Oath of Devotion 5E Guide | Tips, Builds, Rules and More

Ah, the Player’s Handbook. Home of the base rules, and where many players start their journeys into Dungeons & Dragons. For the Paladin, the Oath of Devotion is the most obvious option – and the most “Paladin” option – of the three that you start with. The Oath of Devotion are the loftiest Paladins, looking to Angels as their idols. They hold the entire world to the same perfect standard that they strive towards. These Paladins have to be good; no other options. So let’s see what the goody-two-shoes option gives your 5E Paladin.

Word of Perfect: The Oath of Devotion

The tenets of Devotion are your standard Paladin’s oath. You must be honest, courageous, show your compassion (wisely), bring honor to yourself, and perform your duties. This paladin is a paragon of the ideology of the Good Gods. You have faith in your overwatchers, and total trust in what you believe is right.

Mechanically, the Oath of Devotion suffers from trying to do too many things at once. This is great if you’re just trying out Paladin and want to see all that the class has to offer, but less fantastic if you’re specifically building to defend allies or deal damage. If your goal is to have a few basic solutions to any problem the battlefield throws at you – with a particular hatred of fiends and undead – then try this out.

Oath Spells

The oath spells of Devotion follow the theme of your basic, all-rounder option for your Paladin. All of your spells are just okay, but the variety of options you have makes it a valid spell list.

Protection from Evil and Good is a situationally great spell. It’s specifically to defend yourself against a specific few types of creatures, but it does this rather well. It’s good for anti-martial and anti-mage, and you actually have a really wide range of types to work with. Sanctuary is a decent defensive spell, but suffers from ending the moment the target attacks. Not a bad idea to throw onto a non-combat NPC to keep them safe, but there’s few situations where you’d want this on yourself.

Lesser Restoration is wonderful to have when your allies get debuffed and a complete waste of a spell known otherwise… Also, you have Lay on Hands. Zone of Truth is a fine out-of-combat spell to get information with, but does next to nothing in combat. You’ll probably be leaning on your normal Paladin spells known at this spell level.

Beacon of Hope is a fine anti-caster spell, and boosts up the quality of healing spells. Wonderful! You don’t have too much concentration-based effects on this list, and this is far from bad. Plan this out well, and your Clerics will thank you. Dispel Magic should be used in last-case scenarios, since your spell slots are rather limited; your spellcasters will usually do this a little bit easier.

Freedom of Movement is either useless… Or makes an enemy useless. Not bad to have on your list. Guardian of Faith is either 60 damage or walls out a large area of a fight. Good area control, not a bad use of a spell slot.

Commune is a great information spell. Use it if you’re looking for information, but spend some time out-of-character talking about what questions to ask. Flame Strike is a passable area-of-effect spell; weaker than Fireball, but with better damage types. Considering Paladins are awful against crowds of enemies, you’ll be really happy with this.

All in all… Not amazing. You get a lot of options; Defensive, Healing, Out-of-Combat, Counterspelling, Damage, and Information. The problem is that the quality varies, and not every spell is a good solution for every situation.

Channel Divinity

Your channel options are both rather great. One is solid at any point, the other is an anti-Type ability.

Sacred Weapon. As an action, you can imbue one weapon that you are holding with positive energy, using your Channel Divinity. For 1 minute, you add your Charisma modifier to attack rolls made with that weapon (with a minimum bonus of +1). The weapon also emits bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light 20 feet beyond that. If the weapon is not already magical, it becomes magical for the duration.

You have to hold the weapon for the entire time. If you get K.O.’d, disarmed, or something like that, you lose it.

So, in the early game, this’ll probably be either +2 or +3. That’s a 10-15% boost to your accuracy for 10 rounds, which is far from nothing! Later on, a +5 gives you a +25% chance to hit a target… And you’ll make your fellow martials jealous with your +19 to attacks!

Obviously, if you have disadvantage or advantage, these percentages change a bit. Still, giving yourself a massive boost to your hit chance is essential for dangerous combats.

Because it lasts 10 rounds, you’ll probably want to try and use this ability right before a combat that you’re worried about – You don’t want to spend an action buffing if you can avoid it! Of course, if an enemy with surprising AC comes in, it might be worth the action to ensure your hits land.

