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Building your first DnD Paladin: keep it simple. Strength, Con, Charisma, and plan for melee. Use Divine Smite when it makes sense, don’t spam it or you’ll burn through your spell slots too quickly. Outside of combat, expect to do a lot of talking.
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Paladins are, in my opinion, one of the
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best first D and D characters, but they
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can be complicated to build and play
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because they do a lot and you have to
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interact with huge parts of the system.
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Like most characters, you want to start
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with your ability scores first. I
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recommend going strength first and then
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splitting between constitution and
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charisma. Dexterity and charisma first
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builds are possible, but I really don't
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recommend those for your first
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character. Beyond that, you're going to
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be in heavy armor. You're going to be
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using strength-based weapons like swords
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and warhammers and tridents and things
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like that. You have weapon mastery. So I
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really recommend weapon mastery in
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Trident. And one other favorite, trident
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is there to knock flying enemies out of
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the sky, but it also works just fine in
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melee. So if you just want that to be
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your weapon, cool. You get spell casting
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right from level one. And Divine Smite
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is a huge part of the Paladin's kit.
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Provides really good burst damage at the
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cost of a spell slot and a bonus action.
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So when you hit enemies and you really
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need to do a whole bunch of damage, add
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Divine Smite to it. If you manage to
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crit and then use divine smite, the
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damage on divine smite is multiplied, so
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you can get twice the effect out of it.
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But because crits are going to be pretty
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rare for the most part, you don't want
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to just hold on to all of your spell
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slots exclusively for when you crit. You
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do have other great spell options like
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shield of faith and heroism. So don't
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feel the need to reserve every single
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spell slot for divine smite. Like it's
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perfectly fine if you do, but also
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consider other options. And there are
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other smite spells which might be more
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impactful than just plain divine smite.
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You also get lay on hands which provides
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a growing pool of healing that you can
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use both to restore hit points and
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remove status conditions like poison.
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It's usable as a bonus action so you
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still get your action to do things like
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cast other spells and attacking. So it
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it's very easy to fit into your kit. I
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do recommend reserving just a couple of
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points for emergencies. If an ally is
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unconscious, if you walk over to them,
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hit them with a bonus action for one
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healing. That's enough to get them
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conscious, which could save their lives
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and could get them back into a fight
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long enough to have a big impact.
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Outside of combat, you have all the
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charisma you need to build around
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charisma skills, persuasion, deception,
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intimidation. So, you are probably going
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to be your party's face, which means in
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combat, you're probably the big tanky
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character with a little bit of healing.
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Outside of combat, you're probably the
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party's face. So, you get to spend a lot
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of time really engaging with the game
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and playing with every aspect of D and
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D, which is one of the reasons I really
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like Paladins as a first character, even
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if they are a little bit complicated to
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build and
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