As your D&D character defeats monsters and levels up, you will be able to select additional feats to buff your character. But with so many feats to choose from, it can be intimidating to just pick one. On top of that, some feats don’t add much to certain classes or builds, making them practically worthless in gameplay.
You’ve chosen to play a paladin, but now what? Maybe you want to unlock new abilities, harness the elements, or learn exclusive, potent spells. Or maybe you want to be the meat shield of the party, the tank who can plow through and smite enemies without flinching.
Here are my top ten feats that will take your paladin from a holy warrior to the embodiment of divine justice.
10. Savage Attacker (PHB)
Wizards of the Coast: Savage Punch by Wesley Burt
Savage Attacker empowers you to deal more damage each turn.
Savage Attacker is a solid feat for just about any class. While it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of more complex feats, the ability to reroll damage dice every turn can change the tides in a close fight.
If you’re like me, you tend to roll high to attack but only end up giving the enemy a love tap with your damage rolls. The Savage Attacker feat allows you to not only reroll damage dice but also choose which roll you want to use, so there’s no risk of rolling a worse total. And did I mention you can do this on each turn?
This feat is especially advantageous for a paladin because paladins gain more and more opportunities to attack at higher levels, which means more opportunities to roll damage. In addition, while paladins don’t have many extra movement options, the Savage Attacker will make sure you finish off your enemy before they can run to safety.
Why Savage Attacker is Great for Paladins:
- Minimal cooldown: No need to wait for a long rest! Since you can reroll melee damage dice once per turn, you can reuse Savage Attacker over and over again, even multiple times in a single fight. This can be vital when your paladin is dealing damage.
- Synergize with other abilities: Damage-dealing abilities like Divine Smite, Extra Attacks, and oath features like Soul of Vengeance (Oath of Vengeance) give damage boosts when attacking with a melee weapon or additional opportunities to attack in one turn. With more opportunities to roll damage, the paladin’s use of Savage Attacker increases exponentially.
- More damage: It always feels great to finish off an enemy. Savage Attacker increases your paladin’s chances to strike the killing blow.
Savage Attacker
- Once per turn when you roll damage for a melee weapon attack, you can reroll the weapon's damage dice and use either total.
9. Shield Master (PHB)
Wizards of the Coast: Dragonscale General by Willian Murai
Shields are more than just flavor! Shield Master grants shield users new abilities and features.
Since paladins can start with a shield, you will likely already be equipped with one in your starting equipment. Shield Master allows you to use your shield as an offensive weapon in addition to its base ability of gaining +2 AC.
In my experience, shields are usually either taken as a flat AC boost at the start of the campaign, added as cosmetic flair to your character design, or forgotten altogether. Shield Master gives the ordinary shield a bit more utility, granting it some helpful abilities to spice up a rough combat encounter and make your paladin an indestructible tank.
This feat is advantageous for a paladin because paladins have many protective/healing spells and abilities, but most of their offensive spells and abilities are various forms of Smite or oath features. Shield Master allows you to utilize your shield in an offensive manner as well as give you bonus protection against rogue effects or spells (and perhaps rogues themselves—you never know what they might be up to).
Why Shield Master is Great for Paladins:
- Utility: Shields are more than just flavor. Prove your skill and give them some additional abilities with Shield Master.
- Bonus action shove: If you’ve already used a Smite spell on your weapon and have a free bonus action, Shield Master gives you a chance to shove your enemy away, possibly pushing them off a cliff, into a trap, or into an environmental hazard.
- Add shield bonus to saving throws: Ordinary shields only give you a bonus to your AC, protecting you from straightforward attacks but leaving you vulnerable to attacks requiring you to dodge. But with Shield Master, shields now grant a bonus to Dexterity saving throws, giving you a boost when rolling out of the way of a targeted spell or effect, something that may be more difficult for a heavily armored paladin.
- No damage for successful saving throws: Isn’t it annoying when you make a successful saving throw but still have to take half damage? With Shield Master, successful saving throws completely shield you from all damage, leaving you unscathed and ready to rejoin the fight.
Shield Master
- You use shields not just for protection but also for offense. You gain the following benefits while you are wielding a shield:
- If you take the Attack action on your turn, you can use a bonus action to try to shove a creature within 5 feet of you with your shield.
- If you aren't incapacitated, you can add your shield's AC bonus to any Dexterity saving throw you make against a spell or other harmful effect that targets only you.
- If you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you can use your reaction to take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, interposing your shield between yourself and the source of the effect.
