Baldur’s Gate 3: The 4 Best Feats for Paladins


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Baldur’s Gate 3: The 4 Best Feats for Paladins

Paladins are unstoppable holy warriors in Baldur's Gate 3, and here are the best feats for smiting your foes.

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.

A reaction box appears in Baldur's Gate 3 for the feat Mage Slayer while a Paladin character fights on screen
(Image: Larian / Nathan Hart)

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.

The Mage Slayer feat screen in Baldur's Gate 3
(Image: Larian / Nathan Hart)

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.

The Searing Smite spell being prepared in Baldur's Gate 3
(Image: Larian / Nathan Hart)

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.

A Paladin casts the Bane spell and concentrates on it while fighting a Bullette in Baldur's Gate 3
(Image: Larian / Nathan Hart)

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.

A Paladin fights an Owlbear in Baldur's Gate 3
(Image: Larian / Nathan Hart)

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.

A Paladin wearing heavy armor in the inventory screen of Baldur's Gate 3
(Image: Larian / Nathan Hart)

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.

The Smite reaction box appears while a Paladin fights on screen in Baldur's Gate 3
(Image: Larian / Nathan Hart)

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.

A Paladin fights a Duregar in Baldur's Gate 3
(Image: Larian / Nathan Hart)

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.

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