Your other option is a Turn effect. “Turn the Unholy” targets fiends and undead within 30 ft of you. They make a Wisdom save, or become Turned. This lasts for 1 minute, or until they take damage;

A turned creature must spend its turns trying to move as far away from you as it can, and it can’t willingly move to a space within 30 feet of you. It also can’t take reactions. For its action, it can use only the Dash action or try to escape from an effect that prevents it from moving. If there’s nowhere to move, the creature can use the Dodge action.

The great part of this ability is that Turned is one of the most devastating debuffs in the game. It locks out actions, forces movement into a specific direction, and lasts for 1 minute without bonus saves. Dealing damage does stop it, but you can wait until your whole party is ready to lay the smackdown before starting.

The downside is that it only targets fiends and undead. These are two of the most common enemy types in the game, and they’ll be relevant CRs all the time, so that’s great! The problem is… sometimes a Fiend is surrounded by human cultists, or a Necromancer is in control of the Undead. You won’t scare the humanoids with this effect. You have to make a good judgement call on whether or not you want to push away the enemies, or save your Channel – either for a different chance to Turn, or a bonus to attack rolls.

Turn is at it’s best when you’re getting all, or most, of an encounter with the fear effect. In dungeons or areas with a significant population of Fiends or Undead, save your Channels for Turn the Unholy. Otherwise, a boost to your weapon attack rolls will probably serve your party better.

Aura of Devotion

At level 7, the Paladin tends to get an aura, or something that benefits their allies. The Devotion Paladin isn’t different… But…

Starting at 7th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you can’t be charmed while you are conscious.

At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

Uh.

Okay, so this isn’t bad. The Charmed status effect does two things;

• A charmed creature can’t attack the charmer or target the charmer with harmful abilities or magical effects.
• The charmer has advantage on any ability check to interact socially with the creature.

We care mostly about the first effect. A boss who charms your Wizard is immune to all of the Wizard’s spells. By simply stepping next to them, you unlock your Wizard’s ability to destroy them with magic. That’s significant! It saves a Cleric spell slot, it gives you a constant option against an alright status debuff, and you let your allies target the most important enemy in an encounter.

In social situations, you can use this ability to quickly snuff out any charm effects happening around you. If the host of the gala was charmed by the nearby vampire, your Aura of Devotion just quickly solved the mystery. Charm is one of the sneakiest mental effects, so your ability to find it consistently and without using resources will be important in some campaigns.

And hey, you might prevent a Deception or Intimidation check against PCs… So that’s nice?

Obviously, you aren’t super happy with this ability. Charmed isn’t a bad status effect to get immunity to, but it’s not great. And the number of effects that apply Charmed are somewhat limited.

This is fine, but you have other reasons to take this archetype.

Purity of Spirit

Unfortunately, the following ability isn’t the reason either.

Beginning at 15th level, you are always under the effects of a Protection from Evil and Good spell.

Your level 1 spells are crying.

Permanency of any spell is really good, don’t get me wrong. But this is a level 1 spell. The Oathbreaker gets permanent Stoneskin, and this Paladin only gets… Protection from Evil and Good?

Okay, let’s talk about your new benefits. Aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead have disadvantage to attack you and can’t hit you with mental effects. That’s a lot of types! And they’re all really good enemies. Do you know what isn’t affected, however?

Beasts, Constructs, Dragons, Elementals, Giants, Humanoids, Monstrosities, Oozes, and Plants. None of those care about your level 15 ability. Yowch.

What does that mean for this subclass? It means that, if you want to maximize your potential, you should be consistently fighting fiends and undead. You have a Turn effect for them, and now they have disadvantage to hit you. And you can’t even be affected by three of the most devastating effects they can throw at you. That’s significant!

In late-game campaigns concerned with fiends, undead, or even fighting good creatures, this is a nice permanent spell to have on you. In most other circumstances, this’ll make you either much harder to deal with, or do absolutely nothing.

As a side note, it is kinda weird that they also gain resistances against good creatures. Sure, the spell wouldn’t be as good… But why are you so good at fighting angels now?

Holy Nimbus

The Paladin’s level 20 ability gives them a temporary benefit that refreshes on long rests. The Devotion Paladin gives them three perks, activated as an action and lasting one minute.

