioned earlier, we might get more extensive changes with this.

For a level 7 feature, we often get some kind of additional benefit to our Aura of Protection. This isn't universal, but many paladin subclasses do this. Again, if they want to lean into the "necromancer"/Unholy vibes of this subclass, we could potentially get something like the Oathbreaker's Aura of Hate, which buffs the damage of undead creatures in the aura (which did get fixed to only buff friendly creatures in the UA). We'd probably leave fiends out of it, given that Death/Necromancy is fairly distinct from Demonic/Fel magic in WoW (the lore on the Scourge is a bit complex and somewhat subject to retcons - while initially it was presented as being created by the demonic Burning Legion, in Shadowlands we learned that the power behind it was totally separate, and even in Warcraft III, the Lich King very quickly started plotting against the Legion).

We don't actually get a third paladin subclass feature until level 15. Usually this is some sort of defensive or group-support feature. Again, while they were pretty explicit about the Ebon Blade being a wholly original option here, I'm tempted to say we call this Icebound Fortitude (the main all-specs defensive cooldown ability) and just let them get the Oathbreaker's resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage. (Actually, in WoW, this ability both reduces incoming damage and also gives you immunity to being stunned. Maybe the latter could be part of this? The flavor is that you freeze your own blood).

Finally, all Paladin subclasses have their level 20 "ult." The only class with a subclass feature as its capstone, these basically have to be flashy. While it's now an Unholy-only ability, the real show-stopper Death Knights have had since 2008 (it's even featured in the Wrath of the Lich King announcement trailer) is Army of the Dead, where you summon like a dozen ghouls to attack your foes.

Here's how I'd handle it in D&D: make the Army work more like the "Conjure" spells in 5.5, filling your Aura of Protection emanation (which is now 30 feet) with undead creatures and have them do damage and other effects to anyone that's inside of the aura. While the WoW ability is just damage, I think for D&D it might also be difficult terrain, maybe even potentially restrain foes inside of it, and maybe you get cover from them.

Now, last thing to cover: spells.

I don't know if we're going to get a massive number of Death Knight abilities as spells, but I think the following might be iconic enough to make them in. They might also be presented as Wizard/Warlock spells that we get as Oath spells.

Death and Decay: This is a spell where you place an area of nasty shadow damage that ticks on any foes standing inside of it for a few seconds. In D&D, this could be maybe a cylinder spell that lasts for a minute and does damage to creatures starting in it. Indeed, in WoW, you can often take talents to make foes inside of it slowed, which could be covered by just making it Difficult Terrain inside.

Death Coil: A bolt of shadow energy that damages foes but also heals friendly undead. It's a bit like Negative Energy Flood, to be fair, but maybe it'd be balanced a little differently.

Lichborne: A sort of odd defensive cooldown, this actually turns your creature type to Undead for a short duration and also makes you immune to things like fear. (Notably, it lets you cast Death Coil on yourself to heal). I think this could be a fun bit of utility.

Death Strike: I'm curious to see how the book handles the various "strike" abilities that characters in WoW have. Death Strike is used by all three specs, though for Unholy and Frost, it's more of a situational thing to help recover while soloing (you get to use it for free after you kill a foe of reasonable level,) while Blood uses it constantly.

Rune Strike: This one's a bit odd, because it's not in the game anymore, but it was called out explicitly in the announcement. In WoW, Death Knights have a kind of two-part resource system. They have six runes that take 10 seconds each to recharge (though this is reduced if you get more of the Haste stat on your gear) and every Rune you spend on abilities generates 10 Runic Power, which you typically spend on a smaller number of abilities, like Death Coil or Death Strike. In earlier expansions, Death Strike cost two runes (originally, it was more complicated, because you specifically had two runes each of Blood, Frost, and Unholy, and different abilities used different specific runes) and so Blood Death Knights would spend their Runic Power on Rune Strike, which was mostly just a physical damage attack (I think it couldn't be dodged or parried). So, yeah, no real idea of how this will work, but we know it will be in there.

Death Grip: A really iconic ability, Death Grip lets Death Knights grab a target from afar and pull them to them, which is pretty nice for a melee-only class. Notably, before Wrath of the Lich King, I don't think any classes had any spells or abilities that could forcibly move enemy targets, so this felt incredible (and naturally got a lot of people to macro the ability to also have their character yell "Get Over Here!" like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat). I could see this being maybe a 2nd level spell (though if it can only pull them toward you, maybe it should be 1st level, as Vortex Warp is 2nd level). Make it a bonus action, too, please (and that might justify making it 2nd level).

    Anyway, I'm really very excited to see how they handle the Death Knight and Demon Hunter in the WoW book. If I can get my best friend and fellow long-term WoW player to run an Azeroth-based adventure, I'd probably be more eager to play my Death Knight than my main Paladin, given that the Paladin is sort of not that different from someone I could have always played in D&D. My Death Knight has, since 2008, been kind of my "Vice Main," and actually hit 80 before the paladin back in the day because it was so fun to play Blood DPS (an option that vanished in the next expansion, though these days soloing as a tank spec is much less painful than it used to be). Also, I think that the very dark backstory I've got for him would contrast very much with my current very naive and innocent young Wizard I'm playing. (A 22-year-old Triton versus a 30,000-year-old undead Draenei. Hm, it'd also continue my ongoing tendency to always play blue people.)

Vengeance Paladin vs Wyvern

 Yeah, I'm in a bit of a thing here.

Also, fair warning: it's another Great Weapon Master build. Generally, I've always liked the aesthetic of wielding a big-old weapon (classically a hammer with a head the size of one's torso - which I realize is not remotely what real warhammers look like because you wouldn't be able to lift it. But this is fantasy!)

The Paladin arguably got nerfed in the 5.5 update, but even still, it remains among the best classes in the game. It doesn't hurt that the class also has spellcasting, of course.

And in this case, this is a build that I basically did play in a Curse of Strahd game. That was 5.0, of course, but the subclass and weapon loadout are the same. I hit so hard that some of the challenges that were meant to be extremely deadly wound up being surmountable - we beat the Shambling Mound in the Death House at level 2 (we were, admittedly, on the larger size of parties, with at that point a Barbarian, Grave Cleric, ranged Fighter, and Fighter/Warlock multiclass along with me).

Funnily enough, my Paladin had rolled stats, and while I started off with an 18 in Strength and 16s in both Con and Cha, I had a 7 in Dexterity. So, she was always last in initiative and got a nickname of "the finisher" because she tended to get crit-smites once everyone else had had a turn. Multiple times I got a -1 on Initiative.

Anyway, for our build we'll assume Point Buy and basically try to start with a 17 in Strength and 16 in Charisma - while it'd be nice to get +3 to Con, I think that the Charisma is going to help us more overall, and we have a d10 hit die, so in terms of HP, it's as good as a d8 character with +3 to Con.

    Feats:

So, Paladins are a bit MAD (multi-ability dependent) and so I think we're going to just get the one juicy feat here.

