Paladin Handbook: Pathfinder Class Guide – RPGBOT (2024)

Introduction

The Paladin is a divine-powered martial class. Similar to the Fighter, the Paladin makes an effective Defender and Striker, but the Paladin’s other options also allow them to serve as a Face and as a Healer, though you’ll need to take traits to get missing class skills to serve as a Face, and a Paladin can’t match the healing capacity of a full caster like a Cleric.

Despite a fairly narrow set of roles, the Paladin’s natural survivability and self-sufficiency make it an excellent choice for single-character campaigns.

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RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks. Also note that many colored items are also links to the Paizo SRD.

• Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
• Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
• Green: Good options. Useful often.
• Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Paladin Class Features

Hit Points: d10 hit points is standard formartial classes.

Base Attack Bonus: Full BAB.

Saves: Paladins have the best saves in thegame without making any specific efforts to improve them. Good Fortitude andWill saves, and Divine Grace adds an enormous bonus that stacks with nearlyeverything else.

Proficiencies: Heavy armor, shields, andmartial weapons.

Skills: 2+ skill ranks and a very sparseskill list.

Aura of Good (Ex): Almost never matters.

Detect Evil (Sp): Not always important, butI have seen plenty of Paladins walk into social situations with this runningso that they know who they can trust, and who needs a good smiting.

Smite Evil (Sp): A fantastic offensiveoption.

Divine Grace (Su): One of the Paladin’s bestabilities, this adds a huge bonus to your saving throws.

Lay on Hands (Su): An excellent healingmechanic. Mercies allow you to remove harmful conditions, and you can use iton yourself as a swift action so that you don’t have to cut into your fullattack.

Aura of Courage (Su): Situational.

Divine Health (Ex): Diseases become morecommon at high levels, which can make this very useful.

Mercy (Su): Mercies offer the ability toheal conditions which normally require a Cleric. However, remember that yourpaladin spells can often handle the same conditions.

• Base
  • Fatigued: Fatigued is one of the leastproblematic conditions in the game for everyone except barbarians.
  • Shaken: Frustrating, and effects whichcause you to be shaken can have fairly long durations. Aura of Courageshould improve your party’s saves against these effects, but it doesn’twork for Intimidate and it’s not 100% effective.
  • Sickened: Effects which causeSickened tend to have fairly short durations, but there are annoyingexceptions and being Sickened for a long time can be a significantdebuff.
• 6th-level
  • Dazed: Effects which cause Dazed ittend to have very short durations, but losing a turn always hurts. Ofcourse, if you’re spending your Standard action to remove Dazed, you’reprobably losing the same amount of actions by spending your turn healingthe target.
  • Diseased: Diseases can be annoying todeal with, and some have horrifying secondary effects like BlindingSickness. Paladins also can’t cast Remove Disease.
  • Staggered: Staggered still allowsyou to take actions, and effects which cause it tend to have very shortdurations. The exception is being at 0 hit points, which will beresolved by the healing from Lay on Hands.
• 9th-level
  • Cursed: Curses are permanent anddebilitating, but Paladins can also cast Remove Curse.
  • Exhausted: Go take a nap.
  • Frightened: Potions of Remove Fear cost50 gp. Go buy one.
  • Nauseated: Effects which causenauseated tend to have very short durations, though exceptions likeStinking Cloud exist.
  • Poisoned: Poison will very rarelykill your party, but sometimes it gets scary.
• 12th-level
  • Blinded: Being blind sucks, and it’soften permanent.
  • Deafened: Being deaf is annoying atworst.
  • Paralyzed: A paralyzed character isjust waiting for a coup de grace.
  • Stunned: Being stunned makes youextremely vulnerable to attack.

Channel Positive Energy (Su): Paladinsaren’t great at channeling energy, but if you need to heal more than twopeople in the party it’s more efficient than use Lay on Hands on each of them.If you insist on using Channel Energy, see myPractical Guide to Channel Energy.

Spells: Paladins are 1/2 casters, and getvery few spells per day from a limited spell list. However, their spellselection complements their other abilities really well. They get almost noutility options, but they get spells which help them serve as healers,strikers, and defenders. See the “Spells” section, below, for some notablespells.

Divine Bond (Sp): Both options arefantastic. The ability to enhance your weapon can solve a lot of problems,including DR, but a mount is an essential part of any mounted combat build.For help with the Paladins’s Mount, see myPractical Guide to Animal Companions.

Spells: Paladins only go up to 4th-levelspells, but what little spellcasting they get can be very effective is usedcarefully. Paladins cast spells at a caster level 3 lower than their classlevel, which seriously handicaps their spells, so consider the Magical Knacktrait to boost your caster level.

