Paladin Subclass Design

The paladin is a good example of how class and subclass design can mesh to create an effective whole. The paladin has a clear mechanical and narrative core, and its subclasses add a complementary element on both layers. While the paladin wasn’t in the very first version of D&D, there’s a reason why the concept has carried over to a staggering variety of games over the years. It’s an easy concept to understand, and the tie between roleplaying and rules in the subclasses helps ensure that new design resonates with players.

Where Subclass Meets Class

The paladin’s core class is filled with resonant, useful mechanics. Lay on Hands and Divine Sense provide a lot of utility. Every paladin I have seen at the table uses them in almost every session. Divine Smite, especially considering how it interacts with critical hits, is a showstopper. While that mechanic needs to be toned down – hopefully made a bonus action used after hitting in the revised rules – it gives the paladin a signature combat mechanic. Aura of Protection provides a final element that brings the kit together, with its saving throw bonus meaning the margin between victory and TPK in more games I’ve run than I can count.

Those potent class features make building a subclass a challenge. There’s not a lot of space in our power budget to layer on additional mechanics. Luckily, the paladin has access to Channel Divinity. As with the cleric, this mechanic gives us an easy outlet for an impactful, limited use option.

It’s also critical to think about how the subclass allows the paladin to specialize. The paladin’s kit is so robust that the subclass can afford to go in oddball directions. A paladin subclass can afford to hand out niche options or ones that push the paladin into playstyles the class isn’t normally associated with. The core features give the paladin what it needs, so don’t be afraid to experiment.

Oath of Game Design

I like to start with creating the paladin’s oath when designing a subclass. The oath provides clarity on where the design should go. It’s also a useful tool for comparing paladin subclasses. Does the oath you’ve created stand out from others? What does it suggest about the paladin’s actions and class features? Will it be a useful tool in your design?

Ideally, the oath provides a framework for a unique paladin. The subclasses in the core rules, by their nature of serving as the game’s foundation, tend to cast a wide net. On one hand, they cover a lot of conceptual space and can feel limiting. On the other, that sets you up to aim at a distinct, flavorful paladin that can do novel things.

I think the oaths in the core game are a little too generic and aren’t always relevant to adventuring. A good oath helps direct a character to action, without creating weird edge cases. The Oath of Devotion’s call to honesty puts paladin players into an awkward position. Player characters lie all the time. Half the fun of TTRPGs comes from building intricate plans of dubious utility that require misdirection, bluffs, and tricks. The paladin who can’t lie is just a wet blanket.

Instead, consider tenets that pull the paladin into adventure. An oath might require a paladin to help those in danger, to redistribute wealth to the needy, or obey the edicts issued by the head of their order. These restrictions turn the tenets into storytelling tools for the player and the DM, rather than a weird litmus test that can force the player to obey arbitrary rules of behavior.

Subclass Mechanics

I think a good rule of thumb for paladin subclass design is to find a class feature that feels distinctly outside of the paladin’s normal purview, backed up with tenets that provide a story justification for them. That combination makes it easy for players to understand what their character can do and why they do it. A distinct mechanic then allows your subclass to stand out in play, especially against the relative high impact of the class’s core features.

The oath’s spell list is often overlooked as a fun tool to bring flavor to the class. Spells like hunter’s mark and magic missile make a paladin stand out. Avoid top tier wizard spells such as fireball and shield, unless you very specifically want a paladin that feels like an arcane caster.

3rd level is critical for achieving this, and Channel Divinity is a great tool for the job. Channel divinity benefits should scale, which makes them a tool that the paladin always finds useful. Five points of effective power per level, or about 1d8, is a solid baseline for its effective power. If you require the use of an action, the Channel Divinity ability can provide about 1d8 worth of power per paladin level. Roughly speaking, it should start off equal to a 1st level spell and scale up by one spell level for every two paladin levels.

When thinking of your mechanic, try to imagine the paladin never gaining any other subclass features as they level. A good Channel Divinity option should feel exciting and fun at all levels and be useful enough that the paladin keeps going back to it as their signature move.

At 7th level, there’s not a lot of room to add something that is powerful or impactful in terms of damage. Consider finding a flavorful boost to one of the paladin’s core features, or a minor utility feature that lets the paladin express their oath more consistently.

15th level can provide the constant benefit of a 1st-level spell, though keep in mind that protection from good and evil is a relatively narrow spell, at high levels its benefits are more likely to come into play. Think of your paladin tenets. Is there a specific type of enemy that this subclass should perform well against? Consider an impactful benefit that applies to that foe.

Finally, at 20th level the paladin gains a feature that allows them to embody their tenets. This benefit should be usable once per long rest, last for the length of an encounter, and generate about 10 points of damage per round. Damage could be healing, special effects given to enemies or allies, and so on. As a rule of thumb, consider the effect to be equivalent to a 1st level spell, or a narrow 2nd level one.

Bonus Topic: Why Divine Smite is Too Good

In retrospect, Divine Smite is the most obviously unbalanced mechanic across all the classes in the 2014 rules. It’s simply too good to allow a character to burn through multiple spell slots in a single turn. There’s a good reason why bonus action spells shut down your ability to cast anything other than cantrips. That rule has caused much consternation over the years. It feels like a big damper on why bonus action spells are fun. Throwing out a healing word then zapping a bad guy with guiding bolt feels great, but to make bonus action spells worth using their power had to run a little too high to make pairing them with spellcasting a balanced option. The game’s action economy already tilts toward the players. Letting them burn through multiple spells on a single turn is simply too much.

On the other hand, bonus actions work great as buffs to attacks. You can tone down the overall power but then add it on top of a set of attacks to hit a balanced damage output. To this day, I have no idea why Divine Smite ignores that rule. The smite spells in the 2014 rules use bonus actions. They even require concentration to prevent players from layering multiple smites on a single attack and burning through spell slots too quickly.

I think the bigger lesson here is that mistakes are going to happen. Even a team of full-time designers and editors gets things wrong, especially in games as intricate as TTRPGs. The real mistake is in failing to learn lessons from your errors. I’ve learned far more from my mistakes than from my successes.