Best Feats for Ancients Paladin 5e
by Prince Phantom
I firmly believe that this is one of the most overrated subclasses in 5e, and the culprit is Aura of Warding. This feature gives you and those in your aura resistance to damage from spells. On paper this sounds amazing, but in practice it will so rarely come up. The prevalence of damaging spells being thrown at your average adventuring party is very low, especially so given the many monster revisions in Monsters of the Multiverse that replaced many spells with spell-like abilities, which this feature does not protect against.
Also, damage is kinda the least threatening thing a spell can do. This does nothing to protect your party from spells like Hold Person or Hypnotic Pattern, which are the types of spells that can actually TPK. All that being said, this subclass isn’t horrible, but it does fall off majorly at high levels. We start strong with two good channel divinity options and some really good expanded spells including Misty Step, Moonbeam, and Plant Growth, but our 4th and 5th level spells are very lacking. I already mentioned why I don’t like our 7th level ability, but the 15th level ability is that much worse. The capstone requires an action to activate and only lasts a minute, which alone makes it potentially the worst Paladin capstone of them all. I’d definitely look into multiclassing out of Paladin after level 6 with this subclass, however I will write this feat list assuming you are aiming to go the full 20.
Best Feats for Ancients Paladin 5
Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter (ASAP): This is another Paladin that I would deem best suited for ranged combat rather than melee. None of our features reward melee combat and the only thing we miss out on is smite, however I don’t see that as such an issue since we get a couple of really good spells from our expanded list and the Paladin list is pretty good anyway. Ranged combat just has so many advantages over melee that I can’t in good conscience give you an optimized feats list without bringing it up, but if you simply must go with melee than the standard Polearm Master/Great Weapon Master build works just fine.
Inspiring Leader (Lv 8): We can definitely afford to take this earlier than the average Charisma-based character as staying at range plus Aura of Courage will keep our concentration secure when we need it to be, so we don’t need to invest any feats into protecting it. Every party should have exactly one source of mass temporary HP, and if yours is lacking that, this is a great opportunity to provide a ton of support and durability for your team.
Magic Initiate (Lv 8): What’s a nature loving hippie Paladin without a friendly and adorable pet? Yes, going for the Druid list would be very flavorful, but Wizard is the clear and obvious choice because of Find Familiar. If someone else in your party already has a familiar, you probably don’t need this feat at all.
Shadow Touched (Lv 8): Since we already get Misty Step from our subclass, Fey Touched really isn’t worth the selection. This leaves us with its inferior cousin, but it’s not so inferior that I’d never consider it. If you took my advice and built for ranged combat, you’ll find yourself pretty decent at stealth (odd for a Paladin, I know), and Invisibility will push you over that hill making you great at stealth. Silent Image is the clear pick for the other spell, and if you’re creative you will find uses for it all the way to level 20. We also really want to be raising our Charisma.
Lucky (Lv 12): Seeing this feat on one of my lists is a clear indication that I’ve run out of interesting feats that have synergies with this subclass. Take this as a placeholder for all the generically good feats like Tough, Gift of the Gem Dragon, Piercer, etc. Honestly if you haven’t multiclassed at this point you should apply to a monastery because your self control is off the charts.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.