8. Heavy Armor Master (PHB)
Wizards of the Coast: Knight of Glory by Peter Mohrbacher
Heavy Armor Master will make sure you are protected from any and all dangers ahead.
The life of an adventurer is not an easy one—you get knocked down over and over, then have to get right back up again. Heavy Armor Master makes it a little bit harder for your enemies to knock you down, keeping you in the fight until the very end.
Paladins are tanky characters, built to both deal and withstand lots of damage. They are also one of the few classes who can wear heavy armor from the get-go, the armor with the highest AC in the game. Pair these traits with the Heavy Armor Master feat, and your enemies will hardly be able to lay a finger on you while you wreak vengeance for their evil deeds.
This feat is advantageous for a paladin because it will make your paladin better at the things they’re already good at. An additional point in Strength may or may not be useful since paladins already take Strength as their highest stat, but the damage reduction on non-magical attacks can be pretty useful, especially since heavy armor already grants a high AC.
Why Heavy Armor Master is Great for Paladins:
- Indestructible: Your paladin’s heavy armor will already protect them from many forms of getting hit. If they are hit, Heavy Armor Master will prevent them from taking full damage.
- Let my body be your shield!: Even if you do get hit, Heavy Armor Master reduces the non-magical damage you take by 3 points per attack. This may not seem like much, but it can add up quickly.
- Strength boost: While paladins don’t always need it, Heavy Armor Master’s boost to strength can push you just over the edge stat-wise, increasing your attack and ability modifiers.
Heavy Armor Master
Prerequisite: Proficiency with heavy armor
- You can use your armor to deflect strikes that would kill others. You gain the following benefits:
- Increase your Strength score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
- While you are wearing heavy armor, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage that you take from non-magical attacks is reduced by 3.
7. Gift of the Chromatic Dragon (FToD)
Wizards of the Coast: Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons
Dragons are epic! Gift of the Chromatic Dragon grants you both the dragons’ breath attacks and damage resistance.
Who doesn’t love dragons? Who doesn’t love adding flair to their character? Gift of the Chromatic Dragon isn’t just for show, though—this feat allows you to harness the powers of draconic breath attacks through your own weapons.
Gift of the Chromatic Dragon gives you the ability to infuse your weapon with additional damage types from the dragons themselves. Varying your damage type can mean life or death in a fight, especially if your enemy has resistance or immunity to your typical types of damage. In addition, your character can gain resistance to more nuanced damage types in the course of battle—you can pick which type of damage you are resistant to based on your foe’s attacks.
This feat is especially advantageous for a paladin because it boosts the paladin’s existing features. Chromatic Infusions function similarly to a multi-attack Smite of your choice. Reactive Resistance provides custom damage resistance, making you a formidable opponent against even the most powerful elemental enemies.
Why Gift of the Chromatic Dragon is Great for Paladins:
- DRAGONS: Give your paladin’s backstory a bit of flavor! How did they gain this gift? Does their bloodline contain draconic ancestors? Did they encounter a dragon in the wild? Did they gain favor with a draconic deity or ancient power?
- Pair with Smite: Chromatic Infusion lasts for a full minute, so you can spend just one bonus action to infuse a weapon with draconic damage while also utilizing the paladin’s various forms of Smite each turn.
- Gain resistance as you need it: Frustrated by features where you choose a favored enemy, damage type, or resistance but never have the opportunity to use it? Reactive Resistance allows your character to gain resistance to a specific type of damage as you take it, making sure it is useful when you need it.
- Customize for your featured enemy: Chromatic Infusion and Reactive Resistance both allow you to select the type of damage or resistance you require. This way, you can mix and match resistances based on your enemy’s attacks and weaknesses, making your paladin difficult to target.
Gift of the Chromatic Dragon
- You’ve manifested some of the power of chromatic dragons, granting you the following benefits:
- Chromatic Infusion. As a bonus action, you can touch a simple or martial weapon and infuse it with one of the following damage types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison. For the next minute, the weapon deals an extra 1d4 damage of the chosen type when it hits. After you use this bonus action, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.
- Reactive Resistance. When you take acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison damage, you can use your reaction to give yourself resistance to that instance of damage. You can use this reaction a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
6. Sentinel (PHB)
Wizards of the Coast: Sungold Sentinel by Marta Nael
Sentinel will stop your enemies in their tracks and open them up to your attacks.
Paladins embody a spirit of protection towards their allies and friendly creatures. They have sworn themselves to uphold justice and righteousness and to eliminate evil. Sentinel enables you to seize every opportunity to strike down evil in the world.