• For 1 minute, bright light shines from you in a 30-foot radius, and dim light shines 30 feet beyond that.
• Whenever an enemy creature starts its turn in the bright light, the creature takes 10 radiant damage.
• In addition, for the duration, you have advantage on saving throws against spells cast by fiends or undead.

Sweet… You’re a fancy flashlight.

The first benefit is slightly brighter than your average torch. This is mostly cosmetic, but by being so bright, most unholy creatures will probably want you dead. That center-of-attention attitude is exactly what you want as a Paladin. Otherwise… You’ll be better off with a torch sconce on your shield or something.

You’re also a 30 ft area of effect. 10 radiant damage per round isn’t much, but they are guaranteed to take it, and all enemies within 30 ft are taking it. This helps out your Area of Effect problems, and keeps them from ever getting a save to halve it. Perfect!

The additional effect is pretty overkill for anti-fiend and undead. You’re already immune to mental effects, and you already have a (probably) +5 to your saves. Rolling twice is obviously extremely nice, especially since you’re not likely to have proficiency in Dexterity saves. And while you’re immune to mental effects, you’re not immune to the Lich casting Disintegrate, or Fireball. This is just a nice cherry on top, making you an incredible anti-Undead option.

It’s a shame that this only lasts for a minute. Save it for the last encounter in the dungeon. You know the one. Where the Dracolich is summoning an army of evil skeleton servants to destroy you. And then you walk towards it, valiantly brandishing your weapon, damaging them all as you approach, immune to it’s spells. The fear in their vacant eye sockets as you stand tall, the incandescent beacon of hope in the darkness.

That’s a pretty good time for this.

Best Race for Devotion Oath Paladins

The Devotion Paladin has relatively little to do with Charisma. Your Channel effects really benefit from it, as do your spells. But that’s it. If you plan on being a melee combatant, consider prioritizing either Strength or Dexterity, and then Constitution. If you don’t mind being a bit squishier for Sacred Weapon – or you’re playing the rare Ranged Paladin – then Charisma can be a bit higher than Constitution.

Human

The Variant human is the most basic option you could take. It also happens to be fantastic. For example, for the Great Weapon build, take +1 Strength, +1 Constitution, and take Great Weapon Master. Used with Sacred Weapon, you can negate your penalty on attack rolls to boost up your damage. And, if you down an opponent, you get bonus swings with your not-oft-used bonus action. You’d have to be a bit more creative with a Dexterity build, but… That bonus action could be used with Crossbow Mastery, if you’re enough of a madman to do so.

Shifter (Beasthide/Longtooth)

Eberron: Rising from the Last War is a pretty great book with some spectacular racial options. The Shifter are a race of weretouched beings with the ability to shapeshift into a more lycanthropic form. The Beasthide shifter has perfect stats for a Paladin; +2 Constitution, +1 to Strength, and fantastic tanking with their Shifting Feature. The Longtooth Paladin is better for an aggressive buildpath, and you get a pseudo-Monk Bite attack as a bonus option, making good use of your bonus action. Really fantastic usage of your bonus action! Though the flavor of a shifter working to be a paragon of the gods may be a bit off.

Devotion Oath Gods

Devotion, as the typical “paladin” Oath, involves gods who care about fealty, strength, and family. They are the gods that most would call Lawful Good, making them extremely important in cities, 

Berronar Truesilver (Faerûn)

A crowded tavern room in an underground dwarven bar explodes into a jaunty tune. Arm-in-arm, hand-in-hand, dwarves begin singing of the Revered Mother, her holy eminence, as they buy the entire room a round of the finest booze they can. Halflings, orcs, and humans alike join in on the song, improvising the beats, as none can know the Matron of Hearth and Home like a dwarf.

Berronar Truesilver is the Lawful Good matriarch of the dwarven pantheon. Like many matriarchs of pantheons, Truesilver serves as the goddess of homeliness and safety. However, she also embodies many of the aspects of dwarves that people love, including their mercy, generosity, and loyalty. She’s a kind goddess who treats dwarves and their allies as a member of her family… Though, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t strict when necessary!

