Best Feats for Conquest Paladin 5e

by Prince Phantom

The Oath of Conquest is built around one thing and one thing only: fear. Imposing the frightened condition is critical to this subclasses playstyle, and we get a ton of benefits if we do. Before we get into that however, you probably want to talk to your DM before picking this subclass, as in a campaign full of something like undead who are immune to fear, a lot of your abilities will feel worthless. Assuming you’ve got the green light, there’s a lot to love here.

For starters, our expanded spell list fittingly includes Fear, a banger of a spell that will work wonderfully with our strategy. It also includes Spiritual Weapon, but I’ll talk about that one later. Our channel divinities are both great, but I’d typically see myself using the fear effect more often. The aura is an interesting twist on the typical oath aura, punishing enemies inside it instead of benefiting allies. 15th level is a neat retribution ability that will add up to quite a lot of damage, especially if you prioritize your charisma with a Hexblade dip. The capstone is a bit underwhelming as it requires an action to activate and only lasts a minute, but the majority of us will never play with that anyway. Feat selection is pretty interesting, as there is actually one standout feat that really interests me alongside our usual Paladin options.

Polearm Master/Great Weapon Master (ASAP): This Paladin both wants to be in melee to effect enemies with our aura, but also doesn’t want to be within 5ft so the fear effect keeps enemies from attacking us. Attacking with a reach weapon accomplishes both of these, and gives us a formula for very good damage. You may be asking why we bother with Polearm Master when we have Spiritual Weapon. Let’s compare the two. Spiritual Weapon isn’t available until level 5, where Polearm Master could be obtained at level 1 with the right race. Spiritual Weapon costs a 2nd level slot to cast, and only lasts for one encounter. Comparing the damage, Polearm Master with Great Weapon Master is dealing 5.42 damage on average assuming a 16 Strength and no advantage. Spiritual Weapon is doing 4.88 assuming a 16 Charisma. As you can see, The feats are clearly out-damaging Spiritual Weapon, and that’s not even mentioning Spiritual Weapon’s horrible 20ft move speed, preventing it from switching targets effectively in many combats and wasting turns. In summary, Spiritual Weapon is a bad spell and you should ignore that you have it (and not just for the Paladin, Clerics take note, just grab Telekinesis and pull your enemy into the area of your Spirit Guardians, it does much more damage).
Dragon Fear (Lv 8, Fizban’s Dragonborn only): If you are interested in this subclass, I may recommend also taking a look at the new Dragonborn printed in Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons. These new Dragonborn are great and powerful races for one, but they also give access to this feat and let us use the fear effect as part of our attack action, rather than requiring our entire action like the old Dragonborn in the PHB did. This fear effect is also really sticky. If they fail the save, they are frightened of you for a minute and can only repeat the save when they take damage, otherwise it lasts a full minute. This feat also lets us bump one of the three abilities we care about most, being Strength, Constitution, and Charisma.
Sentinel (Lv 8): Sentinel is a decent backup plan to get an enemy stuck in place when they either resist our chosen fear effect or are immune to fear. I don’t see it as quite as necessary on this Paladin as it is on some others, but it will still provide a great amount of usefulness nonetheless.
Alert (Lv 12): Being able to set up our fear effect before they get a chance to move is incredibly powerful. Going early in initiative is just such a boon when you have these great control abilities like our channel divinity or the Fear spell that I do believe it is worth investing this feat in. The other benefits are also nice.
Inspiring Leader (Lv 12): All parties should have a means of granting mass temporary HP, and if yours is lacking that at this point, you’re a great candidate to fill that role. Doing so provides a massive amount of durability to our party and is well worth the investment of a feat.

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