I'm relatively new to multi classing and I've been looking for a paladin fighter build, but I haven't found any yet? I'm honestly probably not searching hard enough but I was curious to see if it's a good idea.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
— δ ψινο • the croc master • hε/hιm δ — “sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.” ——————| EXTENDED SIG |—————— Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
I'm not sure, but I'd assume a Champion Fighter 3/Paladin X would be good for crit-fishing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew:Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I'm not sure, but I'd assume a Champion Fighter 3/Paladin X would be good for crit-fishing.
alright thanks sm
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
— δ ψινο • the croc master • hε/hιm δ — “sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.” ——————| EXTENDED SIG |—————— Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
I think a fighter multi is pretty neat. I play one myself, where I started out with a level in fighter for that con proficiency. In hindsight, now that I'm a little more experienced, I have to say it comes with it's strengths and weaknesses.
When you pick fighter as your starting, you're forgoing your saves in CHA and WIS. This can be a pretty big deal, but I shored up those weaknesses by going devotion paladin. Gaining access to immunity to charm, and fear a bit later, meant that the wisdom save was fairly redundant for me, and the CHA save? Well, since I have a +6 mod along with my aura, I just don't miss it.
In my opinion, this kind of character build means you really want to get your hands on ogre gauntlets early on, which was available to me in AL, but I understand that doesn't apply for everyone. But by forgoing strength, you afford yourself the opportunity to grab those neat feats like GWM, or up your CHA for your saves. Devotion paladin has excellent synergy with GWM thanks to its channel divinity.
I recently participated in a module with a two other paladin multiclasses, two other sorcadins, one vengeance and one conquest. Excuse me for tooting my own horn here, but I think I stood out as pulling my weight fairly well. In a combat encounter centered around attrition and multiple waves of enemies, devotion excels because its higher accuracy meant I rarely missed as opposed to my peers who missed the expected amount. My playstyle meant I was very conservative with my spell slots and smites, but using my concentration on spirit shroud along with gwm, and improved divine smite meant I was hitting like a truck every turn, and proccing the bonus action from GWM fairly frequently in subsequent turns. Yes, I missed out an entire round just buffing myself with sprit shroud and channel divinity, but it was worth it.
Just keep in mind, lvl 5 really hurts for you because you can't extra attack until lvl 6 (assuming you only took one level of fighter starting out).
Champion fighter makes some sense, but as with everything, there are some pros and cons.
Pros
3 levels of Champion will get the expanded crit range, all the time. Extra fighting style Action Surge - if I were ever going to multi-class into fighter from paladin, this is the reason to do it imo. Action Surge is very powerful.
Cons
Lack of spell slots is already an issue for paladins, but compounded by multi-classing into something without it's own spell slots. Bard, sorcerer or warlock may make better multi-class options, therefore. A paladin actually gains more spell slots, instead of losing them with these options.
3 levels of Champion gives expanded crit range all the time, but 1 level of Hexblade gives expanded crit range once per short rest with Hexblade's Curse. Unless your DM likes to throw multiple combats at you, you will likely have it for most fights. Also, Hexblades's Curse gives more than just expanded crit range, it also gives added damage of your proficiency bonus and heals you when the target dies. So, for 1 level of Warlock, you arguably have something more powerful than the capstone of 3 levels into Champion fighter.
I'm sure there are other cons to the paladin fighter combination, but these came to mind right away. I can see the lure. Action Surge, perma expanded crit range are very good. A second fighting style is always nice, but hardly game changing. I would probably go with a charisma based spell caster for my multi-class, but that's not to say that fighter doesn't also make sense. It may also fit your backstory better for a fighter/paladin.
I think a fighter multi is pretty neat. I play one myself, where I started out with a level in fighter for that con proficiency. In hindsight, now that I'm a little more experienced, I have to say it comes with it's strengths and weaknesses.