Now, I think you could make a solid argument for Polearm Master, as when we get to level 11 (though this is a level 10 build) you get to add a d8 to that. The thing is, Paladins are now pretty bonus-action dependent, and while getting the Hew attack is great, Great Weapon Master's primary benefit is the ability to add our proficiency bonus to our damage during our attack aciton, which is kind of a big deal. Pole Strike is going to be dropped if we want to crit-smite or if we need a bonus action for something like Lay on Hands. There is, for sure, a world where you grab Polearm Master and maybe Sentinel to get more attacks in, but I think we've got to go simple and straightforward here.

So, at level 8, we'll just cap Strength, and then in a hypothetical level 12/16, we'll be able to take things like Inspiring Leader and another Cha-boosting feat like War Caster.

    Subclass and Spells:

We're going Vengeance. The main benefit we get here is Vow of Enmity, which allows us to use Channel Divinity when we take the attack action (no additional action required) to get advantage on attacks against our target. We can also swap it to a new target if our target goes down.

While level 7's Relentless Avenger doesn't really come into play much, we do also get a pretty exciting spell - albeit a risky one - Haste. Haste is a great spell that carries a big risk: if you lose concentration, you're incapacitated and have a speed of zero until the end of your next turn. That is a real risk. If you have an Artificer who can craft a Mind Sharpener (or your DM just gives you one) this would be a really good investment. Also, if you can manage to get Magic Initiate: Wizard, picking up the Shield spell would be very nice (though I don't know if there are any official backgrounds that grant that feat and also boost Strength and Charisma - Genie Touched grants Dex and Cha, which could work great for a Dex-based dual-wielding Oath of Genies Paladin, but that's not what we're doing right now).

If we want to play it a big safer, we could do something like Crusader's Mantle, though this prevents us from attacking on our first turn. Divine Favor doesn't even take concentration, so there's no fear of losing it. Indeed, I might cast this alongside Haste - normally, in order for Divine Favor to become worth more than a simple Divine Smite, you need to hit 4 times. That'll be more likely to happen if you're making more attacks per turn. Vengeance also gets Hunter's Mark, but I think Divine Favor is usually going to be a better option, as you're only dropping 1 damage to no longer worry about concentration or target-switching.

    Game Plan:

So, here's what we're going to do: we'll start off on turn one casting Haste. Because we've used a spell slot, we can't cast Divine Favor this turn. However, with our extra hasted action, we can take the Attack Action and thus activate Vow of Enmity. We can only make one attack with this, though. If we've got Plate Armor, our AC is now 20, and we should have a +5 to Con saves for concentration.

Next, we make our single attack.

If this attack crits, we smite. While the Hew attack would hit for 2d6+5, or 14 (if it hits), a crit Divine Smite would hit for 4d8, or 18. HOWEVER: we can only do this with our once-per-day free Divine Smite, as we, again, can't cast a spell with a spell slot twice in a turn. If we've already done that, Hew away.

On our second turn, we'll use a bonus action to cast Divine Favor. This will prevent us from Smiting both because it's a leveled spell and also because we used our bonus action. However, it means that we'll be able to add 1d4 to the three attacks we make this turn.

And then, turn three onward, we can hold our bonus action for smites.

Note that we have some options here: a smite crit is incredible, but if we need to conserve some spell slots, we can just default to Hew. Generally, I think unless our first attack is a crit, I'm going to hold off on smites. But if we get to our second attack and it's just a normal hit, a good option would be to do a 2nd (or 3rd, but those are very precious) level Searing Smite, as this does more damage overall than a Divine Smite when upcast, because its scaling is basically 2d6 rather than 1d8 (divine smite does better on crits, though).

In other words, the actual damage output is going to be a little ambiguous, as there are situational things to consider here.

    Mathing it Out:

Turn one: this is when we just cast haste. With Vow of Enmity, we've got advantage, and so our attack should hit for 2d6+9 (5 from Strength, 4 from GWM). We have Graze, so we'll ignore the 5 for now and add it at the end. So, 2d6+4, with a +9 to hit. Against a Wyvern, we hit on a 5 or higher, so that's an 80% chance to hit, or 96% with advantage, and a 9.75% chance to crit for an extra 7. 2d6+4 is 11 average, so 11x96% is 10.56 and 7x9.75% is .6825, so we're doing about 11.2, and then we add in the guaranteed 5 from Strength to give us 16.2 damage on this turn. Not great, but we're ramping up.

Turn two, we now get to make three attacks. We'll start off casting Divine Favor, adding 1d4 to each of these attacks. I believe I can just calculate this separately, as our chance to hit hasn't changed, so we can figure out what this would add on each attack. With a 96% hit chance and a 9.75% crit chance, we can take that 2.5 and multiply it by 105.75%, giving us roughly 2.6. Thus, each attack is now doing not 16.2, but 18.8. And now, we're making three of these attacks (unlike the bonus action Hew attack, we do get to add the GWM proficiency bonus damage to our Hasted attack, as it's still technically the Attack Action). Thus, we're now doing 56.4 damage on turn two. Bit of a ramp-up, no?

Ok, now, let's talk about what we do on turn three.

Now that we have our bonus action free to do other things, as I see it, we have a couple options:

If we crit, we can either Divine Smite or do our Hew attack. Hew is a little better now, as it's got that extra d4. But it's still only doing 2d6+1d4+5, or 14.5. A divine smite on a crit would be 4d8 at 1st level, which is already 18, but it's also guaranteed - that 14.5 is slightly less because of the chance to miss.

We'll hold off on doing anything with a bonus action until we know whether we crit on either attack. So, if we crit on the first one, we'll gladly smite. Thus, it's a simple question of whether we crit on any of our three attacks. With a 9.75% chance to crit, that means a 90.25% chance we don't crit. But across three attacks, that's cubed, so we get more like a 74% chance we don't crit, and thus a 26% chance we do crit. The damage is very consistent if we divine smite on a crit.

Now, we can also adjust what level we're smiting at. But for our purposes, I'll just say it's a base level. So, 4d8 is an average of 18, and thus we can say that this adds 18x26%, or about 4.7 damage.

What if we don't crit, though?

I think I'd try for a 2nd level Searing Smite, which would do 2d6 immediately and then another 2d6 on the Wyvern's turn.

Well, first off, there's a 74% chance that that's there's no crit. But then, we also need to ensure that we actually hit on the last attack, which is a 96% chance (technically 9.75% of that is the crit chance. I think this is covered by the reduction to only 74% of the time, but I could be wrong. I also think it'll be nearly negligible.) So, we're going to 2nd level Searing Smite 74%x96% of the time, or about 71% of the time. Our Searing Smite will do 14 damage total (2d6 now and 2d6 later, and never a crit because then we'd be Divine Smiting) so 14x71% is 9.94, or rounded to 9.9.