With Sentinel, opportunity attacks do more than just give your character an extra attack. Your enemy does not have the advantage of the Disengage action, making them unable to run from you unless they want to risk a beating. In addition, Sentinel boosts the paladin’s protective abilities and allows you to guard your party mates and allies when your foe gets tired of targeting you.
This feat is advantageous for a paladin because it gives them even more tools to protect your allies and keep your enemies right where you want them. Paladins are especially built to buff their allies, so giving them an extra attack when an enemy targets another creature is right in line with their character. And extra opportunities to utilize opportunity attacks are always fun and keep combat engaging.
Why Sentinel is Great for Paladins:
- New perks to opportunity attacks: Opportunity attacks typically only provide an extra attack, then you need to chase down your enemy. With Sentinel, opportunity attacks immobilize your opponent and prevent them from using the Disengage action to flee. This is especially useful if your paladin has a melee focus.
- Get back over here!: Sentinel gives your paladin an extra attack when an enemy targets someone else, essentially forcing them to target you or risk getting targeted themselves. This can give your allies a chance to pick off the weaker baddies or position themselves to flank your opponent.
- Protective nature: Sentinel pairs nicely with other paladin abilities like Fighting Style (Protection), Aura of Protection, and Aura of Courage. Each ability makes sure you and your allies are protected, tipping the odds in your favor in each fight.
Sentinel
- You have mastered techniques to take advantage of every drop in any enemy's guard, gaining the following benefits:
- When you hit a creature with an opportunity attack, the creature's speed becomes 0 for the rest of the turn.
- Creatures provoke opportunity attacks from you even if they take the Disengage action before leaving your reach.
- When a creature within 5 feet of you makes an attack against a target other than you (and that target doesn't have this feat), you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against the attacking creature.
5. Fey Touched (TCoE)
Wizards of the Coast: Mazzy, Truesword Paladin by Justyna Gil
Journey to the feywild! Fey Touched grants you additional spells from the fey realm.
The feywild is a plane of natural and ethereal beauty, with just as many dangers as there are wonders. A Fey Touched adventurer has stepped into this realm, intentionally or not, absorbing some of its power and supernatural qualities.
Since paladins’ spellcasting modifier utilizes Charisma, a boost to this stat will make your arcane abilities even more potent. They also often engage in melee rather than ranged attacks, so Misty Step will allow your character to get up close and personal with long-range baddies or simply duck out of range. Plus, you gain a free spell that will not cost a spell slot to use.
This feat is advantageous for a paladin because it fills in some of the gaps in a paladin’s abilities. Spells like Misty Step give them more mobility to fight enemies who don’t want to get close, while Dissonant Whispers or Id Insinuation (Unearthed Arcana) can pad out a paladin’s prepared spells with a couple damage dealers. If you’re not interested in more damage, spells like Beast Bond, Comprehend Languages, Gift of Alacrity, and Speak with Animals can be extremely useful when roleplaying social encounters.
Why Fey Touched is Great for Paladins:
- We’re not in Kansas anymore: What caused your character to become Fey Touched? Did they meet a denizen of the feywild? Were they tricked or lured in? Are they being rewarded for a good deed? Discuss with your DM the prevalence of the feywild in your campaign.
- Charismatic: For a paladin, an increase in Charisma also increases your spellcasting ability. Fey Touched can increase your spellcasting modifier, granting you even more arcane power!
- Now you see me, now you don’t: Misty step is one of my favorite spells because it grants the user much more mobility, especially in sticky situations. It functions both horizontally and vertically, so don’t forget to use it for more creative maneuvers, like hopping up onto the ramparts or onto a dragon’s back!
- Bonus spell and slot: In addition to misty step, Fey Touched grants an extra first level spell from the Divination or Enchantment lists. This means you can take an extra spell from another class’ spellcasting list, which can be useful since most of the paladin’s offensive spells are forms of Smite. Experiment with this feature and have fun!
Fey Touched
- Your exposure to the Feywild's magic has changed you, granting you the following benefits:
- Increase your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
- You learn the misty step spell and one 1st-level spell of your choice. The 1st-level spell must be from the Divination or Enchantment school of magic. You can cast each of these spells without expending a spell slot. Once you cast either of these spells in this way, you can’t cast that spell in this way again until you finish a long rest. You can also cast these spells using spell slots you have of the appropriate level. The spells’ spellcasting ability is the ability increased by this feat.
