 Boy, I love the smell of justice in the morning. There's nothing more satisfying than knowing the good name of Sword and Shield has traveled so far and wide that not even the Pokemon games are free from their incredible awesome influence. And it's about time, too. You think I created this series to entertain and inform ignorant whelps of great hobbies their miserable lives are missing out on? Fuck no, it was to enforce the mighty name of the one true weapon pairing that triumphs all others. And if anyone were to step out of line, I'd bring down the wrath of which tear-ass children tell their parents to scare them before bedtime. And then collect the aftermath of the pants they all shit because it makes for great fertilizer. Welcome to a crap guided D&D. Do you want to tank? Do you want to fight? Do you want a class that'll instill fright, take up some plate, and keep the goblins inside? Because you want to make sure they eat this paladin's SMITE? The paladin is the first on a short list of hybrid-style classes, stealing a mix of features from both the fighter and the cleric. Meaning it's better at physically painting the walls with blood than a cleric, but more good at grammar and spelling than a fighter. But it's also one of the few classes where role-playing becomes somewhat important. What? Role-playing in my role-playing game? They really should have put some kind of warning label somewhere. I'm not submitting to this shit. If I wanted to follow some sort of code, I'd become a pirate so that I could at least plunder some booty while I'm at it. Otherwise, fuck you, gods, if you want me to play your game of ethics, you can kiss my shiny plate-mailed- Alright, fine, just follow the code and don't do anything stupid that'll cause you to lose your paladin privileges, like a spoiled rich kid who's upset that he doesn't get a fourth Maserati to crash. Like the other all-up in your grill-style physical fighting classes, you gain proficiency with every goddamn combat-oriented item in the universe. And yes, that does technically mean that you can optimally play a paladin without a shield and not have to worry about being a less effective contribution to your party, but if you do that, I'm telling you now that you're wrong and I hate you and you're a big, smelly doodoo head. As a resident big fuck-off bringer of divine justice, your job is to harness the power of holiness or whatever other wacky power, depending on what oath you pick, to have everything else die while they bounce off of your full frontal crusade like a turd in the wind. That's true for just about every combat-focused class, but the paladin is especially good at it, what with having the aforementioned fighter-cleric combo skill set. You get multiple attacks, channel divinity, a free vaccination, casting abilities, more auras than the one silly anime that nobody likes, which means you'll be so jacked that your mere presence will muscleify any nearby allies so that they look like a typical character from said silly anime that nobody likes. And lay on hands, a pool of health you can use to heal yourself or give a single hit point to your ally because that's all they deserve for not letting you rogue check the obviously booby-trapped room first but we all know the real reason anyone picks paladin and that's to never cast any actual spells but instead use your spell slots to imbue your weapon with various flavors of SMITE because what good is striking down the heretics and heathens of the realm if it's not in the elemental attacking equivalent of your god sports team colors. You can smite with fire, laser pointers, brain freezes, and cheese, cheese for everyone! Sorry, I meant force. Force is what it says. And now you know how to play... Wait a minute, what the hell is that noise?