So, on turn three, we have the same 56.4 damage we did on turn two, but now we add both of these (notably, their percentage likelihoods add up to 97%, which is pretty close to our 96% hit chance, so I think I'm more or less ok). That means, in total, we're doing 71 damage per turn.

Phew! That's better than anything I've tried so far, and by a lot!

Big caveat here is that if we do lose concentration on Haste, we're in big trouble.

UA: Oath of the Spellguard Paladin

 So, my main in World of Warcraft for nearly my entire time playing the game (it'll be 20 years this September) is a Protection Paladin. When I first encountered the Paladin class, it was in Quest for Glory V, and in that, you started with a shield that had a big sort of mystic eye on it, so I initially thought of Paladins as a more arcane/esoteric class. While I do enjoy the righteous, holy light feel of my WoW Paladin, it would be cool to give him a more arcane aesthetic (as I've written many times, I love "Battlemages" like the Eldritch Knight).

The Spellguard has some of those vibes - a Paladin oath dedicated to countering wicked spellcasters. But on top of that, they're also strongly oriented around being bodyguards. While they don't work quite like the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, for example, they will be very good at protecting an ally.

Frankly, the RP potential to have a party with a Wizard and their loyal friend and protector Paladin is strong (like an Aes Sedai and their Warder from The Wheel of Time).

Let's get into features:

Oath Spells:

1st: Detect Magic, Shield

2nd: See Invisibility, Silence

3rd: Counterspell, Dispel Magic

4th: Freedom of Movement, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere

5th: Circle of Power, Hallow

    Ok, first things first: Shield is insane on a character who wears heavy armor. I could almost never be hit on my Eldritch Knight, and a Paladin has better spell progression. But there are also some very solid spells here, like Dispel Magic, Freedom of Movement, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere.

    Silence, Counterspell, and some others here really secure this subclass as the, if you'll pardon the expression, "Mage-Fucker" subclass.

Level 3:

Guardian Bond:

As a magic action, you can expend your Channel Divinity to forge a bond with a creature within 5 feet of you for one hour or until you're unconscious. (You can also end it early if you want, and it ends if you use this on another creature).

If the creature is within your reach and it hit within attack, you can use a reaction to add your Charisma to the bonded creature's AC (minimum of +1) and potentially make the attack miss.

    This is strong, though we should note that you need to really stick close to the ally. "Within reach" is interesting, because you might thus really want to fight with a reach weapon (and maybe be a Bugbear as well) to ensure that you have the most ability to protect them.

    If we assume you try to start off with a +3 to Charisma, this is pretty solid, and if you're able to cap it, that becomes basically a Shield spell you can cast on your friend. Notably, while it only lasts an hour and takes your Channel Divinity, the actual uses of the reaction are unlimited, so if you can stay close to your buddy, you can really protect them quite a lot. But that range is, admittedly, pretty tight.

Spellguard Strike:

Also at 3, when you see a creature within your reach casting a spell with Verbal, Somatic, or Material components, you can take a reaction to make a melee attack against them with a weapon or Unarmed Strike.

    This is nice - but we also need to reckon with how spellcasting NPCs have changed in 5.5. While they still often cast real spells, most of their "bread-butter" damaging "spells" aren't technically spells, and there's no indication on whether an Archmage's Arcane Burst involves any components. Technically, I think they don't. Still, they'll often cast a real spell especially on the first few rounds of combat.

Level 7:

Aura of Concentration

Your Aura of Protection grants advantage on Constitution saving throws that you and affected allies make to maintain Concentration.

    While I'd advise nearly any spellcasting character to pick up War Caster ASAP, thus making this redundant, it's likely you won't have that, and you're the person who most often benefits from your aura. With advantage and your Charisma bonus to the saves, this will make it very hard for you or nearby allies (like the one you're probably protecting with Guardian Bond) to lose concentration.

Level 15:

Spell-Breaking Blade

After you hit a creature with your Spellguard Strike, you can cast Counterspell as part of the same Reaction. If the creature is still able to cast their spell despite your Counterspell, your spell slot is not expended.

    Again, this is very dependent on whether you are facing a lot of spellcasters that are actually casting spells. If you are, I think this is great, getting both some damage and locking them down on top of that. This could be insanely clutch if it stops something like a villain escaping with a Dimension Door spell. And I like the refund here, especially given that a 3rd level slot is probably a lot more precious to you as a half-caster.

Level 20:

Eternal Spellguard

As a bonus action, you can empower your Aura of Protection for 1 minute (or until you end the effect for some reason). You can do this once per long rest, but regain the ability if you expend a 5th level spell slot. You get the following:

Bodyguard: When the target of your Guardian Bond is in the aura, they have resistance to all damage.

Protection from Magic: You and your allies in the aura have advantage on saving throws against spells.

Spell Ward: Spell attack rolls against you and your allies in the aura have disadvantage.

    Really important clarification needs to be made: In the 5.5 monster stat blocks, they don't mention if something is a "spell attack" or a "weapon attack." But I'd argue that an Arcane Burst from an Archmage is 100% a spell attack, even if it's not technically a spell being cast. If it's only "spells that use an attack roll," this becomes much less powerful.

    But I think one of the really great things here is the Bodyguard feature, really expanding the use of Guardian Bond.

Overall Thoughts:

    This subclass has the potential to be awesome in the right campaign. But you are going to need to be fighting a bunch of mages, which largely means humanoid NPCs. That said, it need not only be such monsters. Yes, we've got Liches, but also most adult/ancient dragons now incorporate spellcasting into their multiattack, and powerful fiends like Pit Fiends have spellcasting as part of their suite of abilities.

    As a DM, I'm super grateful that spellcasting monsters don't have a ton of spell slots to track anymore, but I do think especailly at higher levels, you will still see them casting real spells, and this subclass is very well-suited to dealing with them.

    Guardian Bond is one of the subclass' biggest universal features, but you've got to think a lot about who you want to protect with it - protecting a squishy Wizard does make sense, but that might make it harder to wade into melee while the casters are far away. You might actually be better-suited putting it on a Monk or Bladelock.

    Yeah, I think this is quite powerful, and situationally insanely so. But I can also imagine scenarios where you've just picked this for the wrong campaign, and that would feel bad.

What Subclasses Should Get a Revision: Paladin

 My general view on Paladins is that a lot of their power comes from the base class. That might not be quite as true as it was in the 2014 version, with the nerfing of Divine Smite and the buffs to things like Devotion's Sacred Weapon or Vengeance's Oath of Enmity.

I was shocked when Oath of Glory was announced as the fourth subclass to fill out the PHB '24 subclasses, as it's one that I always thought was among the worst of the Paladin subclasses, both conceptually and mechanically, but here we are.

Paladins just got arguably their most powerful subclass with the Oath of Noble Genies, a subclass that is... debatably appropriate for the class in concept but certainly very cool (the hook I came up with for a Noble Genies Paladin if I ever play one is that they were literally created by a wish, having previously been an in-universe fictional hero from a series of the setting-appropriate equivalent of pulp novels or comic books).

