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 always have my players take a Feat and ASI at level 4 now. It lets people take fun feats including some power boosting ones while still not making it feel like a bad choice. That way people get to play a feat for the majority of the game instead of only at higher levels