Worshipers of Berronar Truesilver tend to be dwarves, as they are taught from a young age about the importance of her teachings. Clerics of her act as caretakers, healers, and even generals. They should be welcoming to dwarves and those who consider dwarves to be friends. Finally, her worshipers should be quick to attempt to de-escalate situations, be it with words or warhammers.

As a paladin of devotion in Berronar Truesilver’s clergy, you have the never-easy job of teaching everyone to be respectful to one another. You are the backbone of the church, the first person that a community runs to when something bad happens. While safety and protection is paramount, you also should be quick to recognize when a situation needs words, or a sword.

Pholtus (Greyhawk)

A tall man with flowing white hair steps slowly from a beautiful tower, embezzled with images of the stars. His worshipers bow before his incandescence as he slowly moves towards a cur, huddled in a ball. He speaks clearly, but with authority, and the cur nods along. The Blinding Light’s word is law, and so the cur shuffles away to remake their life. The clergy nod solemnly before returning to their work, the God walking back to his tower.

Pholtus is the Lawful Good god of light, law, the sun, and the moon in the Greyhawk setting. He is hardset on what laws and resolutions should apply, and is inflexible to a fault. However, he is known to be fair, truthful, and dignified in his personality. He knows when a law is not good for the people.

And his people listen. Worshipers of Pholtus believe that he set the sun and the moon in the sky. They follow his One True Way, a path to righteousness that allows for no deviation, much like the sun and moon rise and fall in the sky. They are arbiters, judges, and lawyers, and enforce the light. They preach about the One True Way and work to help people onto it

A Paladin of Devotion in Pholtus’s clergy is the paragon of someone following the One True Way. They shall never falter on their journey, and do whatever is possible to bring light to the world. They must not lie and should protect the weak, as their tenets ask them. But, they are duty-bound to Pholtus and his path. They act to defeat chaos, darkness, and evil wherever possible.

Maglubiyet (Faerûn)

The march of goblins coming out of their hole is a sound no civilization wants to hear. Their hobgoblin and bugbear leaders bark orders to their subordinates, moving them quickly towards battle. In the back of each of their heads, an image of The Mighty One sits, barking at them to move on. A mortal that rules with fear could never lead forever… And yet, Maglubiyet, The Great Scourge, will.

Maglubiyet is the Lawful Evil god of the goblins, and serves as their high chieftain. He rules with an iron fist, and every member of each Goblinoid race knows of his existence. He is worshiped by many goblinoid gods, as even they fear his wrath. As such, he is extremely unpopular outside of his rule. 

His worshipers tend to be goblins. They worship him, hand and foot, to appease his glory. They sometimes commit sacrifices in his name to further strengthen him.

While a Devotion Paladin of Maglubiyet might seem far-fetched, it doesn’t take much work to apply it correctly. You can be honest while worshiping an evil god, and you can have courage while leading men. You can protect the weak, especially if the weak are subservient to you. While mercy is usually out-of-the-question, you could find reasons to keep beings alive, such as for questioning. You can be honorable, and certainly dutiful, while under Maglubiyet’s banner.

Maglubiyet is an example of how you can sometimes twist a Paladin’s oath to fit an evil god. But… Do so carefully, with permission from your DM and your party. 

Best Feats for Devotion Oath Paladins

Devotion Clerics are fantastic at using their Charisma to deal additional damage. We can use feats to improve that… Or, we can improve our in-combat utility! Decisions, decisions…

Great Weapon Master

If you have a Greatsword, this feat might be for you. Great Weapon Master allows for occasional extra attacks as a bonus action. That’s great, since your Smite will often down enemies, making your bonus action wide open. That’s not bad! But, the other benefit is great. You can take a -5 penalty to add +10 to your damage.

This is fantastic for when you Channel Divinity! The -5 is partially or fully negated by your Channel, letting you basically Channel Divinity for 10 damage! That’s nothing to sneeze at. Really great way to deal a ton of damage in one feat!

Fey Touched

One of my favorites, Fey Touched is a good feat for touching up an odd amount of Charisma. +1 Charisma is a great start, and then you get some great benefits!

First up, Misty Step. Getting from one place to another is very important for a Paladin, since Smite requires a melee attack. So, as a bonus action, you get 30 feet closer to your target. What’s not to like? You get it for free, and then it’s always prepared. Really great spell to have on hand!

