Paladins are versatile, heavily armored casters in the world of Baldur’s Gate 3. They have a powerful skill called “Divine Smite” and the ability to heal their allies without expending spell slots. Because they can apply their Divine Smite after an attack has already landed, a Paladin with a greatsword is among the most powerful damage-dealing characters in the game, while a heavy-armor specialized Paladin with a shield can soak up a massive amount of damage.
Minthara is a potential party member during Act 2 who originally specialized as an Oath of Vengeance Paladin, so any party configuration can benefit from knowing what the best specs for your Paladins can be. As a Paladin, you’ll receive three feats by the end of the game, so pick your favorite three from among my selection depending on the purpose of your Paladin in your group dynamics.
Without further ado, here are my top picks for the best feats for Paladins in BG3.
Mage Slayer
Paladins operate very well as frontline fighters, being especially good at dishing out lots of damage while resisting counterattacks. Their heavy armor makes them more resistant to physical damage than many other classes. One weak point in the defensive skills of a Paladin is generally taking Dexterity saving throws against spell attacks. You can mitigate this a little bit by picking up the Mage Slayer feat.
Mage Slayer gives you Advantage against the effects of any spell cast against you in melee. You also get to use your reaction to immediately take an attack against the caster. This free attack can be a significant source of damage for a greatsword-wielding Paladin. The last major effect of this skill is to give any targets of your attacks a Disadvantage on their own concentration saving throws, giving you a better chance of stomping out your foes.
Getting more attacks in when you wield 2-handed weapons is one of the most efficient ways to add more damage in a round, and Mage Slayer does this while also complimenting the weaknesses of a more offensively-minded Paladin build.
War Caster
If you scroll through the list of spells that Paladins have access to, you’ll find that almost all of them take “Concentration” to keep casting them. Concentration requires you to take a saving throw each time you are struck with an attack, with the DC of the save based on how much damage you take, contested by your constitution bonus.
War Caster comes with two effects. First, it gives you advantage on concentration saving throws, doubling your chances of your spells working for as long as possible. Secondly, it will provide you a second option for opportunity attacks in the form of the shocking grasp cantrip becoming available as a reaction whenever an enemy moves out of melee range.
War Caster makes you significantly more likely to be able to hold your concentration when you’re struck with an attack, as Paladins are likely to be hit often on the front lines of battle. The free shocking grasp reaction is less useful for Paladins than it is for pure casters that take this feat, but on occasion, a shocking grasp is much more likely to hit and do damage to certain targets compared to your heavy weapons.
Heavy Armor Master
Paladins are one of two classes in the game that are always built to be proficient and effectively use heavy armor. Heavy armor typically makes you obvious to your foes by disadvantaging your stealth checks, appropriate for a battle-ready Paladin ready to march straight up to their foes. It also doesn’t allow you to use your dexterity mod towards your armor class, so it’s even better for less-agile characters like Paladins than others.
The Heavy Armor Master feat gives you a +1 bonus to your Strength stat. Its most important bonus though is the fact that it reduces all damage from non-magical sources by 3, including small sources of mundane damage like fall damage from jumping long distances.
These two bonuses are amazing for a Paladin, especially early in the game when you can use them to upgrade your strength to 18, providing you with a +4 bonus to almost every attack roll and damage roll that you deal. The damage reduction will keep you from getting gradually shredded down by small attacks that might whittle your massive health pool down over time since if there’s one thing you should plan on as a Paladin, it’s getting hit.
Savage Attacker
Since you’ll often be doing lots of damage at once, wielding big weapons with big damage dice, as a high-level Paladin, picking up some extra abilities dedicated to stacking more damage on top of it is a fine use of your feats.
Savage Attacker is a simple feat. Every time you roll damage dice with a melee weapon, you roll them twice and pick the higher one. This will add up to you almost always hitting on the upper range of your weapon dice, which can add up to a lot of hurt on your foes if you’re using a greatsword with its d12 worth of damage.
This is an especially perfect feat for higher-level Paladins that are doing a lot of smiting, because the various smite abilities count as melee weapon attacks, meaning you get to apply this feat to both the initial strike and the follow-up smite damage.
Baldur's Gate 3 Navigation
- Baldur’s Gate 3: Way Of The Open Hand Monk Guide
- Baldur’s Gate 3: Assassin Rogue Build Guide
- Baldur’s Gate 3: Evocation Wizard Build Guide
- Baldur’s Gate 3: Storm Sorcerer Build Guide
- Baldur’s Gate 3: Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer Build
- Baldur’s Gate 3: College of Valour Bard Build Guide
- Baldur’s Gate 3: College of Lore Bard Build Guide
- Baldur’s Gate 3: Tempest Domain Cleric Build Guide
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 5 Best Multiclass Builds
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The Best Starting Build for Bards
- Baldur’s Gate 3: Life Domain Cleric Build Guide
- Baldur’s Gate 3: Light Domain Cleric Build Guide
- The 3 Best Weapons for Paladins in Baldur’s Gate 3
- 6 Best Weapons for Barbarians in Baldur’s Gate 3
- Adamantine Forge Tier List For Baldur’s Gate 3
- 5 Best Gloves for Monks in Baldur’s Gate 3
- The Best Shields in Baldur’s Gate 3
- The 8 Best Heavy Armor Sets in Baldur’s Gate 3, Ranked
- The 5 Best Light Armor Sets in Baldur’s Gate 3, Ranked
- The 7 Best Medium Armor Sets in Baldur’s Gate 3, Ranked
- Best Weapons For Fighters in Baldur’s Gate 3, Ranked
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 4 Best Feats for Paladins
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Feats for Warlocks
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Feats for Monk
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Feats for Rogue
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Feats for Druid
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Feats for Wizard
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Feats for Barbarian
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Feats for Sorcerer
- Baldur’s Gate 3 – Best Feats for Ranger
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Feats for Fighters
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Feats for Bards
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Feats for Clerics
- In Search of Romance? Here Are the Best Ones in Baldur’s Gate 3
- How to Access the Underdark in Baldur’s Gate 3
- Baldur’s Gate 3: How to Beat the Goblin Camp
- Baldur’s Gate 3: How to Save & Recruit Halsin
- Baldur’s Gate 3 – How to Cool Down Karlach
- Baldur’s Gate 3: How to Beat Marcus & Save Isobel
- Baldur’s Gate 3: How to Recruit Minthara
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The Best Companions
- Baldur’s Gate 3: Strongest Classes and Subclasses, Ranked
- Baldur’s Gate 3 – The Best Beginner Classes
- Baldur’s Gate 3 – Top 10 Beginner Tips
- 6 Best Paladin Spells in Baldur’s Gate 3
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Spells for Druid
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Spells for Wizard
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Spells for Sorcerer
- Baldur’s Gate 3 – Best Spells for Ranger
- 10 Best Bard Spells in Baldur’s Gate 3
- Baldur’s Gate 3: The 10 Best Cleric Spells
- The 10 Best Starting Spells in Baldur’s Gate 3
- The 10 Best Cantrips in Baldur’s Gate 3, Ranked
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