Paladin

# Paladin Class Details

Clad in plate armor that gleams in the sunlight despite the dust and
grime of long travel, a human lays down her sword and shield and places
her hands on a mortally wounded man. Divine radiance shines from her
hands, the man’s wounds knit closed, and his eyes open wide with
amazement.

A dwarf crouches behind an outcrop, his black cloak making him nearly
 invisible in the night, and watches an orc war band celebrating its
recent victory. Silently, he stalks into their midst and whispers an
oath, and two orcs are dead before they even realize he is there.

Silver hair shining in a shaft of light that seems to illuminate only
 him, an elf laughs with exultation. His spear flashes like his eyes as
he jabs again and again at a twisted giant, until at last his light
overcomes its hideous darkness.

Whatever their origin and their mission, paladins are united by their
 oaths to stand against the forces of evil. Whether sworn before a god’s
 altar and the witness of a priest, in a sacred glade before nature
spirits and fey beings, or in a moment of desperation and grief with the
 dead as the only witness, a paladin’s oath is a powerful bond. It is a
source of power that turns a devout warrior into a blessed champion.

## The Cause of Righteousness

A paladin swears to uphold justice and righteousness, to stand with
the good things of the world against the encroaching darkness, and to
hunt the forces of evil wherever they lurk. Different paladins focus on
various aspects of the cause of righteousness, but all are bound by the
oaths that grant them power to do their sacred work. Although many
paladins are devoted to gods of good, a paladin’s power comes as much
from a commitment to justice itself as it does from a god.

Paladins train for years to learn the skills of combat, mastering a
variety of weapons and armor. Even so, their martial skills are
secondary to the magical power they wield: power to heal the sick and
injured, to smite the wicked and the undead, and to protect the innocent
 and those who join them in the fight for justice.

## Beyond the Mundane Life

Almost by definition, the life of a paladin is an adventuring life.
Unless a lasting injury has taken him or her away from adventuring for a
 time, every paladin lives on the front lines of the cosmic struggle
against evil. Fighters are rare enough among the ranks of the militias
and armies of the world, but even fewer people can claim the true
calling of a paladin. When they do receive the call, these warriors turn
 from their former occupations and take up arms to fight evil. Sometimes
 their oaths lead them into the service of the crown as leaders of elite
 groups of knights, but even then their loyalty is first to the cause of
 righteousness, not to crown and country.

Adventuring paladins take their work seriously. A delve into an
ancient ruin or dusty crypt can be a quest driven by a higher purpose
than the acquisition of treasure. Evil lurks in dungeons and primeval
forests, and even the smallest victory against it can tilt the cosmic
balance away from oblivion.

The most important aspect of a paladin character is the nature of his
 or her holy quest. Although the class features related to your oath
don’t appear until you reach 3rd level, plan ahead for that choice by
reading the oath descriptions at the end of the class. Are you a devoted
 servant of good, loyal to the gods of justice and honor, a holy knight
in shining armor venturing forth to smite evil? Are you a glorious
champion of the light, cherishing everything beautiful that stands
against the shadow, a knight whose oath descends from traditions older
than many of the gods? Or are you an embittered loner sworn to take
vengeance on those who have done great evil, sent as an angel of death
by the gods or driven by your need for revenge? The Gods of the Multiverse
 section lists many deities worshiped by paladins throughout the
multiverse, such as Torm, Tyr, Heironeous, Paladine, Kiri-Jolith, Dol
Arrah, the Silver Flame, Bahamut, Athena, Re-Horakhty, and Heimdall.

How did you experience your call to serve as a paladin? Did you hear a
 whisper from an unseen god or angel while you were at prayer? Did
another paladin sense the potential within you and decide to train you
as a squire? Or did some terrible event—the destruction of your home,
perhaps—drive you to your quests? Perhaps you stumbled into a sacred
grove or a hidden elven enclave and found yourself called to protect all
 such refuges of goodness and beauty. Or you might have known from your
earliest memories that the paladin’s life was your calling, almost as if
 you had been sent into the world with that purpose stamped on your
soul.

As guardians against the forces of wickedness, paladins are rarely of
 any evil alignment. Most of them walk the paths of charity and justice.
 Consider how your alignment colors the way you pursue your holy quest
and the manner in which you conduct yourself before gods and mortals.
Your oath and alignment might be in harmony, or your oath might
represent standards of behavior that you have not yet attained.

As a paladin, you gain the following class features.

**Hit Points at Higher Levels:** 1d10 (or 6) + your Constitution modifier per paladin level after 1st

### Proficiencies

**Armor:** All armor, shields
**Weapons:** Simple weapons, martial weapons
**Tools:** None
**Saving Throws:** Wisdom, Charisma
**Skills:** Choose two from Athletics, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Persuasion, and Religion

### Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

* (a) a martial weapon and a shield or (b) two martial weapons
* (a) five javelins or (b) any simple melee weapon
* (a) a priest’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack
* Chain mail and a holy symbol

### Divine Sense

The
 presence of strong evil registers on your senses like a noxious odor,
and powerful good rings like heavenly music in your ears. As an action,
you can open your awareness to detect such forces. Until the end of your
 next turn, you know the location of any celestial, fiend, or undead
within 60 feet of you that is not behind total cover. You know the type
(celestial, fiend, or undead) of any being whose presence you sense, but
 not its identity (the vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich, for instance).
 Within the same radius, you also detect the presence of any place or
object that has been consecrated or desecrated, as with the hallow spell.
You can use this feature a number of
times equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier. When you finish a long rest,
you regain all expended uses.