Then, you get a 1st level spell. You’d think that the Divination or Enchantment school would be weak… But it really isn’t! Hex or Hunter’s Mark is here, as is Silvery Barbs! We recommend the latter, since it stats good at all points in a campaign. But… 3.5 average damage per swing is hard to pass up! If you can spare the concentration, consider it!

Lucky

Lucky is one of the most basic feats in the world. Three times per day, you can reroll an attack roll, ability check, saving throw, or an attack roll against you. Bam, easy.

While this feat might seem underwhelming, being able to reroll crucial attack rolls is actually insane. Imagine, the Lich is on 20 health and your turn is right before them. All you need to do is land the Smite and you and your party win… And you whiff the attack roll. Lucky can change that! 

If you don’t need ability score adjustment and no other feat catches your eye, getting three rerolls a day seems pretty good!

Polearm Master

Polearm Master comes with two benefits, both handy for a Paladin.

The first is the ability to swing as a bonus action. Sure, it’s a d4. But, that damage can deliver Improved Divine Smite and normal Smites. This can lead to the gigantic, damaging turns that the Paladin is known for being even better. That’s a bit juicy, and great for a 2-handed build. Especially while under your Channel Divinity!

In addition, creatures provoke when walking into your range. Paladins don’t have excellent reactions by default, so having access to opportunity attack more often comes in handy.

Tough

Finally, another basic feat. Tough improves your health by 2 per level.

Awesome! It’s like you just grabbed +4 Constitution. That’s usually one extra hit at minimum, meaning you’re more likely to come alive. 

The choice between +2 Constitution – which improves your saving throw by 1 – or Tough comes up often. But, Paladins naturally have very high Constitution saving throws, thanks to Aura of Protection. This is an excellent way to capitalize on your already impressive defense!

Multiclassing for Devotion Paladins

Devotion Paladins actually have a relatively mediocre level 20 ability. And level 19 can be skipped relatively freely. So, if you’d like, you have two levels to mess around with, without sacrificing much else from your build.

Fighter

Fighter is fantastic for Paladin. You get the free Fighting Style, which can complement your defense or offense. You get Second Wind for a quick emergency heal. But, perhaps most importantly, you get the Action Surge. Action Surge turns already explosive turns into deathtraps for the enemy. Blowing them up with up to 20d8 in Smites is… Really, really good! It’ll drain your resources, but for some bosses, that’s worth it!

This is a great default option for you to select.

Warlock

Warlock is also good for Devotion Paladins. Specifically the Hexblade, which nets you Charisma to attack and damage rolls with your sword, and the Hex spell. It also gives you a great ranged attack with Eldritch Blast, which can deal additional damage based on your Charisma if you take two levels. Really excellent stuff, for a Paladin who doesn’t want to worry about Strength that much.

And hey, now Devotion can be devotion to your Patron! That’s fun.

Suggested Devotion Paladin Backgrounds

We can only really think about the mechanical benefits for most backgrounds here. If these don’t fit into your character that well, don’t worry! Backgrounds are not the be-all-end-all of a build. But, try to select a background that gives you good skills, a good feature, and some okay equipment.

Far Traveler

Far Traveler, from the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, is exceptionally strong for your proficiencies. Insight and Perception are two exceptional skills, Perception being the most-used skill in the game. A bonus language is great, if your DM works with you to let you benefit from it. The gaming set can make you money, which can be nice, and your equipment is actually a ton of value! Not a bad start.

And the All Eyes on You feature can be either good or bad, but usually gets the eyes of important people when you want it. And you can at least be quiet if you don’t want to be targeted by racists or whatnot. This is an all-around good one for a Paladin.

Soldier

An excellent default option, Soldier grants Intimidation and Athletics. Both of these are on the Paladin’s list, but knocking two of them out gives you room for other skills, like Persuasion or Medicine. You get gaming set proficiency and land vehicle proficiency which… Exist. But, you also get some damn good items! A free weapon can be finagled out of the deal, as can an insignia and some gaming equipment.

Pulling rank is not often used. But, with the right campaign and the right starting city, you can benefit a lot from being a retired member of the army. Leverage this right, and talk to your DM, to get some juicy benefits!