As a note, there's been a standardization of the level 20 subclass features for Paladins in the new PHB that I'd like to see applied to all these old subclasses. The only class that gets a subclass feature at 20, it's honestly something most players never see. But these "Ults" as I call them (like how in a lot of video games a character will have an "Ultimate" ability, often shortened to Ult) are cool.

The subclasses we'll look at here are the Oathbreaker Paladin, the Oath of the Crown, Conquest, Redemption, and Watchers.

Oathbreaker: Yes

    D&D does not necessarily require PCs to be good people - while I think most people prefer to play heroic characters, having the opportunity to play a villain protagonist, or at least an anti-hero, is, I think, good for the game (as long as players respect their fellow players and play a version of this that works well with others). Again, I don't want to focus too much on the existing Unearthed Arcana versions of these subclasses, but I will say that the place that the recent version of this missed the mark on the most was just giving it tenets: an Oathbreaker forswears their oath, meaning they don't care about any of that. Mechanically, though, having a proto-Death Knight is a really cool idea (DKs are probably my favorite World of Warcraft class). I will say, though, that you could also imagine this not as a broken oath, but an oath in and of itself. Some (again, I'm thinking the Eldritch Lorecast) have questioned whether it makes sense for an Oathbreaker to automatically get necromantic powers, which I think is a fair criticism, though again, I feel like this is meant to be the "Death Knight" subclass. Perhaps it would be better to simply make this something like the Oath of Doom (we don't use "doom" enough in D&D features and abilities. It's such a wonderfully pulpy fantasy word). Naturally, mechanically, one of the DMG '14's Oathbreaker's biggest problems was that it technically buffed enemy undead and fiends, but I also think that a refinement of what we got in that recent UA could be a lot of fun to play, with lots of undead minions (perhaps tweaking them to have better hit bonuses, perhaps using bespoke statblocks... I'm getting into the weeds here.)

Crown: No

    Oath of the Crown wasn't ever that great, and I think some of its mechanics were cannibalized by the Oath of Redemption, which probably has a better overall concept.

Conquest: Yes

    I'll grant that if we get a revised Oathbreaker, we're already going to have the "dark paladin" subclass. Conquest in some ways felt like an attempt to give us a more player-facing antipaladin, and in fact, it probably fits the broader "paladin, but evil" vibe better than the Oathbreaker itself. Perhaps this is a "one but not the other" situation with the Oathbreaker. Truthfully, the only thing here that might need to be fixed is the Ult. I could be talked into a no here.

Redemption: No

    Honestly, there are some things I might enjoy seeing revised here. But I also think that maybe there's an alternative "extra good" Paladin subclass that maybe empowers healing significantly. I could be talked into a yes here.

Watchers: No

    This might actually be my favorite Paladin subclass conceptually, and it's also pretty strong mechanically. But I think this is A: probably fine as is and B: the kind of concept that I think we can move on from.

Yeah, not an enormous number of Paladin subclasses to look at in the first place. I'm perhaps revealing my own latent mall goth tendencies by endorsing only the two "dark" paladin subclasses. It's not the easiest class to come up with new concepts for, and perhaps we'll see some that are quite similar to existing ones. Though if Noble Genies is any indication, they're willing to go quite outside the box.

Noble Genie: To Splendor or Not to Splendor

 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.

Oath of Noble Genies Paladin

 Two background notes:

Disney's Aladdin came out when I was six years old. I was already a fan of the story, which I think I had seen a version of at Boston's Children's Theater, or maybe on some television program. We also had some audio cassettes of Arabian Nights stories. But even with that background, I fell in love with that movie, and particularly Robin Williams' Genie. I love Genies as a fixture of fantasy.

Seemingly unrelated: while it's a common convention in D&D that Bards are the horniest class, among my friends, perhaps by coincidence, we've found that Paladins are, by far, the hornier characters. My own Aasimar Vengeance Paladin in our Curse of Strahd game was a traumatized disaster lesbian who dulled her pain with prostitutes (well, in her backstory. She had a hard time finding any in Barovia), and the two paladins in my Wildemount game have both been led by their libidos (one of who slept with the daughter of Ludinus Deleth).

Anyway, I mention the horny paladin trope because I think this subclass might lend itself well to chivalric horniness because it's one where you're encouraged to go unarmored.

While I tend to prefer heavy armor and heavy weapons for my melee character, the Noble Genie paladin is going to enable dual-wielding or using a rapier and shield. We'll see why soon:

Oath Spells:

Cantrip: Elementalism

1st: Chromatic Orb, Thunderous Smite

2nd: Mirror Image, Phantasmal Force

3rd: Fly, Gaseous Form

4th: Conjure Minor Elementals, Summon Elemental

5th: Banishing Smite, Contact Other Plane

    Some solid damage spells here. Chromatic Orb is quite good, though better when you're focused on your spellcasting stat and can upcast it by a lot. Mirror Image is now great for a character with a high AC. And of course, despite the nerf, Conjure Minor Elementals is fantastic - though again, it gets a lot of power out of upcasting, which we won't be able to do at all until level 17 (unless we start multiclassing into Bard or Sorcerer).

Level 3:

Elemental Smite:

When you cast Divine Smite, you can expend a Channel Divinity to add one additional effect from the following options:

Dao's Crush: Earth rises up to grapple the target of your divine smite. The target is grappled and restrained (escape DC is your spell save DC).

    So, I think because the grapple is coming from the earth, you don't need to stay within range of the target to maintain the grapple (and you don't need a free hand). That means a no-save restraint on a target as long as you hit them. That's quite good! And it's not even, like, they're restrained for a round - it lasts until they can break free.

Djinni's Escape: You teleport to an unoccupied space you can see within 30 feet and take on a semi-incorporeal form until the end of your next turn. While in this form, you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, and you are immune to being grappled, prone, or restrained.

    Almost the opposite of Dao's Crush, this is a very nice defensive move, or it can get you from one enemy to your next target and protect you a bit. A solid option.

Efreeti's Fury: The target of the divine smite takes an extra 2d4 fire damage, and the fire jumps to another creature within 30 feet of you that you can see, also taking 2d4 fire damage.

    This damage isn't nothing, but it's not huge either. I think this is the "not sure what else we need to do" option.

Marid's Surge: The target of your divine smite and each creature of your choice within a 10 foot emanation originating from you has to make a Strength save against your spell save DC. On a failure, a creature is pushed 15 feet directly away from you and is prone.

    Potentially good if you need to break up enemy lines, but more situational than the Dao or Djinni options.

    Overall, this is a very cool feature that you'll get a lot of use out of. Of course it is limited by both your spell slots and your Channel Divinity options, but this is a case where there are multiple very powerful options.

Genie's Splendor:

While you aren't wearing any armor (shields are ok) your AC is equal to 10 plus your Dex plus your Charisma. You also gain proficiency in your choice of Acrobatic, Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion.

