How does Harness Divine Power work? - Paladin - Class Forums - D&D Beyond Forums (2024)

Also at 3rd level, you can expend a use of your Channel Divinity to fuel your spells. As a bonus action, you touch your holy symbol, utter a prayer, and regain one expended spell slot, the level of which can be no higher than half your proficiency bonus (rounded up). The number of times you can use this feature is based on the level you've reached in this class: 3rd level, once; 7th level, twice; and 15th level, thrice. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

You only get one use of Channel Divinity per short/long rest. Let's say you're a 7th level paladin, you can use the feature twice. Does that mean if you want to use it twice, you have to use then short rest to use it again?

The uses of channel divinity that a pally gets from their oath recharge on both long and short rest as per the general description. Harness divine power is a separate and distinct use of channel divinity, though, and has its own refresh rate: long rest only. This means a level 7 paladin has two uses of channel divinity to power their oath-given abilities each time they have a short or long rest but the same paladin could use harness divine power only twice per long rest no matter how many short rests they take.

As an example, Dave the level 7 glory paladin can smite and use channel divinity (CD) to give himself THP twice per short or long rest. Dave can also use channel divinity to recover spell slots twice per long rest. If Dave uses CD to give himself THP twice per short rest, the next time he short rests, Dave regains two uses of CD to give himself THP. If Dave instead uses CD to give himself THP once and to recover spell slots once, the next time he short rests he’d have two uses of channel divinity, both of which could be used to give himself THP but only one which could be used to recover spell slots. Following that, the next time Dave used CD to recover spell slots and then short rested, he would have two uses of channel divinity for THP but he would have to long rest before he could use CD to recover spell slots.

I think that answers your question.

Quote from DnD_Super_Fan >>

I thought you only got one CD per long/short rest.

You quoted the rule in your first post that states “The number of times you can use this feature is based on the level you've reached in this class: 3rd level, once; 7th level, twice; and 15th level, thrice. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.” but I do see what you’re saying. I failed to double check the rules for CD on a paladin. They never get additional uses of CD based on level like a cleric does. In that case, I’d say basically the same as above but with only one use of CD. Dave the glory paladin could give himself THP after short rests for as many short rests as he can get but can only recover spell slots once ever per long rest. Apologies for the earlier oversight.

Wait a sec. Upon further examination, harness divine power does not increase at the same rate as a cleric’s channel divinity. Argh. What are they doing?!?!