When you pick fighter as your starting, you're forgoing your saves in CHA and WIS. This can be a pretty big deal, but I shored up those weaknesses by going devotion paladin. Gaining access to immunity to charm, and fear a bit later, meant that the wisdom save was fairly redundant for me, and the CHA save? Well, since I have a +6 mod along with my aura, I just don't miss it.
In my opinion, this kind of character build means you really want to get your hands on ogre gauntlets early on, which was available to me in AL, but I understand that doesn't apply for everyone. But by forgoing strength, you afford yourself the opportunity to grab those neat feats like GWM, or up your CHA for your saves. Devotion paladin has excellent synergy with GWM thanks to its channel divinity.
I recently participated in a module with a two other paladin multiclasses, two other sorcadins, one vengeance and one conquest. Excuse me for tooting my own horn here, but I think I stood out as pulling my weight fairly well. In a combat encounter centered around attrition and multiple waves of enemies, devotion excels because its higher accuracy meant I rarely missed as opposed to my peers who missed the expected amount. My playstyle meant I was very conservative with my spell slots and smites, but using my concentration on spirit shroud along with gwm, and improved divine smite meant I was hitting like a truck every turn, and proccing the bonus action from GWM fairly frequently in subsequent turns. Yes, I missed out an entire round just buffing myself with sprit shroud and channel divinity, but it was worth it.
Just keep in mind, lvl 5 really hurts for you because you can't extra attack until lvl 6 (assuming you only took one level of fighter starting out).
I think the paladin saves of Wis and Cha are generally better options than the fighter saves of Str and Con. While all failed saves can be bad, failing Wis and Cha saves can be particularly bad! As a paladin, adding Con proficiency would be nice for maintaining concentration on a spell, but there are other ways to increase that save without having proficiency.
"Strength: Opposing a force that would physically move or bind you
Dexterity: Dodging out of harm's way
Constitution: Enduring a disease, poison, or other hazard that saps vitality
Intelligence: Disbelieving certain illusions and resisting mental assaults that can be refuted with logic, sharp memory, or both
Wisdom: Resisting effects that charm, frighten, or otherwise assault your willpower
Charisma: Withstanding effects, such as possession, that would subsume your personality or hurl you to another plane of existence" - DMG
One thing to keep in mind is extra attack doesn’t stack, you get either 2 per action from pally or fighter. The only way to get to 3 is to get to 11 in fighter. So a 3- level dip for a subclass feature, or even 4 for an asi might make sense, but a 5 th level of fighter would do nothing for you. And as torvald said, it would greatly delay your spell progression. To me, not worth the trade off of delaying your auras and spells, asi and class features to pick up action surge, a little self healing and a low power subclass feature.
I think a fighter multi is pretty neat. I play one myself, where I started out with a level in fighter for that con proficiency. In hindsight, now that I'm a little more experienced, I have to say it comes with it's strengths and weaknesses.
When you pick fighter as your starting, you're forgoing your saves in CHA and WIS. This can be a pretty big deal, but I shored up those weaknesses by going devotion paladin. Gaining access to immunity to charm, and fear a bit later, meant that the wisdom save was fairly redundant for me, and the CHA save? Well, since I have a +6 mod along with my aura, I just don't miss it.
In my opinion, this kind of character build means you really want to get your hands on ogre gauntlets early on, which was available to me in AL, but I understand that doesn't apply for everyone. But by forgoing strength, you afford yourself the opportunity to grab those neat feats like GWM, or up your CHA for your saves. Devotion paladin has excellent synergy with GWM thanks to its channel divinity.
I recently participated in a module with a two other paladin multiclasses, two other sorcadins, one vengeance and one conquest. Excuse me for tooting my own horn here, but I think I stood out as pulling my weight fairly well. In a combat encounter centered around attrition and multiple waves of enemies, devotion excels because its higher accuracy meant I rarely missed as opposed to my peers who missed the expected amount. My playstyle meant I was very conservative with my spell slots and smites, but using my concentration on spirit shroud along with gwm, and improved divine smite meant I was hitting like a truck every turn, and proccing the bonus action from GWM fairly frequently in subsequent turns. Yes, I missed out an entire round just buffing myself with sprit shroud and channel divinity, but it was worth it.
