I realize I am a bit late here, but voed that they can, but found it a little too vague.
Currently playing a War Cleric with a Paladin ally, both hitting level 5 recently. So, I realize that I am only going off of partial experience here.
Some things I have noticed is his build seems a bit more MAD than mine, but the Pali seems more limited in what it can do in general, including spike damage.
His Smites sometimes feel underwelming vs my Guiding Bolts or Spiritual Weapon. His healing is sort of the same, even for just self healing to keep up in a fight.
He just got two attacks, while I have had it (3/Day) the whole time, but never actually run out thus far.
He does tend to hit slightly more frequently than I do, has better HP, but we have identical AC.
His mount makes a big difference, and it doesn't seem like I can do anything to get something like that, (which was what I meant by too vague earlier).
All in all, I feel like I have more options overall. At level 4 we where fighting a Vampire, and just about everyine had exausted their abilities, leaving me the only one that could consistently shut down her healing via at will Radiant damage. That really stuck out to me, because in that fight the main warriors all sucked after a few rounds, but by the time they figured it out, I was being torn between healing the party or being the only one that could really hurt her meaningfully.
I had made my character a few weeks prior to him joining, and had intentionally made a traditional Paladin-like holy warrior. Now we are both seeking the same gear. One thing I have noticed is there really does not seem to be any real magic items I really want besides +1-+3 weapons, armor, shields. No Cleric "holy avenger". That is fairly common, I guess, but just something I noticed while looking down the road.
The main difference for me between them is the cleric has more spells, the paladin is front loaded with lay on hands yoyo heals.
Due to the spells clerics can end up doing more damage but never underestimate the one round kill potential of a smiting paladin. A single crit allows a paladin to apply a smite and all those smite dice double up. Spell choice is as important as ever, some are great some are utility and some are traps to avoid.
Paladins get to spend their slot after they've confirmed a crit. If a cleric casts, say, Inflict Wounds, they might not get a crit but the slot will be spent either way.
True, and again this is from my limited 5E experience, it seems my 3d10 <15> damage hits a lot more frequently than his 2d8+2d6+Str <19> crit spike damage (I believe might be 4d6 <25>), which seems to favor me either way. His Crit Smite is pretty close to my normal using average damage. Add in that I can do so more often at similar levels, and seem to be much better at bypassing defenses, as far as I can tell so far, it just seems the War Cleric comes better at the Paladin's job overall, minus mount. He is playing a Retribution Paladin, I think trying to focus on Smites, (he has two or three different types).
I could very well be wrong, and I am not trying to bash the Paladin, as I am a fan of the class.
Salubri, glad your enjoying playing, the crit chance should be the same for both of you, the paladin should have more attacks and so a little more chance of crits but not much. Are you only facing one or two fights a day? Because the endurance matches of groups running 6 to 8 encounters or more can have them out of spells even if they are full casters, So do you have less fights or have you found a way to recover your spells without a long rest? Again you should develop your character around the game your playing, not a hypothetical so anything you can share is useful information.
Im not trying to be difficult, just trying to learn.
What I meant was, it seems like his Smite damage, on a crit, deals slightly more damage, on average, than my non-crit Guiding Bolt or Inflict Wounds. We do crit about the same, I think, but a lot of times I am doing things other than attacking, or (making attack rolls), so in total he does crit more.
He just got two attacks, while I have had it the whole time, though only 3/rest. I would say on average we do maybe 5 encounters before a short rest, though lately he and the Fighters have been wanting rests after every fight or two as they burn out fast. That, however, seems to be a player problem more than anything, (rather than Class).
Paladins get to spend their slot after they've confirmed a crit.
Your Pathfinder is showing through :)
Edit to add content:
In my campaign, we have a dwarven Forge Cleric who is very robust. He's a cleric and not a paladin, no doubt about it. But that being said, he wades into battle with a pair of war hammers (dual wielder feat) and heavy armor. He's essentially a self-healing tank and he has a strong party dynamic in that role, along with a heavy melee hitter, a rogue, a bard, and a sorcerer. He rounds things out nicely and while he has powerful healing spells, our bard does most of the healing with the cleric tossing out smites and attacking spells. He frequently uses his bonus action for an off-handed attack rather than casting.
The player built the character this way because that's just what he wants to play. But I have to admit it works for him and it works for the party.