    This: this is why you can be the horny paladin. Ok, jokes aside: if you go for a Dex build, focusing on finesse weapons, you'll actually be able to have a quite good AC. If we assume you start off with +3s in both Dex and Charisma, that's already matching a suit of Chain Mail. If you can cap both, that's a 20 AC, which is as good as plate with a shield - and then you can get up to 22 with a shield (though I'd probably be tempted to dual-wield). Even if you don't manage to get Charisma past +3, maybe trying to fill it with general feats, you'll still get the equivalent of plate armor once you cap Dexterity.

    Now, you can forgo this entirely - nothing is stopping you from going the standard Strength-based route (also, if you want to multiclass, such as to go Genie patron Warlock, you'll need at least 13 Strength). But the option there is for you to be a paladin who fights in fine silks rather than steel. I really imagine mine having an open-chested, flowing silk shirt as he spins across the battlefield with scimitars and shortswords.

Level 7:

Aura of Elemental Shielding:

Choose Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, or Thunder: you and allies within your Aura of Protection gain resistance to that damage type. At the start of each of your turns, you can change the damage type to another one of these options (no action required).

    The fact that you can change this on a turn-by-turn basis is incredible. These are all reasonably common damage types, but if you had to change them on a rest or something, it'd require anticipating what kind of monsters you're going to face. Here, though, you can react quickly to the scenario. Oh, did a black dragon pop out of that marsh? Let's get acid resistance running!

    Also of note, this will help a lot in traversing areas of extreme heat or cold, as you can protect allies from exhaustion by giving them the appropriate resistance. You'll still need something like a Leomund's Tiny hut for when you sleep for the night, but it's good stuff.

Level 15:

Elemental Rebuke:

When you're hit with an attack, you can use a reaction to halve the damage against yourself (rounded down) and force the attacker to make a Dex save against your spell save DC. On a failure, the target takes 2d10+Cha of your choice of Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, or Thunder damage, or half as much on a success. You can do this Cha times per long rest (minimum 1).

    This is ok. The damage is decent, though not enormous at this level. It's a solid feature, but not as exciting as the other stuff.

Level 20:

Noble Scion:

As a bonus action, you gain the following benefits for 10 minutes or until you end the effect (no action required). You can do this once per long rest, or regain a use by expending a 5th level spell slot (standard 2024 Paladin ult stuff).

The benefits are that you get a fly speed of 60 feet and can hover, and when you or an ally within your aura of protection fails a d20 test, you can use a reaction to make them succeed instead.

    The flight is fine, though not as impressive at level 20. The automatic success on any d20 test, though, is quite good - the most obvious would be ensuring that an ally succeeds on a crucial saving throw, like avoiding being swallowed by the Tarrasque or sucked in by a Blob of Annihilation. But it could also potentially be powerful when you need some high-stakes ability check to succeed. Say you're binding some evil lich god with an anchor that will pull it out of the mortal plane (when has that ever happened before?) and you need to make a high-DC check to ensure that the anchor is properly attached to them? This guy can ensure that works!

Overall Thoughts:

I really like this subclass. I think in terms of flavor, it's a bit of a stretch, sure - the oath does have tenets, but it feels much more like you're going to be the champion or herald of a noble genie. But that's fine. I really like it.

UA: Oathbreaker Paladin

 Along with the Death Cleric, the Oathbreaker was originally designed not with players in mind, but for NPCs statted out as players. As someone who has now been running D&D for almost precisely 10 years (started in November of 2015) I can tell you: don't stat out NPCs like players. Use NPC stat blocks. It's a nightmare to try to run a character that way.

But the thematics of a dark paladin have been very popular, and some have played Oathbreakers despite the subclass having some weird interactions.

Here, WotC has reimagined the Oathbreaker as a more player-facing option, in case you want to play as an evil paladin who abandoned their righteous oath, or perhaps someone who wants to use these powers to atone for a past deed.

While the whole idea here is that you've abandoned the tenets of your oath, there are some that unite Oathbreakers: Fear is a tool in the hands of the powerful, strive for power at any cost, and do what must be done but never lose sight of your goal.

I think you could play this, arguably, as a more morally neutral character, but the clear intent is that you're basically an antipaladin, and on the path to becoming a death knight.

Personally, I love a "dark but not evil" character in an RPG (while my main is a Paladin in WoW, my "vice main" and almost-as-main is a Death Knight,) so let's see if this subclass would be worth playing!

Oathbreaker Spells: Yeah, we don't have an oath, but we have oath spells.

1st: Hellish Rebuke, Witch Bolt

2nd: Crown of Madness, Darkness

3rd: Fear, Summon Undead

4th: Blight, Phantasmal Killer

5th: Contagion, Steel Wind Strike

    A few strong spells here, though I think it doesn't really pick up until we're level 9 and can get Fear. Summon Undead is good but far better upcast to 4th level, meaning not until we're level 13. I will say that there are later features that will encourage you to invest heavily in Charisma. A Warlock dip for Pact of the Blade (maybe getting Undead Patron if we put 3 whole levels in) might not be a bad idea.

Level 3:

Conjure Undead:

As a bonus action, you can expend a Channel Divinity use to summon a number of undead minions equal to half your Charisma modifier rounded down (so if you have +3, that's 2, and capping at 3 if you have +5). The undead appear in unoccupied spaces within 30 feet of you that you can see, and use the Skeleton or Zombie stat blocks, you choice. They are under your control for 1 minute, and then they dissolve into ash.

Each of these undead is an ally to you and your allies. They share your initiative but take their turns immediately after yours. They obey your verbal commands (no action required to command them) and will take the dodge action and move to avoid danger if they aren't commanded.

    This. Freaking. Rocks. While the stat blocks won't scale very well, popping up a pair of minions to fight for you is exactly the kind of death knight vibe we're going for with this subclass, and the fact that once they're summoned, we don't need to worry about our action economy to command them is great.

Dreadful Aspect:

After you cast Divine Smite, you can use a Channel Divinity to cause each creature of your choice within a 30 foot emanation of you to make a wisdom save, becoming frightened for 1 minute. They can repeat the save at the end of each of their turns.

    Not as flashy, maybe, as Conjure Undead, but fear's a good condition to inflict, and for sure thematic.

Level 7:

Aura of Hate:

You and any allied Fiend or Undead that is within your Aura of Protection that hits with a melee attack deals extra Necrotic damage equal to your Charisma modifier.

    First off, the big fix from the old version: this no longer buffs enemies! That's a huge deal. While your Zombies and Skeletons might not often hit with their attacks (though Skeletons now have a +5 to hit, which is at least decent) remember that you're also getting this bonus. You're getting this bonus, and while you likely don't have any fiends with you, if an allied Wizard or Warlock has a Summon Fiend ally, that Demon/Yugoloths (Devils have a ranged attack) will be hitting all the harder. Also, your Summon Undead ally is going to benefit from this as well.

