Summary
When it comes toDungeons & Dragons,paladins are powerhouses, to the point of being a true menace to the monsters you send their way. Between smites, auras with multiple effects for them and their allies, more smites, and being powerful martials anyway, they’re quite powerful. Oh, and did we mention smites?
Still, no one is invincible here (unless you say so), meaning that even paladins can be defeated. All you have to do is analyze what tricks they have in their builds and see how you’ll counter these tactics, from overwhelming them, playing with resistances, or even ignoring them altogether.
Our goal here is to make sure your player is being properly challenged. Overusing these tactics could anger your player by annulling all their features, or even kill their character. Be mindful of when to use these tricks.
8Boost Your Armor Class
The Essential
As most martial characters go, they rely a lot on hitting their attacks, meaning they need to hit your AC. Thus, the clear thing to do, at least for powerful bosses, is to give them a high AC number, such as 18 or above. High-level encounters could even have enemies with 20 to 24 for their armor.
We don’t recommend giving every enemy, especially minions, a high AC because it would increase the difficulty a lot - and for the whole party - but it’s still an effective tactic to make things harder for the paladin and other martials from the group.
7Overwhelm Them
They Don’t Tend To Have The Best Action Economy
Also like most martial characters, giving them a lot to do at once, such as multiple minions, is a good way to beat them. Paladins have very few attacks that can hit multiple enemies at once, and will probably rely on Extra Attack in these situations.
Paladins also have few things they can do with their bonus action (depending on their build), which means they’ll rely on these two attacks on their action (and maybe one reaction attack) most of the time.
6Ignore Them If Possible
Roleplay Tactics
Depending on how the paladin is built, there’s a good chance they are a tank, or at least an off-tank along with a barbarian or something. That means they’ll have high AC and lots of hit points. In other words, your monsters will have a hard time hitting them, and even then, they won’t hurt them a lot.
If your minions realize that attacking the paladin is barely doing something, why keep at it? You’re not obligated to charge the paladin with your attacks. You can focus on the squishy spellcaster while the paladin does everything they can to prevent that.
We recommend enemies who can disengage or teleport as a bonus action so you can safely ditch the paladin and still attack someone else. Ranged attacks work well here, too.
5Be Aware Of What Their Aura Does
They Can Vary A Lot
Each paladin gets three auras: Aura of Protection, Aura of Courage, and a third one that depends on their subclass. The first aura gives them and nearby allies a bonus for all their saving throws, while the second one makes them and their nearby allies immune to being frightened. The third one is for you to analyze what they got and what it’ll be.
It can come with more immunity to conditions, resistance to magic damage, debuff for enemies, or even taking damage instead of an ally. Analyze what they’re getting and avoid triggering them as much as possible during big fights. As a bonus, try isolating the paladin during these big fights so their allies won’t get the benefits from the auras.
4Use Their Oath Against Them
Insert Consequences For Their Actions
Intense situations don’t always happen in combat. What if your devotion paladin is in a situation where being good will come with terrible consequences for them, with the other choice being breaking their oath? Or what about an incredible source of power that is clearly evil?
Put their morality to the test during important moments of the narrative, since paladins are the only class where they have a strict code to follow in order to keep their abilities. And then, for better or worse, they’ll have to live with the choices they make.
3Avoid Fiends And Undead
They’re Vulnerable To Smites
Paladins are perfect for hunting evil monsters, like fiends and undead. The reason comes from their Divine Smite, which is one of the best damage-dealing features in the entire game. Causing extra radiant damage in any attack as a free action (and a spell slot) is great, especially when they roll a critical hit.
That’s even worse for fiends and undead, as Smite gets an extra die (or two extra dice on critical hits) whenever a paladin attacks one of these, potentially hitting them for an extra 6d8 radiant damage (or 12d8 on critical!). While that will be perfect to give your player an amazing power fantasy, which is great, you should vary enemy types here, too.
If you intend to use undead for narrative reasons, at least give powerful undead enemies resistance or immunity to Turn Undead. It’ll help against some paladins and also against the party’s cleric.
2Play Around With Enemies' Resistance
Resistance To Radiant Damage Will Be Effective
Going back to basics, paladins rely on their weapons a lot, which will cause slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning damage. Thus, giving your enemies resistance to these damage types is a great way to counter them. Most creatures with these resistances only work when the weapon is non-magical, but that only applies if their sheet says so, and there are creatures who are resistant even if the weapon is magical.
While that will basically make the fight harder for all martial characters, there’s one specific feature that will make life harder for the paladin: give enemies resistance to radiant damage. You’re cutting all smite damage in half with a single trait.
1Create Damage Sponges
Have Them Waste Spell Slots
One more way to deal with the damage bursts that paladins provide is simply to give your monster a gigantic health bar - sometimes, the easy solutions are the best ones. And nothing scares a player more than seeing a creature taking their best attack and acting like it was no big deal.
Not every character has a burst-damage mechanic like that, and few are as efficient, so make sure the rest of the party can help out with high-damage strikes when creating a boss like that - otherwise, it’d take a long time to beat said enemy. Still, a simple health buff can do wonders here.