4. Polearm Master (PHB)
Wizards of the Coast: Triplicate Titan by Andrew Mar
Polearm Master proves your skill with polearms, letting you deal bonus damage and attacks when you use one.
While longswords and greataxes may be big and flashy, polearms like glaives and quarterstaffs do comparable damage while also providing reach to enemies just beyond your 5-foot radius. Polearm Master boosts these features even further by utilizing extra attacks to strike down your enemies.
Paladins take martial weapons as their starting equipment, giving them all they need to wreak havoc upon their enemies. With a paladin’s extra attacks, these bonus attacks can really add up, especially if their weapon is already infused with Smite. In addition, Polearm Master utilizes the reach property to activate opportunity attacks, which are useful when the enemy taunts you from just outside melee range.
This feat is especially advantageous for a paladin because it allows paladins to utilize their weapons even more effectively. Paladins can overwhelm an enemy with a combination of Polearm Master’s extra attacks and a variety of Smites. They can also take advantage of opportunity attacks outside their typical range due to Polearm Master’s bonus reach property, giving your paladin an edge in their fight.
Why Polearm Master is Great for Paladins:
- Versatility for martial weapons: Polearm Master allows you to make a bonus attack when you attack with your polearm. Overwhelm your enemy with extra attacks and Smites!
- Reach opportunity attacks: As a Polearm Master, your polearm’s reach will apply to opportunity attacks as well as melee attacks. This will make your paladin even more likely to stop a fleeing enemy or draw them back into close combat.
- Pair with other feats: Other feats like Sentinel (mentioned earlier on this list) will stop your enemy in their tracks when they’re hit by an opportunity attack. Polearm Master will give your paladin the necessary reach to hit them if they try to sneak around you.
Polearm Master
- You gain the following benefits:
- When you take the Attack action and attack with only a glaive, halberd, or quarterstaff, you can use a bonus action to make a melee attack with the opposite end of the weapon. This attack uses the same ability modifier as the primary attack. The weapon's damage die for this attack is a d4, and it deals bludgeoning damage.
- While you are wielding a glaive, halberd, pike, or quarterstaff, other creatures provoke an opportunity attack from you when they enter the reach you have with that weapon.
3. Great Weapon Master (PHB)
Wizards of the Coast: Electrostatic Infantry by Kamila Szutenberg
Great Weapon Master packs a hefty punch, giving a chance to deal massive damage on each turn.
Paladins are divine warriors, imbued with the power of their deity and justice itself to protect the good and smite the evil. To do this, they need some powerful weapons in their arsenal. As a Great Weapon Master, you have become an expert in fighting the evils of the world and can back it up with some pretty formidable abilities.
With their extra attacks and Smites, paladins are built to do a lot of damage. Great Weapon Master enables them to do even more, providing a bonus attack with critical strikes or by taking down an enemy. Paladins can also gamble with their attack roll by taking a slight penalty to gain a massive damage boost, a gamble well worth the risk.
This feat is advantageous for a paladin because it allows paladins to hit harder and more often, transforming them into a terrifying force on the battlefield. Your paladin has the stats and extra attacks to back up their attack roll gambles, potentially resulting in a boatload of damage. Great Weapon Master is pure combat chaos, allowing your paladin to face any evils in their path.
Why Great Weapon Master is Great for Paladins:
- Now THIS is a knife: Great Weapons Master gives you the opportunity to gamble a penalty on attack rolls to gain a whopping +10 damage. Paladins also have significant Strength bonuses to minimize the risk of the attack penalty. Pair this ability with extra attacks, and your enemies won’t know what hit them.
- The best defense is a good offense: Critical hits and knocking out an opponent grant an extra attack, allowing your paladin to benefit even more from good rolls and do even more damage per round.
- Multi-use bonuses: While you can only gain an extra attack from Great Weapons Master once per bonus action, you can gamble your attack roll for each heavy weapon melee attack, using it multiple times per turn. These can stack quickly, especially with the paladin’s average damage and multiple attacks, so take advantage of them!
Great Weapon Master
- You’ve learned to put the weight of a weapon to your advantage, letting its momentum empower your strikes. You gain the following benefits:
- On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action.
- Before you make a melee attack with a heavy weapon that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add +10 to the attack’s damage.
2. War Caster (PHB)
Wizards of the Coast: Volt-Charged Berserker by Francisco Miyara
War Caster allows you to balance martial attacks and spellcasting during combat, which is vital for dual classes like the paladin.