Level 15:

Supernatural Resistance:

You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

    These are still very common damage types, and while some supernatural creatures might deal force damage with their attacks, you're still going to mostly be dealing with these. Simple but good.

Level 20:

Dread Lord:

As a bonus action, you can grant new benefits to your Aura of Protection for 10 minutes or until you end it (no action required). You can do this once per long rest, or expend a 5th level spell slot to restore your use of it.

Darkness: Magical darkness fills your Aura of Protection. You and allies within the aura can see in this magical darkness.

Fear: When a creature with the Frightened condition starts its turn in your aura, it takes 4d10 Psychic damage.

Shadow Strike: As a bonus action, you can make a melee spell attack against a creature within your aura of protection. On a hit, the attack deals 3d10 plus your Charisma modifier in Necrotic damage.

    So, barring Truesight or Blindsight, that's going to blind most creatures. Naturally, Dreadful Aspect will allow you to frighten foes, though the Ghostly Spirit from Summon Undead can also do this automatically on a hit now. The Shadow Strike is not quite as much damage as a high-level divine smite, but it's free.

Overall Thoughts:

I like this. I think it really gets the death knight fantasy right - I sort of wish that the Aura of Hate improved attack rolls rather than damage rolls so that our Conjure Undead minions were more likely to hit (or if it did both, like Danse Macabre) but I'll take it.

Genuinely, I really want to play this (as well as the Warrior of Intoxication Monk,) which is a good sign for the design.

Sacred Weapon vs Vow of Enmity

 Of the four Paladin subclasses in the new Player's Handbook, the two that appeal to me the most are two of the most "basic" ones - Oath of Devotion and Oath of Vengeance. While I was tempted by the Oath of the Watchers in Tasha's, I've generally not been all that impressed by the subclasses that came out in the various supplements (Oath of Glory might be my least favorite, and I was kind of disappointed to see it in the PHB instead of something off-beat like Oath of Conquest).

Paladins get a lot of amazing features as base class features, so I think, honestly, that any Paladin can be quite good. But both of these subclasses grant you a Channel Divinity option that aids in your ability to hit targets.

In 2014, these two features had very different action-economy costs. Vengeance's Vow of Enmity cost a bonus action to activate, which allowed you to pretty easily use it on your first turn and then unload on your target. And Smites didn't take any action, so you could come right out the gate with a smite on two attacks made at advantage.

Sacred Weapon, however, was a bit frustrating - it took your full action to activate, meaning that even though you were now more likely to hit, you'd spent a turn just gearing up. If you could get this off before a fight, it was quite good, but with only a single minute duration, you really needed to be quick on the draw and have a generous DM.

Now, however, the action economy of both features works the same - neither takes any action, and can just be activated when you take the Attack action (which is when you'd want it anyway). Let's get specific on how they work:

Sacred Weapon allows you, when you take the Attack action, to expend a use of Channel Divinity to supercharge the weapon you're holding with positive energy. While charged this way, you can add your Charisma modifier to attack rolls made with the weapon, and if you want, the weapon can deal Radiant damage instead of its normal damage. The weapon also glows, shedding bright light for 20 feet and dim light another 20. And you can end this effect early whenever you want (it also ends if you aren't holding the weapon anymore).

Vow of Enmity allows you, when you take the Attack action, to expend a use of Channel Divinity to utter a vow of enmity against a creature you can see within 30 feet, which lasts for 1 minute. While under the effects of the vow, you get advantage on attacks against that creature. If the creature drops to 0 HP while under the vow, you can transfer the vow to another target within 30 feet.

So, before we get into the math, let's make a few observations: The first is that Sacred Weapon lasts ten times as long as Vow of Enmity, and while ten minutes isn't a lot of time, it's possible that you could get use of it through multiple combat encounters - though probably only occasionally unless you're in true old-school dungeon-crawl mode. Another consideration that favors Sacred Weapon is that the effect is on your weapon, and so it will remain there for the full duration regardless of how many enemies are nearby. One point away from it is that if there is an enemy that can disarm you, the effect can end early.

But let's talk about the damage potential of each.

General wisdom for 5.5e is that it's far easier to get advantage on attacks than it used to be, which might devalue Vow of Enmity a little.

However, if we look at this in a relative vacuum, we should figure out the extent to which this will increase our damage.

Generally, my assumption for most Strength-based characters is that if they want to deal the most damage, they're going to do a Great Weapon Master build, favoring a Greatsword, and possibly switching to a Glaive if they pair it with Polearm Master, because these weapons have the Graze property. Admittedly, we're looking at features that make us miss less often, which devalues Graze, but I still think it's nigh-unbeatable for damage potential among weapon masteries (though Vex and Nick are also strong contenders).

I'm going to run this simulation at level 8. Granted, Paladins get a serious damage boost at level 11, but 8 is where my current longest-played character is at, and also feels like a good level for "meat and potatoes" D&D.

We'll assume Point Buy and a background that has allowed us to start with a 17 in Strength and 16 in Charisma. At level 4, we've taken Great Weapon Master, and at 8, I think we probably have taken Mage Slayer - meaning we're at 19 Strength, and thus a +4 to Strength and +3 to Charisma.

Now, what AC are we dealing with? While Channel Divinity is not that hard to get back, I'm going to assume a slightly tougher foe. And surely there are few better foes for a Paladin than a Death Knight. Now, a Death Knight proper is a bit high-CR for a level 8 party - they can work as a boss at the end of tier 2 for 10th level characters, but this might be a bit much. Luckily, we've got a lower-powered Death Knight in the Aspirant, which could be a scary but ultimately manageable powerful foe. And both have an AC of 20.

Generally, I've done a lot of my calculations here of late assuming only mundane weapons. I do think that by level 8 I'd hope your DM would have given you a +1 weapon at least. I'm not entirely sure how this would change the math. Still, it's easier to just assume mundane and move on from there.

Now, here's another complication: a Paladin, especially fighting an undead or fiend target, is probably going to burn their bonus action on a Divine Smite if they land a critical hit. Thus, we might actually ignore the Hew element of Great Weapon Master (they still might use the Hew attack when downing a lesser foe).

Initially, we'll ignore Divine Smite. This is likely to favor Vow of Enmity, as it increases our chance to crit, so only if Sacred Weapon does better will we take it into consideration.

Baseline, our Paladin has a +7 to hit. Sacred Weapon will boost this to +10. Thus, the Vengeance Paladin (before accounting for advantage) has a 40% chance to hit. The Devotion Paladin has a 55% chance to hit.

Damage on a hit is 2d6+7 (getting an extra 3 from Great Weapon Master), for an average of 14

Crit bonus damage is 2d6, or 7.

Thanks to Graze, we also do 4 damage on a miss. What this actually means is that we can subtract the 4 from the hit damage and just add a raw 4 to the average we get in the end. Thus, we can ignore misses when calculating the chances and just treat hits like 2d6+3, or 10.

We'll start with Devotion.

