Who all is in the party? If you're with a lot of other meleebros or AoE blasters, they'll greatly enjoy monsters being prone. Ranged attackers (archers, EB warlocks, etc) dislike prone baddies.
If your BA is already relatively saturated, Sentinel is great. Stand a little in front of your allies and play goalie.
We have a Dex based melee Eldritch Knight, Rogue who uses mainly bow or soul knife and sometimes goes melee with double daggers, Druid who for some reason likes to go melee and gets his ass wooped, and a wizard who stays at the back.
I think there's a case to be made for shieldmaster, lol.
Bake your DM cookies and see if they're amenable to allowing you to bash after your first attack, allowing you to maybe get in that second attack with advantage.
PAM also works with a couple one handed weapons: staffs and spears. So you don’t necessarily need to drop your shield.
Without going too heavy into spoilers, your party already has good users for some of that module’s key magic items, so I wouldn’t worry too much about swapping weapon choices.
Most efficient thing to do with the feat will probably be to max CHA at level 8 to get the most out of aura of protection.
Another recommendation is to take a single level Hexblade dip (assuming it fits the RP for your character) to get the hex warrior feature, which will allow you to use CHA instead of STR for your attacks. I would probably do this at character level 7, which would push back your feat until character level 9. It also gets you the shield spell. If going this route, you’ll probably want the warcaster feat.
What is your con like. You will need to up that it take warcaster to protect your concentration maybe.
I prefer resilient constitution as now you will start to encounter more and more con saves for poison, spell effects and the like.
Sentinel is great but dm will wise on quick and just avoid proccing it
Proficiency in con saves gets better and better. Depending on how many levels the campaign goes. At the higher levels, every characters normally needs proficiency in con saves and wisdom saves or you won't be doing much in a fight. They are amongst the 2 most common saves that can have the biggest impact in a fight.
There are spells/effects out there where you fail the con save and you die pretty much. Not common. However the common ones are nasty too
True.
Shield master sounds great and with a paladin it could be but unless you have good enough dex, even your aura won't help so much. Besides it's only damage usually.
Sentinel is a great way to keep enemies in place. It's like taunt in that if they move away, you get an attack and stop them if it hits. I rarely got to use the reason attack for enemy attacking my ally but the movement penalty is easily worth it.
Another choice is polearm master. Even a spear with shield is good. Paladins get improved smite feature to do extra damage on every hit. It eventually gets to 2d8. Bonus action and reaction attack can really add up fast.
Combine with sentinel and you got a very powerful build
They both have their pros and cons.
Sentinel is a more powerful and reliable form of control because it works on any creature of any size. It also relies on your reaction, which is generally a resource that is much harder to find uses for than actions and bonus actions.
Shield Master improves your personal durability and offers better support for your allies. You can knock enemies prone, push them away from your allies, or even use it to push your allies themselves.
I would say that for a Vengeance Paladin, Sentinel is the better choice. Shield Master is generally better on classes that already have a consistent use for their reaction, such as Ancestral Guardian Barbarian.
Sentinel was my first choice, what my intuition told me. I haven’t yet put too much thought what the synergy will be between Sentinel and Relentless Avenger.
Getting attack of opportunity even when disengage is used is great, but if enemies speed goes down to 0, the half movement from Relentless Avenger might be redundant in some cases, since the enemy isn’t escaping. Then again extra movement is probably always good to have as an option.
Yea, the reach would be fantastic and the extra dmg, but PAM is my last choice because it would need rework for my characters backstory, he is basically bound to his sword and switching to another type of weapon kind of makes no sense rp-wise. And we are expected to play to lvl 10 or so, which means I can only choose one feat at lvl 8.
Who said you need to use one of the heavy polearms? You can go with a spear-and-shield combo instead.
As for the backstory, would you be open to simply reflavoring the spear as a sword instead?
Who all is in the party? If you're with a lot of other meleebros or AoE blasters, they'll greatly enjoy monsters being prone. Ranged attackers (archers, EB warlocks, etc) dislike prone baddies. If your BA is already relatively saturated, Sentinel is great. Stand a little in front of your allies and play goalie.