Paladins are the best of both worlds as far as combat styles go, featuring both melee and spellcasting abilities. Many of the prior feats focused on paladins’ armor and damage capabilities, but what about a feat focusing on their spellcasting? War Caster provides mobility and versatility while casting spells in combat, allowing you to utilize your spells to their fullest.
It can be difficult to balance melee and spellcasting since both typically require full actions. While it doesn’t remove this requirement, War Caster does provide advantage on saving throws to maintain concentration and cast spells during opportunity attacks. If your DM is particular about restrictions on the somatic components of spells during combat, War Caster also allows you to cast these spells while your hands are full.
This feat is especially advantageous for a paladin because many paladin spells require concentration, meaning they will likely need to make Constitution saving throws to maintain the spell, which War Caster provides a handy bit of advantage for. Many paladin spells also require somatic components, restricting their use in the midst of combat unless you sheathe your weapon or utilize War Caster’s handy (ha) casting feature.
Why War Caster is Great for Paladins:
- The best of both worlds: War Caster allows your paladin to use melee attacks and spellcasting at the same time during combat. Whereas one would typically become your character’s focus and the other would be utilized in niche scenarios, War Caster allows you to play both styles effectively within a single combat encounter.
- Advantage on maintaining concentration: Even the best-laid plans can be waylaid by a spellcaster failing their save and dropping concentration. War Caster gives you advantage on Constitution saving throws for maintaining concentration, sharpening your focus for the battle ahead.
- See ma, no hands!: Not all DMs allow characters to cast spells with somatic components while their hands are full. War Caster allows you to bypass this requirement and cast spells even if you’re wielding a greataxe in both hands.
- Opportunistic spellcasting: Opportunity attacks are typically restricted to melee attacks alone since they are provoked by movement. With War Caster, your paladin can instead cast a spell to target your fleeing foe, which is particularly useful if they are resistant to physical damage.
War Caster
Prerequisite: The ability to cast at least one spell
- You have practiced casting spells in the midst of combat, learning techniques that grant you the following benefits:
- You have advantage on Constitution saving throws that you make to maintain your concentration on a spell when you take damage.
- You can perform the somatic components of spells even when you have weapons or a shield in one or both hands.
- When a hostile creature's movement provokes an opportunity attack from you, you can use your reaction to cast a spell at the creature, rather than making an opportunity attack. The spell must have a casting time of 1 action and must target only that creature.
1. Inspiring Leader (PHB)
Wizards of the Coast: The D&D Player’s Handbook
Feel inspired! Inspiring Leader grants you and your allies temporary hit points to empower them against evil.
Inspiring Leader fits a paladin like a hand to a glove. With their inherent protective abilities and disposition to help others, paladins seek to empower others to fight for the good, even in the face of horrible evil. Inspiring Leader gives you the power to infuse your allies with strength and vitality so they can fight on and become heroes themselves.
Inspiring Leader grants temporary hit points, a rare commodity to begin with, to both yourself and your allies. Since Charisma is already the paladin’s spellcasting ability, paladins are already equipped to provide a significant pool of temporary hit points. This ability continues to increase as you level up.
This feat is advantageous for a paladin because it grants abilities to make a paladin even more effective in both combat and roleplaying. Inspiring Leader fits both the paladin’s holy calling and their innate class abilities through its protective and healing nature. Temporary hit points are exciting to both give and receive because they extend the time characters can remain in a fight, increasing the fun of a session and the likelihood of your victory.
Why Inspiring Leader is Great for Paladins:
- Motivational presence: Inspiring Leader allows you to inspire yourself and your allies, granting you a powerful boon to face whatever dangers lurk ahead.
- Charismatic speaker: Inspiring Leader utilizes your Charisma modifier, one of your highest stats as a paladin, when determining the amount of temporary hit points you grant. With this class and feat combo, you can grant a significant amount of temporary hit points to each ally.
- It’s fine, we’re gods: Temporary hit points provide a bit of extra padding to beef up your characters in a tricky combat encounter. These are depleted before your actual health, so you could go an entire encounter without losing a single hit point. This may be less important to a paladin with a large HP pool, but it is vital to party mates with smaller reserves.
Inspiring Leader
Prerequisite: Charisma 13 or higher
- You can spend 10 minutes inspiring your companions, shoring up their resolve to fight. When you do so, choose up to six friendly creatures (which can include yourself) within 30 feet of you who can see or hear you and who can understand you. Each creature can gain temporary hit points equal to your level + your Charisma modifier. A creature can't gain temporary hit points from this feat again until it has finished a short or long rest.