True, and again this is from my limited 5E experience, it seems my 3d10 <15> damage hits a lot more frequently than his 2d8+2d6+Str <19> crit spike damage (I believe might be 4d6 <25>), which seems to favor me either way. His Crit Smite is pretty close to my normal using average damage. Add in that I can do so more often at similar levels, and seem to be much better at bypassing defenses, as far as I can tell so far, it just seems the War Cleric comes better at the Paladin's job overall, minus mount. He is playing a Retribution Paladin, I think trying to focus on Smites, (he has two or three different types).
I could very well be wrong, and I am not trying to bash the Paladin, as I am a fan of the class.
If he's casting his smite spells, and not using the divine smite class feature, you've answered the question as to why his stink.
Divine smite does 2d8 with a first level bonus damage declared on a hit., on top of the weapon damage +mod that he's already got. On a crit, he should be getting and extra 2d8. His 4d8 + weapon + mod should beat out your inflict wounds, and he can choose to smite ONLY when he crits if he wants to.
Additionally, he's going to swing 2x/round now every single round and have an open bonus action. Youre going to swing 1x every round, and use a bonus action if you want to swing again, with limited availability. His paladin is going to scale quite nicely as a damage dealer.
Honestly it sounds to be like both of you are playing your classes way wrong as a war priest definitely should not be wasting spell slots on inflict wounds at low levels.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
They are obviously different classes, but with large potential areas of overlap in roleplay. Religious martial orders would likely have both clerics and paladins (and regular fighters) among their ranks. One clear issue with multi-classing cleric and paladin is that channel divinity doesn't stack in number of uses. You get one channel divinity per short rest, but now have a paladin or cleric option to choose from. And as others point out...paladins and clerics have different spell modifier stats, so this would mean your ability scores will be stretched thin.
"Channel Divinity
If you already have the Channel Divinity feature and gain a level in a class that also grants the feature, you gain the Channel Divinity effects granted by that class, but getting the feature again doesn't give you an additional use of it. You gain additional uses only when you reach a class level that explicitly grants them to you. For example, if you are a cleric 6/paladin 4, you can use Channel Divinity twice between rests because you are high enough level in the cleric class to have more uses. Whenever you use the feature, you can choose any of the Channel Divinity effects available to you from your two classes." - multi-classing rules PHB
If you want to play a paladin/cleric, I would suggest instead going paladin/sorcerer, with the divine soul subclass for the sorcerer. You would have the cleric spell list opened up to you, through divine soul and still be a charisma based caster, instead of also now needing wisdom.
I realize I am a bit late here, but voed that they can, but found it a little too vague.
Currently playing a War Cleric with a Paladin ally, both hitting level 5 recently. So, I realize that I am only going off of partial experience here.
Some things I have noticed is his build seems a bit more MAD than mine, but the Pali seems more limited in what it can do in general, including spike damage.
His Smites sometimes feel underwelming vs my Guiding Bolts or Spiritual Weapon. His healing is sort of the same, even for just self healing to keep up in a fight.
He just got two attacks, while I have had it (3/Day) the whole time, but never actually run out thus far.
He does tend to hit slightly more frequently than I do, has better HP, but we have identical AC.
His mount makes a big difference, and it doesn't seem like I can do anything to get something like that, (which was what I meant by too vague earlier).
All in all, I feel like I have more options overall. At level 4 we where fighting a Vampire, and just about everyine had exausted their abilities, leaving me the only one that could consistently shut down her healing via at will Radiant damage. That really stuck out to me, because in that fight the main warriors all sucked after a few rounds, but by the time they figured it out, I was being torn between healing the party or being the only one that could really hurt her meaningfully.
I had made my character a few weeks prior to him joining, and had intentionally made a traditional Paladin-like holy warrior. Now we are both seeking the same gear. One thing I have noticed is there really does not seem to be any real magic items I really want besides +1-+3 weapons, armor, shields. No Cleric "holy avenger". That is fairly common, I guess, but just something I noticed while looking down the road.
The main difference for me between them is the cleric has more spells, the paladin is front loaded with lay on hands yoyo heals.
Due to the spells clerics can end up doing more damage but never underestimate the one round kill potential of a smiting paladin. A single crit allows a paladin to apply a smite and all those smite dice double up. Spell choice is as important as ever, some are great some are utility and some are traps to avoid.
Honest question. Is a Paladin's Smite Crit any different than a Cleric's Spell Crit here?
Paladins get to spend their slot after they've confirmed a crit. If a cleric casts, say, Inflict Wounds, they might not get a crit but the slot will be spent either way.