Aura of Resolve (Su): Charm effects are veryrare.

Aura of Justice (Su): Fantastic, butremember that allies must still use a swift action to activate Smite Evil.

Aura of Faith (Su): Fantastic for combatingevil-aligned outsiders, and saves you the trouble of casting Bless Weapon.

Aura of Righteousness (Su): DR 5/evil willprotect you from everything except enemy divine spellcasters and eviloutsiders like demons.

Holy Champion (Su): Good, but not great.The Banishment effect forcibly ends your Smite even if it fails, and you can’tchoose to forego the effect. Personally I would rather outright kill theoutsider so that it can’t come back.

Abilities

Paladin abilities look similar to any other melee martial character, but Divine Grace drastically reduces the need for Dexterity and Wisdom to fix bad saves.

Str: Paladins are almost exclusively meleecharacters, so Strength is essential.

Dex: In heavy armor and with Divine Grace,Dexterity isn’t paticularly important. Take 12 at most, but you can survivewith less.

Con: Essential for hit points, butFortitude saves shouldn’t be a problem.

Int: The Paladin’s skill list is better thanthe Fighters, but 2+ skill ranks offer you very limited options.

Wis: With Divine Grace and good Will savesyou can easily dump Wisdom to 8 without any problems.

Cha: Fuels the Paladin’s spells andabilities.

Races

Bonuses to Strength of Charisma are nice, and medium size is nice if you plan to play a Defender so that you can be enlarged.

Dwarf: The Charisma penalty is annoying,but the Dwarf’s other racial traits still make it a viable option. The bonusesto Constitution and Wisdom offset most of the lost bonus from Divine Grace,and the Dwarf’s other abilities complement the Paladin’s natural durabilityvery well. Unfortunately the Dwarf favored class bonus adds to Concentration,which is nearly worthless for Paladins.

Elf: Nothing useful for the Paladin, andbonuses to two of the Paladin’s least important abilities.

Gnome: Bonuses to Constitution and Charismaare enough to offset the penalty to Strength, making the Gnome a solid choicefor small Paladins. This can be helpful for mounted combat builds because youcan fit into spaces which are too small for horses. The Gnome favored classbonus improves the healing/damage provided by Lay on Hands.

Half-Elf: The flexible ability bonus isnice, and the Half-Elf has some nice alternate racial features which can workwell for the Paladin. The Half-Elf’s favored class bonus expands the area ofthe Paladin’s auras. Considering the Paladin has 5 auras (not counting Aura ofGood), this can be a fantastic buff.

Half-Orc: Flexible ability bonus and somenice racial abilities which complement the Paladin well. Unfortunately, theHalf-Orc favored class bonus is awful, so take the Human favored class bonusinstead.

Halfling: A little less effective than theGnome because the Dexterity bonus isn’t as helpful.

Human: Always a good option, and the Humanfavored class bonus adds energy resistance to one type of energy. Pick up afew points in the four basic energy types (acid, cold, electricity, fire), butdon’t worry about sonic. Remember that this resistance stacks with magicalenergy resistance such as the Resist Energy spell.

Traits

• Axe to Grind (Combat): Paladins spend alot of time in melee by themselves, so this can pay off frequently if youdon’t have any other melee allies.
• Deft Dodger (Combat): Reflex saves areyour worst save, though they’ll still be fantastic thanks to DivineGrace.
• Birthmark (Faith): Charm and compulsioneffects are scary, but you have Divine grace and good Will saves. The freeholy symbol is neat, but not really necessary.
• Omen (Faith): Intimidate is one of yourmissing Face skills. On top of the usual +1 bonus and free class skill, youalso get to Demoralize once per day as a swift action!
• Magical Knack (Magic): +2 caster leveladds hours to your buffs. Nearly every Paladin should take this.
• Dangerously Curious (Magic): A weirdchoice for a Paladin, but you have the Charisma to use UMD, and it’s stillthe best skill in the game.
• Unscathed (Magic): If you’re human, thisis a close contender with Magical Knack. The human favored class bonus is aneasy way to get a few points of energy resistance in every type, and thiscan up to quintuple its effectiveness if you pick up 1 point of resistanceto all 5 energy damage types. Even if you skip sonic damage you’re stillgetting 8 levels worth of favored class bonus out of one trait. Normally Idon’t worry about sonic damage, but I think you can spare one point to get 3points of resistance, especially for the smug satisfaction of telling peoplethat you’ve got sonic damage resistance.
• Bully (Social): Omen is better.
• Fast Talker (Social): Bluff is one ofyour missing Face skills, though as a Paladin you may have moral obejctionsto lying.
• Influence (Social): Pick up whichevermissing Face skill you didn’t already get.
• Seeker (Social): The most rolled skill ingame.
• Unpredictable (Social): Bluff is one ofyour missing Face skills, though as a Paladin you may have moral obejctionsto lying.
• Brute (Half-orc Racial): Omen isbetter.

