My paladin is now level 4 and has 19 strength and 15 charisma. I know it is probably better to take the ability score increase and get another +1 on the majority of rolls I’ll be making but that’s just so boring!
I’m taking Shield Master instead.
Does anyone else have this conflict?
Most people seem to be misunderstanding. I don’t mind having to make “tough choices” in general, only when the obviously correct choice is boring and the suboptimal one is the cool fun one.
I think feats are one of the coolest aspects of D&D character customization, so it’s always a pain when it’s stifled in favor of number-go-up. Depending on how high I plan to go, I give my characters a feat every level or every other level. They end up with more than they know what to do with and end up taking RP feats, which are sorely underutilized because of the opportunity cost of obtaining them.
Yes, the PCs get more powerful, but that just means I rebalance enemies.