Just keep in mind, lvl 5 really hurts for you because you can't extra attack until lvl 6 (assuming you only took one level of fighter starting out).
I think the paladin saves of Wis and Cha are generally better options than the fighter saves of Str and Con. While all failed saves can be bad, failing Wis and Cha saves can be particularly bad! As a paladin, adding Con proficiency would be nice for maintaining concentration on a spell, but there are other ways to increase that save without having proficiency.
"Strength: Opposing a force that would physically move or bind you
Dexterity: Dodging out of harm's way
Constitution: Enduring a disease, poison, or other hazard that saps vitality
Intelligence: Disbelieving certain illusions and resisting mental assaults that can be refuted with logic, sharp memory, or both
Wisdom: Resisting effects that charm, frighten, or otherwise assault your willpower
Charisma: Withstanding effects, such as possession, that would subsume your personality or hurl you to another plane of existence" - DMG
I think, in general, you have a point when it comes to the importance of WIS and CHA saves over concentration.
In reality, however, those saves are rare. With devotion paladin covering both charm and fear immunity, what use is that WIS save going to be for me when I've covered most of my bases? With a +14 in my CHA save, no proficiency, it'd be really hard for me to fail a CHA save. But oh man, how frequently do CON saves come up? It feels so good to have a +16 and +20 to your CON and STR saves respectively. A Balor can tantrum all they want and try to whip my paladin and pull him in, but he'll never succeed. I can't physically fail a concentration check unless I take more than 34 damage.
To me, the main benefit of multiclassing into fighter is you get some of those short rest abilities. A paladin, by itself, has so few slots, it can't go all out as often as they like. It doesn't benefit from a short rest as much aside from their channel divinity (though TCOE alleviated some of that with the slot conversion). But multi-ing into battlemaster, for example, grants access to really useful maneuvers, it adds utility and power. You get action surge, and those abilities are up on a short rest like nothing ever happened, and they can add to your nova potential when you do crit. In your typical campaign that might reach level 10, a paladin who multiclasses 3 levels into battle master fighter has their spellcasting, their smites, their auras, but now gets 99% of the fighter package along with them. You're a fighter, except even better in that tier of play.
Now, would I recommend fighter multi on every paladin? Hell no, especially not one like vengeance or glory that wants to prioritize other attributes over CHA. Those paladins might not have as great saves, and they'd result on relying more on those default WIS and CHA saves. For those guys, I'd whole heartedly recommend taking resilient con!
As with all things, there are pros and cons. Three levels of champion fighter, as mentioned give you an expanded crit range. Also as mentioned it can get you proficiency on con saves, which you may or may not value more highly than wis/cha saves. For a paladin, personally, I value wis/cha saves higher but not all players value things at the same rate.
Champ fighter also gives you action surge and second wind though, which nearly all paladins I think would value about equally, and fairly highly. I don't generally value crit fishing highly though, so for me champ fighter is a bust. The MC paladin at my table has added war priest, and uses war priest strike to get himself extra attacks with his 2h. When he has WPS available, he can put out 3 swings in a round and smite on all of them. He's got very nasty, bursty DPS, and it's there when he wants it until it's been expended. He determines when he's awesome, not the dice.
With multi-classing, it's always tradeoffs. You get, and you give. You have to determine is it worth it. You /should/ have specific goals as what you want to add to the class via MC. MC for the sake of MC is nearly always the wrong answer, and it's a mistake I see new players looking for advice on all the time. Take the OP for example. He's looking for a fighter/paladin build, but has no stated goals. This is a classic case of looking to MC for the sake of MC. So you're giving away or delaying features of paladin...with no true goal other than having "fighter" as part of the name. This is a mistake.