Skills

• Diplomacy (Cha): Essential for anyFace.
• Handle Animal (Cha): Helpful fortraining and handling your mount, but you likely won’t need to maximizeit.
• Heal (Wis): A helpful supplement tomagical healing, but Paladins typically dump Wisdom, so they won’t be aseffective as someone with a decent Wisdom score.
• Knowledge (nobility) (Int): Situational,and very depenedent on your campaign.
• Knowledge (religion) (Int): One of themost important Knowledge skills in the game.
• Ride (Dex): Useful if you take the Mountoption of Divine Bond, but otherwise useless.
• Sense Motive (Wis): Helpful for anyFace.
• Spellcraft (Int): Situational, and Paladinsaren’t particularly suited to do anything with the information which theycould gain.

Feats

Paladins fight much like a fighter with a similar combat strategy would, so your feats will frequently depend on your combat style. Instead or re-hashing an analysis of every combat feat available, this section will focus primarily on feats which cater specifically to the Paladin.

• Adept Champion: This can add animpressive bonus to your CMB at the expense of damage, which is fantastic ifyou’re building a Defender.
• Channel Smite: Unless you’re fightingundead, this won’t help you deal damage.
  • Greater Channel Smite: Allows you tosplit up the bonus damage dice from Channel Smite. Largelypointless.
  • Guided Hand: This is for Clerics.
• Channeled Revival: If your party lackssomeone who can cast Breath of Life, this is a great investment. It takesthree uses of Channel Energy, which means 6 uses of Lay on Hands, so youwon’t be able to use this until 12th level unless you take Extra Lay OnHands or you go for the Hospitaler archetype.
• Extra Channel: The Paladin isn’t good atchanneling energy, but this can provide some extra healing for yourparty.
• Extra Lay On Hands: If you like Lay onHands a lot (and you should), this is worth considering.
• Extra Mercy: It’s difficult to know whatMercies to select, but you can probably choose ones that work well enoughthat you don’t need to spend a feat on this. If you feel absolutelycompelled to pick up additional mercies, buy a Merciful Baldric.
• Radiant Charge: Consumes all of yourremaining uses of Lay on Hands for the day, so you can only use it once perday. The most efficient use is to use it with your final charge of Lay onHands, but that makes it really hard to find time to use the feat.
• Reward of Grace: Probably only useful ifyou use Lay on Hands on yourself a lot. Tiny bonus with 1 round duration.Sacred bonuses are really rare, but Weapon Focus is probably better.
• Reward of Life: If your party doesn’thave a cleric or someone else who is better than you are at healing, this isa great way to expand the effectiveness of Lay on Hands as a source ofhealing.
• Unsanctioned Knowledge: UnsanctionedKnowledge can open up a lot of really great spell options. Clerics inparticular have a lot of really great buffs, and many have long durations.Magic Vestments, for example, is a 3rd-level Cleric spell with hours/levelduration that can save you a fortune on armor enhancement. However, rememberthat Paladins get very few spells per day and that the Paladin’s casterlevel is 3 lower than their class level.
• Word of Healing: A standard action and30 foot range to heal half as much as normal. Walking over to your targetwill generally be better.

Weapons

• Falchion: If you want a two-handed weaponwithout reach, the Falchion is the two-handed equivalent of theScimitar.
• Longsword: Iconic and flashy, but pastlow levels the Scimitar’s critical threat range will have a betterpayoff.
• Greatsword: Iconic and flashy, but pastlow levels the Falchions’s critical threat range will have a betterpayoff.
• Reach Weapons: Any reach weapon is a goodchoice for a Defender. If you plan to use combat maneuvers, the Guisarme isan obvious choice, but beyond that polearms are largely interchangeable.
• Scimitar: A slightly low damage die, butthe threat range will pay off better beyond low levels when your bonusdamage eclipses your weapon’s base damage.

Armor

• Hide: Good, cheap starting armor if youdon’t want to spend the gold to get four-mirror.
• Four-Mirror: The best AC bonus which youcan afford at level 1.
• Heavy Shield: Unless you plan to use atwo-handed weapon, a heavy shield is a good choice.
• Full Plate: The best armor you canget.

Spells

This section won’t address every spell on your spell list, but it will point out some especially notable options. For a complete list of spells, see the SRD Spell Index.

