Paladins are Baldur's Gate 3's holy warriors, blending together the heavy armour and melee attacks of a Fighter with powerful martial magic. They're a hybrid between melee bruisers and spellcasters, and have many of the best qualities of both. Unlike all of the other classes in the game, Paladins are also bound by Oaths, which can be upheld or broken by your narrative decisions.

Before going for a single-class Paladin build, it's worth seriously considering multiclassing as a Paladin in Baldur's Gate 3. Paladins mainly rely on their Strength and Charisma stats so other classes that prioritize these stats, such as Warlock or Bard, will have some nice synergy. However, even without multiclassing, Paladins can hit very hard and tank lots of damage.

Creating A Paladin In Baldur's Gate 3 (Best Races, Backgrounds, Skills)

Paladins start off with a few abilities in character creation, including Lay on Hands and Channel Oath. Lay on Hands allows you to spend Lay on Hands Charges to heal an ally or cure diseases and poisons. Some of Baldur's Gate 3's Cleric subclasses can also heal using their abilities, but this often uses up Spell Slots. You can also spend Channel Oath Charges to use your Channel Oath Abilities.

When distributing starting stats for a Paladin, Strength, and Charisma should take priority. Paladins rely on these for melee damage and spellcasting. However, Constitution is also important as it determines your character's HP and more importantly whether they can maintain concentration on spells. Starting with Strength 17, Dexterity 8, Constitution 14, Intelligence 8, Wisdom 10, and Charisma 16 offers a good balance.

You can always visit Withers to respec and change your class.

The Best Race And Subrace For A Baldur's Gate 3 Paladin

Most races and subraces can make a great Paladin. Half-Elf race builds are rather popular for most classes, as their unique features can include useful ive abilities; however, the Paladin class actually works best with less popular races.

Half-Orcs are highly recommended, as their race features have excellent synergy with the Paladin class. Half-Orcs gain Savage Attacks, which adds an extra damage die to any critical hits made with a melee weapon. They also start with Proficiency in the Intimidation Skill, which uses a character's Charisma stat for rolls. As a Paladin, your character's Charisma stat will typically be quite high, so this allows you to use that to your advantage in dialogue checks.

Githyanki is also a viable choice if you want your Paladin to also be a party face character. Githyanki characters gain Githyanki Psionics abilities, including Enhance Leap and Misty Step, which are great for getting into melee range during combat encounters. They also benefit from Astral Knowledge, which allows them to select a single stat every Long Rest. They then gain Proficiency in all Skills that use the chosen stat, making for a potentially powerful matchup with a Paladin's high Charisma stat.

The Best Background For A Baldur's Gate 3 Paladin

You'll also want the best class and Background combination for your Paladin, as your character's Background provides extra skills that can come in handy. The Soldier Background plays perfectly to a Paladin's strengths, providing Proficiency in Athletics and Intimidation, which rely on Strength and Charisma respectively.

Alternatives include Noble, which provides Proficiency in Persuasion, and Acolyte for Proficiency in Insight and Religion. These skills either have some synergy with the Paladin class, or are solid narrative options for roleplaying.

The Best Skills For A Baldur's Gate 3 Paladin

Ideally, you should select Proficiencies in skills based on Strength or Charisma. However, Athletics is the only Strength-based skill, so you should focus on Charisma skills such as Deception, Intimidation, and Persuasion. Your Paladin can then use their high Charisma outside combat to dialogue checks.

However, unlike Baldur's Gate 3's Bards, who are free to talk their way out of trouble with no consequences, Paladins have to consider their Paladin Oath before acting. Your Paladin has to act in line with the tenets of their chosen Oath when making decisions, which makes a Paladin playthrough even more interesting.

Paladin Oaths And Oathbreaking In Baldur's Gate 3

At Level 1, players have to select one of three Oaths: Oath of the Ancients, Oath of Devotion, or Oath of Vengeance. Each comes with unique Channel Oath abilities, but more importantly, they bind your Paladin to a chosen code of ethics. Actions that break that code can cause you to lose access to those abilities, and unlocks the fourth Paladin subclass: Oathbreaker. Choosing your Paladin Oath is an important decision from a gameplay and story perspective.

The best Paladin Oath really depends on the kind of character you'd like to play. Oath of the Ancients Paladins will excel at healing, while Vengeance Paladins excel at damage-dealing. Devotion offers a well-balanced middle ground that's a great option for tank builds. Oathbreaker is rather unique as it focuses on inner darkness for powerful debuffs and controlling the undead. Of the four, Oath of Vengeance provides the most freedom and combat utility overall.

If you break your Oath, you'll be visited by the Oathbreaker Knight at camp when you next take a Long Rest. The Oathbreaker Knight will let you pay a fee of 1,000 gold to restore your Oath, or to unlock the Oathbreaker subclass.

The price of restoring your Oath increases to 2,000 gold the second time, and to 10,000 gold the third time.

The Best Paladin Spells In Baldur's Gate 3

At Level 2, Paladins learn the Divine Smite attack, which allows them to spend Spell Slots to add Radiant Damage to their melee attacks.

The additional damage starts at 2d8, but you can add additional 1d8s by using higher level Spell Slots.

As half-casters, Paladins only gain Spell Slots at half the rate of caster classes such as Wizard or Bard, so you'll need to learn how to cast spells without spending Spell Slots. The following spells are your best picks:

Paladins have some of the best spells in Baldur's Gate 3. However, in most combat encounters, you should be spending your Spell Slots on Smite attacks; Paladins can cast spells but it's not their main focus.

Paladins can also learn spells such as Lesser Restoration or Aid; however, using your Lay on Hands charges for healing and curing conditions is the better approach.

Melee Combat As A Paladin In Baldur's Gate 3

At Level 2, you can improve your combat capabilities by picking a Fighting Style: Defence, Duelling, Great Weapon Fighting, or Protection.

Your best choices here are Defence or Great Weapon Fighting. Defense adds a +1 bonus to your Armor Class if you're wearing armor, making it harder for enemies to succeed their attack rolls and score hits. Great Weapon Fighting automatically rerolls any 1s and 2s on your damage rolls for two-handed melee weapons, boosting your damage.

Your choice of fighting style mostly depends on the gear you want to use. Great Weapon Fighting is exceptionally strong if you're using large damage dice weapons like the greataxe and maul. Defense should be considered for characters using a one-handed weapon and shield, usually to obtain a high Armor Class for tanking.

The Best Feats For A Paladin In Baldur's Gate 3

Feats are character bonuses that improve your character's overall capabilities. They become available when you reach Levels 4, 8 and 12 of each class. The most standard Feat for a Paladin is Ability Improvement, which gives you two stat points that you can easily allocate to Strength for more melee damage. However, there are other Feats that are also worth considering.

• Athlete allows you to raise your Strength or Dexterity by one, increases jump range, and reduces movement cost of recovering from Prone.
• Mobile provides a flat bonus to movement range.
• Savage Attacker rolls your damage dice twice and uses the highest result, producing more consistent damage.

If you've recruited Minthara to your party, you can use this build information on her as she is a Paladin by default.

Unfortunately, none of the Feats address Spell Slot shortages. As such, it's worth considering multiclassing into other caster classes to gain extra Spell Slots. Multiclassing into Sorcerer has many advantages, including some niche spellcasting bonuses from Metamagic, and the ability to convert Sorcery Points into more Spell Slots

Paladins are exceptionally tough and hit very hard; however, playing them well requires careful management of Spell Slots, Concentration and more. They're a tough class to master, but well-built Paladins are among the best characters for roleplaying and combat in Baldur's Gate 3.