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.
While I love multiclassing, I find it hard to justify this one in particular. Paladins want one thing - more spell slots, meaning there are two ways to multiclass "up" as a paladin and that is as a warlock or sorcerer. Sorcerer lets you use charisma for attacks and gives you spell slots on short rest, while sorcerer lets you cast spells as a bonus action and gives you a ton of spell slots.
As with all things, there are pros and cons. Three levels of champion fighter, as mentioned give you an expanded crit range. Also as mentioned it can get you proficiency on con saves, which you may or may not value more highly than wis/cha saves. For a paladin, personally, I value wis/cha saves higher but not all players value things at the same rate.
Champ fighter also gives you action surge and second wind though, which nearly all paladins I think would value about equally, and fairly highly. I don't generally value crit fishing highly though, so for me champ fighter is a bust. The MC paladin at my table has added war priest, and uses war priest strike to get himself extra attacks with his 2h. When he has WPS available, he can put out 3 swings in a round and smite on all of them. He's got very nasty, bursty DPS, and it's there when he wants it until it's been expended. He determines when he's awesome, not the dice.
With multi-classing, it's always tradeoffs. You get, and you give. You have to determine is it worth it. You /should/ have specific goals as what you want to add to the class via MC. MC for the sake of MC is nearly always the wrong answer, and it's a mistake I see new players looking for advice on all the time. Take the OP for example. He's looking for a fighter/paladin build, but has no stated goals. This is a classic case of looking to MC for the sake of MC. So you're giving away or delaying features of paladin...with no true goal other than having "fighter" as part of the name. This is a mistake.
honestly, ive seen powerful sorcerer warlock etc paladin multiclass builds, so i was just interested if there was a potentially strong build for fighter mc, mostly due to the fact that i love both classes and was curious if they worked together beneficially.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
— δ ψινο • the croc master • hε/hιm δ — “sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.” ——————| EXTENDED SIG |—————— Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
While I love multiclassing, I find it hard to justify this one in particular. Paladins want one thing - more spell slots, meaning there are two ways to multiclass "up" as a paladin and that is as a warlock or sorcerer. Sorcerer lets you use charisma for attacks and gives you spell slots on short rest, while sorcerer lets you cast spells as a bonus action and gives you a ton of spell slots.
Is multiclassing fighter with paladin the best? No, that much is clear. Is it viable and able to yield good results? Very much so! The way I approach paladin is the same way I approach the other martials: give them a greatsword and GWM and go to town. I personally smite on crits almost exclusively with few exceptions, so my slots tend to suffice. A purebred paladin has no issue getting their task done, two or 3 levels of fighter really doesn't rob them of that ability but supplements to it. It feels great to go nova and blow your slots on smites, but afterwards? It feels awful. Having fighter in the mix means you don't have to smite if you want to perform some burst, action surge has you covered, or you do more with it.
Sorcadins and hexadins both come with their baggage, to be honest. If you get paladin to 6 for their aura, and multiclass into sorcerer for another 3, you really only get on more 3rd level slot compared to a regular paladin, and just enough sorc points to either quicken one spell a day or what have you. You still rely on long rests to get your slots back. Sorcadins are still MAD, and you can't necessarily guarantee gauntlets of ogre strength or a hill giant belt. Being MAD, your CHA might not be up to snuff, and your save DC for the precious quicken hold person combo might not go off as needed (that's not to make any mention of that option being limited only to humanoids.) Two more levels and you gain access to 3rd level spells (if your campaign even gets to that point) and only have two more 4th level slots, while the pure paladin's immune to fear and has improved divine smite.
Hexadins, while solving MADness and long rest-dependency, still have a lot of conflicting mechanics. If you play the popular choice of vengeance hexadin, you have bonus action bloat that translates into requiring multiple rounds of set up, and you only have enough pact slots for one eldritch/divine smite combo before needing a nap. Access to EB+agonizing blast is pretty sweet though!