Stojanow Prisoner

This one comes out of nowhere, eh? The Stojanow Prisoner is a background from the Adventurer’s League primer for Curse of Strahd. If your DM allows you to use this, then you’ve got a really good build for you! Deception and Perception are both powerful and not on the Paladin’s default list. You also get Thieves’ Tools proficiency, which lets you be a scoundrel when needed. Finally, you have terrible starting equipment. But everything else is so great, that hardly matters!

Your feature is fine, representing a life of crime that you left behind. Since you are a Devotion paladin, this could be slightly modified to represent you knowing which guards appreciated your community service… Or, you could be repenting for your previous life! A lot of fun options rolled up into this.

How to Play Devotion Paladins

Out of Combat

• Remember your Oath Spells. You have a few options in here that are very helpful in out-of-combat scenarios. Zone of Truth and Dispel Magic are great in different scenarios. Try to leverage your Oath spell list to your advantage while out of a fight.
• Use Skills. Sadly, the Oath of Devotion is actually quite combat-oriented. You are going to probably be using Persuasion and other Charisma-based skills a lot when you’re not fighting. Make sure to be proficient in one of them, so you can help your team in social situations! In addition, try to get Athletics or Acrobatics, depending on if you have Strength or Dexterity. You want to be able to move from place to place when you have to.

In Combat

• You are Durable. Paladins are famously durable. Even without a shield, your high HP, great saving throws (at level 6), and ability to heal mean you are a capable frontline warrior. Get in front of your party and deal some damage!
• Be Aggressive with Smites. Smite is the Paladin’s strongest tool, allowing you to deal guaranteed damage by spending spell slots. Use this ability! This is a ton of damage. 
• Sacred Weapon is a huge buff to accuracy. With a +3 to Charisma, you are 15% more likely to deal damage while Sacred Weapon is up. With a +5, that’s 25%! This ability’s strength cannot be understated. Try to use this right before a big fight happens, so your first action of the fight isn’t wasted on this ability. 1 minute is 10 rounds! That’s enough time, usually.
  • Turn the Unholy is really good… Sometimes. In fights against fiends or undead enemies, remember that this ability exists! This lets you isolate dangerous enemies and fight them one at a time. Chewing through one enemy is slow, tedious, and very safe!
• Remember your Auras. As a Paladin, keeping allies within your auras is a massive chore. But, you make them immune to Frightened, Charm, and give them a huge buff to their saving throws. So, try and shift about to keep people in your auras.

Devotion Paladin FAQ

What Gods Best Fit the Oath of Devotion?

Typically, Lawful Good gods with the Order domain make sense for the Oath of Devotion. These gods often have their expected goals and duties that a Paladin can fulfill for them. 

Is the Oath of Devotion Good?

The Oath of Devotion is fine. It isn’t the strongest Paladin around, but Sacred Weapon is a huge accuracy buff, and it gets strong defensive options and an okay spell list. Especially for a brand new player picking up Paladin, this is a reasonable archetype.

Do Oath of Devotion Paladins Need a God?

No! Oath of Devotion Paladins simply need to follow their tenets of honesty, courage, compassion, honor, and duty. As long as they have an idea or code to follow, they can be devoted to the party, a specific code or group, or even themselves!

Devotion Paladin Example Build

Charisma is more important than ever on a Devotion Paladin. Making sure that you get to the 16 or 17 Charisma mark is critical. While the new rules will make that a synch, we’ll assume our DM is old-fashioned. We’ll be using the stats given to races on release.

We’ll go for a Fallen Aasimar from the Volo’s Guide to Monsters. It’s got darkvision, okay resistances, and Necrotic Shroud. A solid setup! They’ll be a Far Wanderer, giving us those sweet proficiencies that let us do some work out of combat, as well as give us some intrigue for our backstory! The bonus language will be based on what campaign we’re in… But, we’ll rock Elven.

Our goal will be a somewhat standard Sword and Shield setup, letting us tank enemies for our allies slightly easier. We want our armor to improve over time!

Our DM has asked us to use the Standard array for stats as well: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. We want some strength to hit attacks early on, but we also want a ton of Charisma… Decisions, decisions! I can’t live without 16 to my primary attack stat early on, so we’ll probably run with a slightly slow stat spread.