1st-Level Spells

• Challenge Evil: Extremely tempting, butsince Paladins don’t have supremacy-caster Charisma and since they get spelllevels so late the DC is going to be really low. Don’t expect this to workreliably. Even when it does work, it only causes Sickened, which may not beenough of a deterrent to force targets to attack you.
• Compel Hostility: A fantastic option fordefenders. You’ll have trouble with your spell DC, but since you can useyour Immediate Action every round to try to affect an attack, it’s likelythat at least some of the saves will fail.
• Hero’s Defiance: You need this, withoutquestion. This means that you can afford to spend your swift action onsomething other than healing, even if your hit points are getting low.
• Honeyed Tongue: Excellent for a Face, butI would only prepare this if you have time to rest before going into aseries of negotiations or something of the sort.
• Knight’s Calling: More effective thanChallenge Evil, but only one round duration and all of the same DC issues.If it works, it’s fantastic.

2nd-Level Spells

• Fire of Entanglement: Paladins always havetrouble with spell DCs, but even if the target succeds they’re stillentangled for one round. An absolutely essential way to keep enemies pinneddown. If you can cast this repeatedly, you can hold enemies in placeindefinitely.
• Litany of Righteousness: If paladins didn’tsuck at spell DCs, this would be an amazing way to boost your chargedamage.
• Paladin’s Sacrifice: Only works once percasting, but as an immediate action you can use this whenever you need it.Paladins are notoriously hard to kill, so this extends that durability toyour allies. Remember that immediate actions cost your swift action in thefollowing turn, so you won’t be able to spend a swift action to use Lay onHands in the following turn.
• Righteous Vigor: Combined with Smite Evilthis is an absolutely amazing option. The temporary hit points will allowyou to focus completely on attacking, and the scaling attack bonus will makeyour attacks extremely reliable. Stand toe-to-toe with the scariest enemyyou can find.
• Saddle Surge: Absolutely essential formounted builds. The damage should be multiplied by Spirited Charge and byusing a lance. Get as far back as you can, boost your mount’s speed as muchas possible, and get a massive damage spike on your charge. A horse has 50base speed, so you can move 100 ft. on a charge. Horsehsooes of speed addanother 30 feet. Imagine charging 160 feet, adding 32 to your normal damage,then trippling all of it. Horrifying.
• Shield Other: You have the ability toheal yourself as a swift action, so absorbing some damage dealt to an allymeans that you can effectively heal that damage as a swift action. Thismeans that you’re spending your turns fighting stuff instead of healing yourallies. However, it can be difficult to know which ally to use this on. Youmay use this and find that it never comes into play.

3rd-Level Spells

• Deadly Juggernaut: In an encounter withseveral weak foes to feed into this spell, this is absolutely amazing. Luckbonuses are hard to find, and luck bonuses to damage are even less common.With minutes per level duration, you may be able to carry it into multipleencounters with a single casting.
• Fire of Judgement: By this levelcreatures should nearly always pass your spell saves, so you’ll only get oneround out of this. Even if the creature fails the save, 1d6 damage isn’tmuch of a deterrant unless the creature has a huge number of attacks. Still,a swift action casting time makes this reasonably viable if you can make the1-round duration work for you.
• Magic Weapon, Greater: With hours perlevel duration, there’s no excuse to buy a magic weapon with more than a +1enhancement bonus. If you have a full caster willing to cast this for you,let them do it. If not, plan to cast this spell every day.
• Sanctify Armor: Effectively MagicVestments, but with minutes/level duration and the DR component if you useSmite Evil.

4th-Level Spells

• Blaze of Glory: This is a complicatedspell, and I’m not sure how effective it will be in real play. Generally Iwould rather use Hero’s Defiance when I hit 0 hit points, but if you havemultiple allies unconcious this might turn the tide of a fight. The damageis neat, but not significant enough to realistically kill anything. Theprayer effect is great, and doesn’t appear to be affected by a saving throw.
• Break Enchanment: By this level, otherspellcasters will easily outpace the maximum caster level bonus on BreakEnchantment, so you’ll have trouble using this effectively.
• Fire of Vengeance: Swift action, no save,no spell resistance, and 3d8 damage is enough to be a passable deterrant.However, it only works on one attack. Fire of Judgement may actually bebetter unless your foe is especially low on hit points.
• Holy Sword: Really good, but standardaction to cast and only rounds/level duration mean that it will be hard tobring this into play easily without cutting into your normal actions. Theeffects also overlap the weapon option for Divine Bond, allowing you turn amundane weapon into a truly terrifying magic weapon in a hurry.
• Resounding Blow: Easy to overlook, butwith a swift action casting time Resounding Blow is a great combat buff.Rounds/level duration and 1d6 damage per attack means that you can get animpressive amount of extra damage out of this. The stun effect works evenagainst creatures which you’re not smiting, so strongly consider using aweapon with a high critical threat range.
• Sacrificial Oath: A lot like ShieldOther, but you can choose to take the effects, and it also works on failedsaving throws. If you’re prepared to absorb everything that targets acreature, this is the way to do it.