True, and again this is from my limited 5E experience, it seems my 3d10 <15> damage hits a lot more frequently than his 2d8+2d6+Str <19> crit spike damage (I believe might be 4d6 <25>), which seems to favor me either way. His Crit Smite is pretty close to my normal using average damage. Add in that I can do so more often at similar levels, and seem to be much better at bypassing defenses, as far as I can tell so far, it just seems the War Cleric comes better at the Paladin's job overall, minus mount. He is playing a Retribution Paladin, I think trying to focus on Smites, (he has two or three different types).
I could very well be wrong, and I am not trying to bash the Paladin, as I am a fan of the class.
Salubri, glad your enjoying playing, the crit chance should be the same for both of you, the paladin should have more attacks and so a little more chance of crits but not much. Are you only facing one or two fights a day? Because the endurance matches of groups running 6 to 8 encounters or more can have them out of spells even if they are full casters, So do you have less fights or have you found a way to recover your spells without a long rest? Again you should develop your character around the game your playing, not a hypothetical so anything you can share is useful information.
Im not trying to be difficult, just trying to learn.
What I meant was, it seems like his Smite damage, on a crit, deals slightly more damage, on average, than my non-crit Guiding Bolt or Inflict Wounds. We do crit about the same, I think, but a lot of times I am doing things other than attacking, or (making attack rolls), so in total he does crit more.
He just got two attacks, while I have had it the whole time, though only 3/rest. I would say on average we do maybe 5 encounters before a short rest, though lately he and the Fighters have been wanting rests after every fight or two as they burn out fast. That, however, seems to be a player problem more than anything, (rather than Class).
Your Pathfinder is showing through :)
Edit to add content:
In my campaign, we have a dwarven Forge Cleric who is very robust. He's a cleric and not a paladin, no doubt about it. But that being said, he wades into battle with a pair of war hammers (dual wielder feat) and heavy armor. He's essentially a self-healing tank and he has a strong party dynamic in that role, along with a heavy melee hitter, a rogue, a bard, and a sorcerer. He rounds things out nicely and while he has powerful healing spells, our bard does most of the healing with the cleric tossing out smites and attacking spells. He frequently uses his bonus action for an off-handed attack rather than casting.
The player built the character this way because that's just what he wants to play. But I have to admit it works for him and it works for the party.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
What feature? Wrath of the Storm?
If he's casting his smite spells, and not using the divine smite class feature, you've answered the question as to why his stink.
Divine smite does 2d8 with a first level bonus damage declared on a hit., on top of the weapon damage +mod that he's already got. On a crit, he should be getting and extra 2d8. His 4d8 + weapon + mod should beat out your inflict wounds, and he can choose to smite ONLY when he crits if he wants to.
Additionally, he's going to swing 2x/round now every single round and have an open bonus action. Youre going to swing 1x every round, and use a bonus action if you want to swing again, with limited availability. His paladin is going to scale quite nicely as a damage dealer.
Honestly it sounds to be like both of you are playing your classes way wrong as a war priest definitely should not be wasting spell slots on inflict wounds at low levels.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I see that most people here are saying to play as a War domain, but I think Tempest domain would also be a great choice.
They are obviously different classes, but with large potential areas of overlap in roleplay. Religious martial orders would likely have both clerics and paladins (and regular fighters) among their ranks. One clear issue with multi-classing cleric and paladin is that channel divinity doesn't stack in number of uses. You get one channel divinity per short rest, but now have a paladin or cleric option to choose from. And as others point out...paladins and clerics have different spell modifier stats, so this would mean your ability scores will be stretched thin.
"Channel Divinity
If you already have the Channel Divinity feature and gain a level in a class that also grants the feature, you gain the Channel Divinity effects granted by that class, but getting the feature again doesn't give you an additional use of it. You gain additional uses only when you reach a class level that explicitly grants them to you. For example, if you are a cleric 6/paladin 4, you can use Channel Divinity twice between rests because you are high enough level in the cleric class to have more uses. Whenever you use the feature, you can choose any of the Channel Divinity effects available to you from your two classes." - multi-classing rules PHB
I’ve always said that cleric is the spellcasting side of paladin and plaid in is the evil smacking side of a cleric.
War Cleric should have gotten extra attack IMO....but thats an aside.
Cleric can feel Paladin lite with the right stuff. Booming blade can help you feel more paladin like if you pick up magic initiate.
If you want to play a paladin/cleric, I would suggest instead going paladin/sorcerer, with the divine soul subclass for the sorcerer. You would have the cleric spell list opened up to you, through divine soul and still be a charisma based caster, instead of also now needing wisdom.
Devotion Paladin/Divine Soul Sorcerer 6/14 is quite a powerful combination.
Sorcerer gives you all those spell slots to spend smiting evil doers.