10x55%, or 5.5, plus 7x5%, or .35, gives us 5.85. We then add in that 4 damage we get 100% of the time, giving us 9.85. Double that and we get 19.7

Now Vengeance.

Thanks to advantage, our hit and crit chances are a little different. With a 40% chance to hit on any given die, that gives us a 64% chance to hit (and already, our question might be answered, with caveats). We also have a 9.75% to crit.

Thus, we take that same 10x64%, giving us 6.4, plus 7x9.75%, or .6825, for a total of 7.0825. We then add in that 4 from Strength, giving us 11.0825, and double it to 22.165 for our two attacks.

Rather than continue, it becomes pretty clear that Vengeance has the edge, and will further expand that edge thanks to more opportunities to crit-smite or get off Hew attacks.

And yet...

This is all under the assumption that the Paladin cannot get advantage in some other way. If an ally gets off Faerie Fire, or the foe can be repeatedly knocked prone, Vow of Enmity loses its value, while Sacred Weapon will continue to increase your hit chance in all scenarios.

The Spectacular World of Smites

 The 2024 Paladin got a lot of changes, and it's the one class that I think you could argue got nerfed by the update to the PHB (the Ranger might have not been buffed as much as we wanted it to be, but I still think it's more powerful than before).

Two things, I think, could be counted as nerfs.

The first is less important - Divine Sense becoming a use of Channel Divinity, rather than its own resource, means that it will be competing with things like Oath of Enmity or Sacred Weapon (both of which got nice buffs).

But I think the change that is going to get most people to seriously hesitate on updating to the 2024 version of the class is that to Divine Smite.

No longer merely a class feature, Divine Smite is a spell that A: has components (including Verbal, so you can't cast it while silenced) and B: takes a bonus action to cast. While the bonus action still happens after you hit a target, thus ensuring that the damage is never wasted, and that you can hold off until you land a critical hit, it does cause a couple other issues: you can't cast it multiple times per turn, or if you hit a target as a reaction such as via an opportunity attack. It'll also shut down other bonus actions, such a the new Lay on Hands, and will prevent you from casting other leveled spells (though given that you probably need to use your action to attack, it was unlikely you'd be able to do that anyway). Also, Barbarian/Paladin multiclass builds are probably dead, because you can no longer Divine Smite while Raging.

That being said, I think I understand the design intent here - Paladins have, through most of 5E, treated spell slots as little more than "Smite Slots," and while that works pretty well, there's a whole world of spellcasting that Paladin players tend to ignore because of this.

However, there's another compensation we get here: all the other "Smite" spells now work the same way.

While previously, something like Thunderous Smite or Searing Smite required you to cast it as a bonus action and then hope you got a hit in before you lost concentration on it or the enemies all died, now no smite will be "wasted" because you only choose to smite after you hit.

Now, some still involve various saving throws for their additional effects, so you can still get a suboptimal result from a Smite, but the damage itself will be there.

Let's look at the various Smite Spells, of which the PHB has eight.

Divine Smite:

Our classic, we actually get one free casting of this per day, which, interestingly, also means that because we're not spending a spell slot to cast it, we can cast another spell along with it - though given that we have to attack with a weapon or unarmed strike, I don't know that there are a lot of other leveled spells we could mix with it. Divine Smite, of course, is particularly good against Undead and Fiends, but given that its sole purpose is damage, it's the baseline against which we'll compare the other smites. At 1st level, this deals 2d8 radiant damage, and then 1d8 for every spell slot beyond 1st (there's no longer any restriction on spell level, so in theory if we multiclassed as, say, a Sorcerer, we could potentially cast a 9th level Divine Smite one day (in fact, a Paladin6/Sorcerer14 would just barely hit 9th level spells at level 20). There's an extra d8 against fiends and undead, which will for sure change the math. Just so we have it for the record, against most foes, it's an average of 9 damage at 1st level, then 13.5 at 2nd, 18 at 3rd, 22.5 at 4th, and 27 at 5th level.

Searing Smite:

Searing Smite is actually also a damage-focused smite, and you might be surprised that it actually might outdo Divine Smite once you start upcasting it. At 1st level, it deals 1d6 fire damage when it hits, but then the target burns until they succeed on a Con save. They take the burning damage before they make this saving throw, so they're guaranteed to burn at least once. At 1st level, of course, this is only 7 damage. But the scaling of this spell increases both the initial damage and the burn. On average, you'll not do more damage with that initial burst than Divine Smite, but even if they succeed on their first save, they start taking more damage once you upcast the spell, and of course if they fail their save, they keep taking damage. When a foe succeeds on the first saving throw, our 1st level damage is 7, our 2nd level is 14, our 3rd level is 21, at 4th level we're at 28, and at 5th level we're looking at 35, all with the potential to do more if they fail those saves. It is fire damage, to be fair, which is resisted far more often, but it's still quite good, and the damage is coming in at the start of their turns, so while a boss might get some more legendary actions in there, for most enemies it won't matter that the damage isn't instant. The one place this becomes somewhat less advantageous is on a critical hit - the periodic damage won't be affected, so a Divine Smite might wind up doing more damage from a crit.

Thunderous Smite:

This one's a little more straightforward. It does 2d6 thunder damage when you hit with it, which is slightly less damage than Divine Smite, though Thunder is a damage type very few things resist. The target then gets a Strength save, and on a failure, they're both knocked back 10 feet and knocked prone. The ability to save against this of course reduces the effect's value, but given that you're only paying 2 average damage to have a chance at that means this is going to be worth it quite often. And there's no size restriction on this. Damage scaling here adds 1d6 for each spell level above 1st, so in terms of damage, you're going to be falling behind Divine Smite, but again, not by a ton.

Wrathful Smite:

Damage-wise, this is the weakest of the 1st level Smites, doing only 1d6 Psychic damage. The target then makes a Wisdom save or becomes frightened of you for 1 minute, though it can repeat the save at the end of its turns to end the effect. It also scales up by 1d6 for each spell level beyond 1, but this is a smite you really are using more for the fear than the damage (though psychic is also not resisted by lots of monsters). Frightened is a pretty useful debuff, especially to help protect yourself and your allies. And, like Searing Smite, there's no concentration here, so you could potentially get a lot out of this if you tag a foe early on in a fight.

Shining Smite:

A 2nd-level smite, in terms of damage we need to compare it to Divine Smite's 13.5 average damage when at 2nd level. Shining Smite is significantly less, doing only 2d6 (comparable to a 1st level Thunderous or Searing Smite). However, the smite applies a debuff to the target, causing it to glow and be unable to go invisible, and giving attacks on it disadvantage. This spell, unlike all previous ones, is a concentration spell. The advantage is the biggest reason to pack this, but if you're a Vengeance Paladin with Oath of Enmity, that might not be as appealing. Probably a niche thing - take it if you're expecting to fight sneaky or invisible enemies. The advantage is great, of course, but we can get something like that with Thunderous Smite in most cases.