Our DM also wants us to use the basic equipment rules, just to prevent headache. That should work for us! We can just start with the basic armor, sword, and shield.

When it comes to skills, we want Athletics for movement options and Persuasion so we can talk out of combat. We only really need one Charisma-based talking skill, and Persuasion tends to work well enough. We’re nice guys here!

Minor Disclaimer

This guide will assume that the Player does not want to Multiclass. If the player does want to multiclass, we recommend taking a level in Warlock – Hexblade by level 2. Replacing attack rolls with Charisma is huge for you, much more important than Paladin level 20. You can take 2 levels if you like Invocations without much of a problem.

5E Devotion Paladin Build

Race: Fallen AasimarAbility Scores: STR 16 (15 + 1), DEX 10, CON 13, INT 8, WIS 12, CHA 16 (14 + 2)Proficiencies: Athletics, Insight, Perception, Persuasion, Gaming EquipmentStarting Equipment: Longsword, Shield, five Javelins, an explorer’s pack, Chain Mail, Holy Symbol, Traveler’s Clothes, Playing Card set, Homeland map, 10 gp of jewelry, 5 gpLanguages: Common, Celestial, Elven

Levels	New Features	Choices To Make
1	-Divine Sense -Lay on Hands	We’ve already made all of the choices in character building, in the paragraph above. Paladin’s level 1 is notoriously middling, so just struggle through the first level! You’ll get there!
2	-Divine Smite-Fighting Style -1st Level Spells	Now we’re getting to the juicy part! Fighting Style is always a tricky choice. For the purposes of our Sword and Shield build, we are really interested in Protection or Defense. We only like Protection if we have a squishy melee friend next to us. So, we’ll take Defense. That’s always useful, and lets us keep our reaction.Spellcasting is very difficult for a Paladin! You get your entire spell list that you get to swap around every night. Knowing what spells to select is critical! To start, spells like Compelled Duel, Searing Smite, and Shield of Faith are safe options. You want strange, utility options. You can always convert spell slots into Smites!
3	-Divine Health -Sacred Oath -Channel Divinity: Sacred Weapon -Channel Divinity: Turn the Unholy -Oath Spells	Your oath is here! Knowing when to cast Sacred Weapon can seem daunting at first. But, remember that it lasts 1 minute! If you can see strong enemies in the distance, use this ability and then run into the fight! Right now, this is a +3 to attack rolls, which is… Nuts.Turn the Unholy works well for exactly fiend and undead combats. And doesn’t matter at all otherwise. Almost always focus on Sacred Weapon.Your Oath spells should affect your spell choices. Protection from Evil and Good and Sanctuary are… Fine spells! But situational. Don’t be afraid to choose defensive options otherwise.
4	-Ability Score Improvement	Our first Ability Score Improvement! We are in a pickle. Feats are wonderful, but our specific setup means that we don’t have an odd ability score, other than for Constitution. And we really, really want to improve our Charisma… So, we’ll choose +2 Charisma. We want a +4 for Channel Divinity, a +4 for our spell DCs, eventually +4 to all saves… Yeah. It’s too good for us!
5	-Extra Attack -2nd Level Spells	Welcome to 2nd level spells! Our oath options, Lesser Restoration and Zone of Truth, do little in combat. So, choose exceptionally powerful combat options like Magic Weapon or Branding Smite.
6	-Aura of Protection	This is the reason we care so much about Charisma. Our terrible saving throws are now immensely powerful! Try to position this 10 ft aura to the best of your ability, but don’t lose damage for it. Really important for you to consistently harm your targets.Keep looking at excellent level 2 spells! You can get stuff like Prayer of Healing for out-of-combat recovery… Though, hopefully, you aren’t the party healer!
7	-Aura of Devotion	Immunity to Charm saves some spell slots, but usually won’t matter. What will matter is excellent choices in spells! Keep looking at the list. Sometimes, a spell like Find Steed can be critical for moving across the country effectively.
8	-Ability Score Improvement	We’re at another ability score improvement, and this can go two major ways. Sadly, I’m still not comfortable with our Ability Score setup. You can go +2 Strength to improve our general weapon accuracy, or +2 Charisma to improve a ton of traditional modifiers. However, in many campaigns, Belt of Giant Strength completely nullifies the need to improve your Strength. We’ll assume that our campaign has these magical items, and that we’re our party’s only Strength character.Let’s get +2 Charisma. With any Belt of Giant Strength, we can start exploring feat options at level 12.