Look, there's nothing wrong with either option, there's plenty of reason why sorcadins and hexadins are both praised and beloved and recommended to all, but In short, aside from the awkard-puberty of lvl 5, you don't have issues as a paladin fighter. Your gameplay is supplemented. One slot more or less in your multiclass choice isn't going to make that big a difference, but an action surge with GWM+sacred weapon/vow of enmity? That will, and always will no matter what.
As with all things, there are pros and cons. Three levels of champion fighter, as mentioned give you an expanded crit range. Also as mentioned it can get you proficiency on con saves, which you may or may not value more highly than wis/cha saves. For a paladin, personally, I value wis/cha saves higher but not all players value things at the same rate.
Champ fighter also gives you action surge and second wind though, which nearly all paladins I think would value about equally, and fairly highly. I don't generally value crit fishing highly though, so for me champ fighter is a bust. The MC paladin at my table has added war priest, and uses war priest strike to get himself extra attacks with his 2h. When he has WPS available, he can put out 3 swings in a round and smite on all of them. He's got very nasty, bursty DPS, and it's there when he wants it until it's been expended. He determines when he's awesome, not the dice.
With multi-classing, it's always tradeoffs. You get, and you give. You have to determine is it worth it. You /should/ have specific goals as what you want to add to the class via MC. MC for the sake of MC is nearly always the wrong answer, and it's a mistake I see new players looking for advice on all the time. Take the OP for example. He's looking for a fighter/paladin build, but has no stated goals. This is a classic case of looking to MC for the sake of MC. So you're giving away or delaying features of paladin...with no true goal other than having "fighter" as part of the name. This is a mistake.
honestly, ive seen powerful sorcerer warlock etc paladin multiclass builds, so i was just interested if there was a potentially strong build for fighter mc, mostly due to the fact that i love both classes and was curious if they worked together beneficially.
They do work beneficially. I think there is some synergy, just probably not as much as with the bard, warlock and sorcerer imo. But Action Surge is always a strong option. If you like playing a more pure melee type character, then play what you like! There is no truly right or wrong answer here, just our opinions. :)
Multiclassing to a non-caster class as a Paladin doesn't hurt spells slots by a ton, if you only go 2-3 levels. A 17th level paladin gets 4/3/3/3/1 spell slots; while a 20th level gets 4/3/3/3/2. So you loose out on 1 5th level spell slot that can't be used for Smites anyway. So 17 Paladin/3 Fighter can be a really good way to pick up some really good short rest abilities. You would be sacrificing 1 5th level spell slot, 1 ASI, 30' auras, and 20th level Oath capstone. You would be gaining second wind, action surge, 2nd fighting style, and whatever abilities you get from your subclass choice. It may or may not be worth it to you depending on your Oath and Subclass choices.
For my halfling paladin of Tymora, I think 3 levels of battle master will probably be worth it as he is a Dex based Oath of the Watchers Paladin (still has a 15 STR due to rolled stats) to use Heavy Armor if he finds a nice set and it's worth it.
I think it matters on your role in the group but it sounds like you want to be the main melee combatant. What about an Eldritch Knight fighter with 2 lvl in paladin so you have divine smite and then you have multi attacks, action surges, and some more spell slots then with a different fighter. The ability inc/feats are also nice for you to adjust where your party needs you. I also think booming blade with war magic is pretty funny combo for a jr paladin and then action surge to command:retreat into opportunity attack. Depending on your DM, you may get a bonus action attack from war magic in before they retreat from your command. It looks like it could be a fun build but like any multiclassing there are downsides. No aura, spell slots with higher spells, etc. Truthfully it has peaked my interest in trying this build. Plus i find that if you like your character, the build will come and your DM will work with you.
