Baldur’s Gate 3: Best Feats For Paladins In BG3
Playing a Paladin in BG3 is a holy affair, and players will need to outfit them with the correct feats to smite their opponents in battle.
Scott Baird 
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Paladins are some of the biggest melee heavy-hitters in Baldur’s Gate 3, and you can make them even better by selecting the correct Feats when they level up. This is because the holy knights are among the best heavy armor & two-handed weapon users in the game, and these traits can be improved by using Feats.
Paladins differ from the other warriors due to their Divine Smite feature and Smite spells. Divine Smite adds extra Radiant damage when fighting fiends and undead, while the Smite spells add different elemental and status effect traits to your attacks. It’s important to note that Divine Smite uses a Reaction, and Smite spells require a Bonus Action, so you can use both alongside a regular attack Action to inflict a ton of damage in a single turn.
Related: Baldur’s Gate 2’s Slayer Form Makes Surprise Return In Baldur’s Gate 3
The Best Feats For Paladins In Baldur’s Gate 3
In Baldur’s Gate 3, you get Feats at levels 4, 8, and 12, giving you access to three over the course of the game. This will give you several chances to power up your Paladin protagonist, be they a holy avenger or an unholy blackguard. The best Feats for the Paladin class in Baldur’s Gate 3 are:
- Ability Score Improvement: This Feat allows you to add +2 to one stat or +1 to two separate stats. One thing to bear in mind is that you can gain +2 to your Strength stat by allowing Astarion to bite a certain NPC, so you only need to increase it to 18 to hit the maximum score in Act II. This gives you the chance to focus on Charisma, which powers a lot of your abilities.
- Alert: This Feat gives +5 to Initiative rolls and prevents you from being surprised. As you can afford to turn Dexterity into a dump stat, you can use Alert to ensure you’re not always going last in the Initiative queue.
- Heavily Armored Master: This Feat increases your Strength by 1 and reduces all damage by 3 when wearing heavy armor. As the class best suited for heavy armor builds, this is a great choice for the Paladin, as the Strength will boost your damage and reduce all enemy hits, possibly removing chip damage altogether.
- Savage Attacker: This Feat lets you roll damage twice when making a weapon attack, allowing you to take either result. As you’ll be whacking enemies with divine/magic-infused attacks, this Feat will improve your baseline damage across the entire game.
- Sentinel: This Feat lets you spend your Reaction to make a weapon attack an enemy in melee range attacking an ally. You gain Advantage on Attacks of Opportunity and if you hit a creature, it has to stop. Chances are, your Paladin will be fighting alongside allies on the frontlines, where they can make the most of their healing powers & spells. With Sentinel, you’ll be getting free attacks whenever enemies take a shot at your friends.
Related: Baldur’s Gate 3: What’s The Level Cap?
You may have noticed that Feats like Great Weapon Master and Polearm Master are not on the list. The reason for this is Paladins need their Bonus Action on their turn to use their Smiting spells, which are the best attacks in their arsenal, so having Bonus Action attacks isn’t as useful to them as it is for other classes. This is why it’s better to focus on passive effects that will be useful in more situations.
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