9	-3rd Level Spells	Welcome to our 3rd level of spells! Our Oath gives us Beacon of Hope and Dispel Magic, two legitimately strong options. We can modify the utility of Dispel Magic with things like Elemental Weapon, Branding Smite, and Spirit Shroud.
10	-Aura of Courage	Aura of Courage, combined with Devotion, prevents two major debuffs. So, try to keep allies within 10 feet when possible. But, once again, landing high-damage Smites tends to be more important.Keep looking at your level 3 spell list. Stuff like Remove Curse and Magic Circle are super situational and super strong!
11	-Improved Divine Smite	You deal more damage on melee attacks. Bully! Keep looking at your spell list to find ways to stay in melee and maximize your damage. Things like Compelled Duel at 1st level can make that much easier.
12	-Ability Score Improvement	Now that we’re at level 12, we can finally start taking feats! We have an odd amount of Constitution, which is just too juicy to ignore. Let’s get Resilient (Constitution). Resilient isn’t normally super strong for Paladins, but here it basically guarantees that we succeed on Constitution Saving Throws. That’s… A pretty good saving throw to succeed on! We could also go Chef and heal people with tasty treats. Depends if we want to go support or not!
13	-4th Level Spells	4th level spells are here, and we don’t have incredibly fantastic options. Our oath spells are the situational Freedom of Movement and the decent Guardian of Faith. We can supplement these with defensive and CC options, like Banishment.
14	-Cleansing Touch	Cleansing Touch kinda eliminates a few spells from being necessary, like Remove Curse. Replace those spells designed to prevent spell effects with things like Revivify for emergencies or Death Ward for extra protection.
15	-Purity of Spirit	Purity of Spirit makes your always-prepared Protection from Evil and Good a bit weaker. But hey, feel free to pass that around! You can supplement your new defensiveness with abilities like Warding Bond (for combat defense) or Find Greater Steed (for easier travel).
16	-Ability Score Improvement	Now that we have an even amount of Constitution, I’m much more comfortable getting feats that don’t improve our stats. Let’s get Tough. We want our buddy to survive combats more often, and be available to help the Cleric. Since we can cast spells like Revivify, we can really help out in fights consistently.
17	-5th Level Spells	Our last spell level is legitimately good, but not as impressive as our lower level options. Stuff like Banishing Smite helps control the battlefield in the way that we like. Our Oath options are frankly middling, with a fully out-of-combat option and an expensive Fireball. Still, an expensive Fireball hits a lot more people than our sword can!
18	-Aura Improvements	Our auras are now 30 feet, which is stellar! We can now position ourselves with a 30 ft burst instead of 10 feet. Much better.We can also keep cycling through spells! At level 18, we shouldn’t be worrying about the damage of lower level spell slots, instead taking strong damaging options from level 5 like Holy Weapon or even Destructive Wave!
19	-Ability Score Improvement	Once again, I’d prefer to get a high-impact feat. Alert can let us act very early in combat. If we didn’t choose our Sword/Shield setup, Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master could be used to close out combats very quickly. As is, we can grab Lucky. Lucky can stop us from wasting turns, which is crucial in endgame combat.We’ll choose Lucky, just to keep up the pressure in fights.
20	-Holy Nimbus	Level 20 is here and… Here’s Holy Nimbus. Ugh. Keep cycling spells. Endgame options like Summon Celestial can come in handy… But so can 5d8 guaranteed damage! Even now, just spending spell slots on Smite can be handier than spells.

Conclusion – Our Take on the Devotion Oath Paladin

The Devotion Oath Paladin is a perfectly reasonable subclass that excels against standard fiend/undead enemies. If your campaign is going to have those enemy types, then the Devotion Oath will perform exceedingly well against them. In other campaigns, the Devotion’s good spell list, reasonable channel options, and fine aura all make for a “strong enough” subclass. If you are told you’ll be fighting fiends and undead, and might be running until your characters are level 15, then you can’t get much better than this! Otherwise, this is a fantastic place to start your Paladin journey, but consider a more focused oath if you feel confident in yourself.