Blinding Smie:

Our natively-3rd-level Smite, Blinding Smite does 3d8 when our Divine Smite is doing 4d8, scaling at the same rate. So, what do we get for our d8 of damage? Well, our target must make a Con save or become Blinded for a minute, getting to repeat the saving throw on the end of each of its turns. Blinded is a pretty fantastic condition, but a lot of foes will save out of this, as there are very few monsters that don't at least have some positive modifier to Con saves (and there are monsters with Blindsight). That said, if we do blind them, we're getting part of the effects of both Shining and Wrathful Smite, imposing disadvantage on their attacks and giving us and our friends advantage on attacks against them. Once again, this doesn't require concentration, so if you can get it off early on in a fight, with luck this can be a huge gamechanger.

Staggering Smite:

Our 4th level Smite (meaning we're well into tier 3 at this stage,) Staggering Smite's effect isn't quite as long-lasting as others, but if the target fails a Wisdom save, they are Stunned until the end of our next turn. Robbing a creature of its turn, more or less (though remember that stunned creatures can now move!) is a pretty big deal, and targeting Wisdom instead of Con (like a Monk's Stunning Strike) is going to be slightly more reliable. The damage here isn't nothing, but it's way behind our more damage-oriented options, dealing 4d6 (14 average) compared with our Divine Smite's 22.5 at this level.

Banishing Smite:

The sole 5th level smite, this one's a bit different. Dealing 5d10 Force damage, that's an average of 27.5, which means that this just flat-out out-damages Divine Smite on average, except against a Fiend or Undead. Searing Smite will do more at this level, but this is also a spell that can potentially take a major enemy out of the fight for a minute. While it can't permanently banish a creature like the Banishment spell, taking one of the big bruisers out of a fight can be very good. Now, there's a catch - the target has to be below 50 HP (after taking the damage of the attack and the smite) and also gets a Charisma saving throw to resist it. Now, luckily, a lot of creatures have crap Charisma, though most of those are big brutes with a lot of hit points. In other words, this is not a spell you start the fight off with. The trick here is that you're going to ideally hit someone for whom a weapon attack and this Banishing Smite puts them just under 50. 50 damage isn't nothing, but it's starting to be pretty marginal by the time we're talking tier 4 damage (a GWM Paladin at this level is probably hitting for 2d6+11 with each hit). However, if we consider the banishing effect to be just gravy on top of the damage, this is a pretty nasty spell to throw down, and on a crit, when it's doing 10d10 (or 55 average damage,) it's probably going to be worth doing anyway (and also more likely to put them in banishing range with that amount of damage).

    So, what's the conclusion to take here?

I suppose the proper internet way of doing things is to rank them.

Divine Smite is moot because we get this prepared automatically regardless of subclass. This is going to be our go-to option for critical strikes at least until we're level 17, and is also going to be our best damage option against Undead and Fiends until we've got 4th level spells (and even still using it when facing fire-resistant or -immune foes, which is actually most fiends and certainly incorporeal undead). Almost never bad, this gets an A.

Searing Smite should be a serious consideration for damage, especially once we hit tier 2 and half second-level spells. Against creatures that take full fire damage, and when we aren't critting, this is going to actually have our highest damage potential even if our foes cannot fail a Con save. If they do fail one (and depending on how many rounds they last,) we can get even better returns on it. It is still only damage, though. Even if the target dies before it takes its burn damage, the extra damage of a Divine Smite would have been just as wasted, so this also gets an A.

Thunderous Smite does nearly as much damage as these other two, but with an added bit of utility. Strength saves vary widely between monsters, so if you can hit a more spellcaster-style enemy with this one, it's likely to be effective. If you have a Push mastery weapon as well, you might be able to really knock an enemy far back. In an arena with hazards and high precipices, this is going to be insanely good, but even in a "flat field" battlefield, this is quite strong. Damn, I guess we get another A.

Wrathful Smite is, situationally, a spell that could save your bacon. If it frightens the target, that's awesome, and can help keep you and your allies safe. The damage, though, does fall behind significantly, and I think that makes this a more situational spell, so I'm giving it a B.

Shining Smite, again, is very situational, but I think that we're talking about a situation that is far rarer than needing to move things around the battlefield. The advantage is nice, but there are so many ways to get advantage against a target now (such as knocking them prone with Thunderous Smite or just the Topple mastery). I was going to rate this a C, though the fact that there's no save against it is actually pretty good. That said, it's also Concentration, so there is a way for them to break out of it, so yeah, we'll take this down to a C again.

Blinding Smite is pretty strong - essentially a "downcast" Divine Smite, but with the potential to put a pretty strong debuff on the target is not bad (especially good against a spellcaster with spells that require them to see their targets). What keeps this form being A-ranked is that it's a Con save to avoid being blinded, which means there's a strong chance that the foe will save against it. But the relatively low damage cost compared to Divine Smite and the high reward if it does go off brings it to a solid B, even B+.

Staggering Smite has you pay a fairly high cost in damage, and its effect is short-lived. On the other hand, more or less stealing a turn from a foe is a big deal - this is going to almost certainly force bosses to burn a legendary resistance if they fail. And targeting a Wisdom save is more reliable than targeting a Con save, though I would put that as one of the more commonly-high saving throws. It's a real gamble, as you're never going to have a ton of spell slots to cast something like this. I'll admit here that I'm doubting by own ranking ability, but I think we're looking at a B.

Banishing Smite should be your choice of smite over Divine Smite even if you're only going for damage, with the only possible exceptions of A: you're fighting undead or fiends or B: you need your concentration for some other spell. Even if you don't get the whole banishing effect here, it's just more damage than your Divine Smite, and so outside of those situations, 100% you should cast this if you crit unless you're very sure that the target is going to die to normal weapon damage anyway (or if you think a lower-level Divine or Searing Smite will be enough to take them down). The banishment can just be icing on top of the cake if you happen to get them under 50. So, that's A-tier.

One of the frustrating things about the new rulebooks is that it's just not that often I get to play new characters. I really want to rebuild my characters from campaigns past (apart from struggling to hit 20 Strength thanks to the ability scores associated with the Sage background, my Dragonborn Eldritch Knight Fighter would be downright beastly with all the changes) and I really want to try all sorts of new builds (top priority is an Elements Monk, which I never thought I'd even remotely consider given how crap the old version of that subclass was - but if I read things right, an Elements Monk can potentially grapple a target and hold them far enough away that the target can't actually strike back against them).

One of my favorite characters I played was an Aasimar Vengeance Paladin in Curse of Strahd, built around Great Weapon Master (and rocking the +2 Greatsword I got off of the leader of the revenants in the ruined castle of Argynvostholt). While that seems like a campaign that is very unlikely to ever pick up again, I still really like the idea of playing that character again (originally conceived as a man, I gender-flipped them for the campaign, but might play "Atrus" once again instead of "Atria" if I have the opportunity. Also, damn to I love Ravenloft as a setting).