Magic Items

Weapons

• Holy Avenger: +5 Holy cold iron is prettygreat on its own, but the ability to cast Greater Dispel Magic as many timesas you want is absolutely astounding. You’re limited to the area version,but that’s still enough to do this like dispel static magic effects ordebuff rooms full of buffed enemies.

Armor/Shields

• Champion (+1): A +2 bonus to AC againstthe target of your smite is nice, but a flat +1 will be much more beneficialunless you’re somehow able to smite in nearly every fight.

Rings

• Protection: Even though Smite provides aDeflection bonus, a ring of protection is still a good investment since youwon’t be able to smite every enemy you face. You also have Protection FromGood/Law, which can provide the same bonus.

Rods

• Metamagic (Any): Metamagic rods inPathfinder are cheap, and since your spellcasting only goes up to 4th-levelyou can cover nearly all of your spells with lesser rods. If your party hasdedicated spellcasters that used lesser metamagic rods at low levels, youmay be able to buy them off of your allies at a significant discount. Forhelp with metamagic options, check myPractical Guide to Metamagic.

Wands

• Honeyed Tongue: A 1st-level Paladinspell, it has a 10 minute duration at caster level 1. For 15 gp per charge,you can reroll diplomacy checks for 10 minutes. If you’re your party’s face,this is a fantastic investment.
• Saddle Surge: If you use mounted combat,this is worth considering. You need to cast Saddle Surge as a standardaction anyway and move back to get as much distance as you can. The roundsper level duration will get you a minimum up 5 rounds, but the wand will beexpensive since the minimum caster level for the spell is 5 instead of 3like most 2nd-level spells.

Wondrous Items

• Belt of Giant Strength / Belt of Physical Might: You need Strength and Constitution, but most paladins won’t have a usefor Dexterity.
• Bracelet of Mercy: Good, but not worth15,000gp. Get Bracers of the Merciful Knight instead.
• Bracers of The Avenging Knight: Fourmore levels of Smite means 4 more damage per hit. Neat, but Bracers of theMerciful Knight costs less and are much more useful.
• Bracers of The Merciful Knight: Four morelevels of Lay on Hands means 2d6 more healing and 2 more uses per day. TheLesser Restoration effect is nice, but it’s a 1st-level spell for paladinsso it’s not a huge benefit.
• Boots of Speed: At just 12,000gp these area steal. Activate them as a free action one round at a time, and you caneasily stretch their use throughout an entire day. An essential for nearlyany melee character.
• Cloak of Resistance: Too crucial toforego, even with Divine Grace.
• Crystal of the Healing Hands: This issomething your allies should buy so that you can charge it for them.
• Insignia of Valor: Paladins aren’t great atChannel Energy unless you build for it, and if you really want to useChannel Energy as a swift action you want to get Quick Channel.
• Merciful Vambraces: Once per day isn’tenough. If you’re using Lay on Hands it’s rare that you’ll be removing morethan one condition, so expect to go long periods without these beinguseful.
• Headband of Alluring Charisma: Crucial.Boosts all of your saves, plus the normal benefits of Charisma.
• Merciful Baldric: You probably won’tneed this. You get enough mercies for most campaigns, and if you can’t covereverything it’s much cheaper to buy scrolls of the spells that will removewhatever status conditions you can’t cover.
• Ornament of Healing Light: 15 ft. is notenough range to justify 10,000gp. Phylactery of the Shepherd costs 7,500,does more, and has twice the range.
• Phylactery of the Shepherd: Put theStatus effect on allies (it will last for three hours), then use Lay onHands at 30 ft. range as a swift action when one of them picks up a nastystatus condition.
• Pearl of Power: Paladins get very fewspell slots, but their spells can be more powerful than their spell levelimplies. A pearl of power 1 on a high level wizard is largely useless; apearl of power 1 on a Paladin means another use of Hero’s Defiance.

Permanent Spells

• Enlarge Person: Bonus strength and reach.Excellent for any melee paladin unless you’re using a mount. If thedexterity penalty is a problem, you can offset it with an ioun stone insteadof adding a bunch of extra cost to your belt.
• See Invisibility: Expensive, but youdon’t have a way to deal with invisible foes.