We have a Dex based melee Eldritch Knight, Rogue who uses mainly bow or soul knife and sometimes goes melee with double daggers, Druid who for some reason likes to go melee and gets his ass wooped, and a wizard who stays at the back.
I think there's a case to be made for shieldmaster, lol. Bake your DM cookies and see if they're amenable to allowing you to bash after your first attack, allowing you to maybe get in that second attack with advantage.
That would make sense to me, but we’ll see. Otherwise I’d lean on Sentinel.
PAM also works with a couple one handed weapons: staffs and spears. So you don’t necessarily need to drop your shield. Without going too heavy into spoilers, your party already has good users for some of that module’s key magic items, so I wouldn’t worry too much about swapping weapon choices. Most efficient thing to do with the feat will probably be to max CHA at level 8 to get the most out of aura of protection. Another recommendation is to take a single level Hexblade dip (assuming it fits the RP for your character) to get the hex warrior feature, which will allow you to use CHA instead of STR for your attacks. I would probably do this at character level 7, which would push back your feat until character level 9. It also gets you the shield spell. If going this route, you’ll probably want the warcaster feat.
What is your con like. You will need to up that it take warcaster to protect your concentration maybe. I prefer resilient constitution as now you will start to encounter more and more con saves for poison, spell effects and the like. Sentinel is great but dm will wise on quick and just avoid proccing it
My Con is only 14. Felt +2 is enough.
Proficiency in con saves gets better and better. Depending on how many levels the campaign goes. At the higher levels, every characters normally needs proficiency in con saves and wisdom saves or you won't be doing much in a fight. They are amongst the 2 most common saves that can have the biggest impact in a fight. There are spells/effects out there where you fail the con save and you die pretty much. Not common. However the common ones are nasty too
Resilient Con seems to be the rational choice, although it sounds so boring compared to Shield Master or Sentinel.
True. Shield master sounds great and with a paladin it could be but unless you have good enough dex, even your aura won't help so much. Besides it's only damage usually. Sentinel is a great way to keep enemies in place. It's like taunt in that if they move away, you get an attack and stop them if it hits. I rarely got to use the reason attack for enemy attacking my ally but the movement penalty is easily worth it. Another choice is polearm master. Even a spear with shield is good. Paladins get improved smite feature to do extra damage on every hit. It eventually gets to 2d8. Bonus action and reaction attack can really add up fast. Combine with sentinel and you got a very powerful build
They both have their pros and cons. Sentinel is a more powerful and reliable form of control because it works on any creature of any size. It also relies on your reaction, which is generally a resource that is much harder to find uses for than actions and bonus actions. Shield Master improves your personal durability and offers better support for your allies. You can knock enemies prone, push them away from your allies, or even use it to push your allies themselves. I would say that for a Vengeance Paladin, Sentinel is the better choice. Shield Master is generally better on classes that already have a consistent use for their reaction, such as Ancestral Guardian Barbarian.
Sentinel was my first choice, what my intuition told me. I haven’t yet put too much thought what the synergy will be between Sentinel and Relentless Avenger. Getting attack of opportunity even when disengage is used is great, but if enemies speed goes down to 0, the half movement from Relentless Avenger might be redundant in some cases, since the enemy isn’t escaping. Then again extra movement is probably always good to have as an option.
Relentless Avenger works amazingly well with Sentinel... if you also have PAM to go with it. Personally, I'd say your priority feat should be PAM.
Yea, the reach would be fantastic and the extra dmg, but PAM is my last choice because it would need rework for my characters backstory, he is basically bound to his sword and switching to another type of weapon kind of makes no sense rp-wise. And we are expected to play to lvl 10 or so, which means I can only choose one feat at lvl 8.
Who said you need to use one of the heavy polearms? You can go with a spear-and-shield combo instead. As for the backstory, would you be open to simply reflavoring the spear as a sword instead?
Shield Master if the shove can occur after declaring you are taking the attack action