### Lay on Hands

Your blessed touch can heal
 wounds. You have a pool of healing power that replenishes when you take
 a long rest. With that pool, you can restore a total number of hit
points equal to your paladin level × 5.
As an action, you can touch a creature
and draw power from the pool to restore a number of hit points to that
creature, up to the maximum amount remaining in your pool.

Alternatively, you can expend 5 hit
points from your pool of healing to cure the target of one disease or
neutralize one poison affecting it. You can cure multiple diseases and
neutralize multiple poisons with a single use of Lay on Hands, expending
 hit points separately for each one.

This feature has no effect on undead and constructs.

### Fighting Style

At 2nd level, you
adopt a style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following
 options. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if
 you later get to choose again.

##### Defense

 While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.

##### Dueling

 When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.

##### Great Weapon Fighting

 When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage
 die for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding
with two hands, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll. The
weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain
this benefit.

##### Protection

 When a creature you can see
attacks a target other than you that is within 5 feet of you, you can
use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. You must be
 wielding a shield.

### Spellcasting

By 2nd level, you have learned to draw on divine magic through meditation and prayer to cast spells as a cleric does. See Spells Rules for the general rules of spellcasting and the Spells Listing for the paladin spell list.

##### Preparing and Casting Spells

The Paladin table shows how many spell
slots you have to cast your paladin spells. To cast one of your paladin
spells of 1st level or higher, you must expend a slot of the spell’s
level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a
long rest.

You prepare the list of paladin spells
that are available for you to cast, choosing from the paladin spell
list. When you do so, choose a number of paladin spells equal to your
Charisma modifier + half your paladin level, rounded down (minimum of
one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell
slots.

For example, if you are a 5th-level
paladin, you have four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots. With a
Charisma of 14, your list of prepared spells can include four spells of
1st or 2nd level, in any combination. If you prepare the 1st-level spell
 cure wounds, you can cast it using a 1st-level or a 2nd-level slot. Casting the spell doesn’t remove it from your list of prepared spells.

You can change your list of prepared
spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of paladin
spells requires time spent in prayer and meditation: at least 1 minute
per spell level for each spell on your list.

##### Spellcasting Ability

Charisma is
 your spellcasting ability for your paladin spells, since their power
derives from the strength of your convictions. You use your Charisma
whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you
use your Charisma modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a
paladin spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

**Spell save DC** = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

**Spell attack modifier** = your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

##### Spellcasting Focus

You can use a holy symbol (see the Adventuring Gear section) as a spellcasting focus for your paladin spells.

### Divine Smite

Starting at 2nd
level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can
expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target, in addition
to the weapon’s damage. The extra damage is 2d8 for a 1st-level spell
slot, plus 1d8 for each spell level higher than 1st, to a maximum of
5d8. The damage increases by 1d8 if the target is an undead or a fiend,
to a maximum of 6d8.

### Divine Health

By 3rd level, the divine magic flowing through you makes you immune to disease.

### Sacred Oath

When you reach 3rd
level, you swear the oath that binds you as a paladin forever. Up to
this time you have been in a preparatory stage, committed to the path
but not yet sworn to it. Now you choose the Oath of Devotion detailed at
 the end of the class description or one from another source.
Your choice grants you features at 3rd
level and again at 7th, 15th, and 20th level. Those features include
oath spells and the Channel Divinity feature.

### Oath Spells

Each oath has a list of associated
spells. You gain access to these spells at the levels specified in the
oath description. Once you gain access to an oath spell, you always have
 it prepared. Oath spells don’t count against the number of spells you
can prepare each day.
If you gain an oath spell that doesn’t appear on the paladin spell list, the spell is nonetheless a paladin spell for you.

### Channel Divinity

Your oath allows you to channel divine
energy to fuel magical effects. Each Channel Divinity option provided by
 your oath explains how to use it.
When you use your Channel Divinity, you
 choose which option to use. You must then finish a short or long rest
to use your Channel Divinity again.

Some Channel Divinity effects require
saving throws. When you use such an effect from this class, the DC
equals your paladin spell save DC.

### Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level,
and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one
ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability
scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability
score above 20 using this feature.
Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.

### Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

### Aura of Protection

Starting at 6th level,
whenever you or a friendly creature within 10 feet of you must make a
saving throw, the creature gains a bonus to the saving throw equal to
your Charisma modifier (with a minimum bonus of +1). You must be
conscious to grant this bonus.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

### Aura of Courage

Starting at 10th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you can’t be frightened while you are conscious.
At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

### Improved Divine Smite

By 11th level, you
are so suffused with righteous might that all your melee weapon strikes
carry divine power with them. Whenever you hit a creature with a melee
weapon, the creature takes an extra 1d8 radiant damage.

### Cleansing Touch

Beginning at 14th level, you can use your action to end one spell on yourself or on one willing creature that you touch.
You can use this feature a number of
times equal to your Charisma modifier (a minimum of once). You regain
expended uses when you finish a long rest.

### Aura Improvements

At 18th level, the range of your auras increase to 30 feet.