Multiclassing to a non-caster class as a Paladin doesn't hurt spells slots by a ton, if you only go 2-3 levels. A 17th level paladin gets 4/3/3/3/1 spell slots; while a 20th level gets 4/3/3/3/2. So you loose out on 1 5th level spell slot that can't be used for Smites anyway. So 17 Paladin/3 Fighter can be a really good way to pick up some really good short rest abilities. You would be sacrificing 1 5th level spell slot, 1 ASI, 30' auras, and 20th level Oath capstone. You would be gaining second wind, action surge, 2nd fighting style, and whatever abilities you get from your subclass choice. It may or may not be worth it to you depending on your Oath and Subclass choices.
For my halfling paladin of Tymora, I think 3 levels of battle master will probably be worth it as he is a Dex based Oath of the Watchers Paladin (still has a 15 STR due to rolled stats) to use Heavy Armor if he finds a nice set and it's worth it.
The problem when you do those calculations at level 20 is that you miss the biggest problem with multiclassing: that you slow down all your progress x levels. If you dip with 3 levels of fighter, you slow your progress as a paladin by 3 levels. So, if you multiclass to fighter at your lvl 5 paladin, you won't get your lvl 3 spell slot until your lvl 12 (in addition to all the other stuff the paladin gets).
If that sounds good to you for your build, go ahead. But calculating what you are going to have at x level is fallacious. Unless you are going to play a oneshoot, builds are not static.
After over a year, I'm finally coming back to this lmao. I made a pretty decent paladin fighter tank, 17 Ancients Paladin/3 Battlemaster fighter. I took the 3 level fighter dip for the fighting style (+1 for defense), Action Surge ofc, Second Wind is always nice, and the Battlemaster maneuvers too. I'd say the most helpful things from fighter would be the fighting style and action surge, but the Battlemaster maneuvers can be really good. Riposte is always nice for a tank with an AC of 30, Grappling Attack is really good when paired with grappler ofc, and I'm kind of an addict for Menacing Attack. I made the build mostly for a tanky/high save character, so the goal wasn't really a DPR boost thing, but divine smites are really good for boosting damage. I would say that if you go mainly fighter, it's kind of a hassle to get your charisma up as well as your strength (I haven't tried fighterdin dex based yet), but the Action Surge is definitely worth it. I took 3 levels of fighter too bc taking 2 levels wasn't really worth is considering that 18th level paladin doesn't give me anything useful.
— δ ψινο • the croc master • hε/hιm δ — “sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.” ——————| EXTENDED SIG |—————— Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
After over a year, I'm finally coming back to this lmao. I made a pretty decent paladin fighter tank, 17 Ancients Paladin/3 Battlemaster fighter. I took the 3 level fighter dip for the fighting style (+1 for defense), Action Surge ofc, Second Wind is always nice, and the Battlemaster maneuvers too. I'd say the most helpful things from fighter would be the fighting style and action surge, but the Battlemaster maneuvers can be really good. Riposte is always nice for a tank with an AC of 30, Grappling Attack is really good when paired with grappler ofc, and I'm kind of an addict for Menacing Attack. I made the build mostly for a tanky/high save character, so the goal wasn't really a DPR boost thing, but divine smites are really good for boosting damage. I would say that if you go mainly fighter, it's kind of a hassle to get your charisma up as well as your strength (fighterdin is not good for dex based fighters at least for me), but the Action Surge is definitely worth it. I took 3 levels of fighter too bc taking 2 levels wasn't really worth is considering that 18th level paladin doesn't give me anything useful.
Disclaimer is that all my opinion and I'm not an expert.
But again, I built it at straight level 20, most of the multiclasses where you have to start at low levels sucks really bad for a while because you're always behind the rest of the non multiclassing party members
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
— δ ψινο • the croc master • hε/hιm δ — “sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.” ——————| EXTENDED SIG |—————— Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
I have not played a Paladin multiclass, but if I did and I was going enough to get a subclass I would go Eldritch Knight for the shield spell, cantrips and a caster level.
I'm relatively new to multi classing and I've been looking for a paladin fighter build, but I haven't found any yet? I'm honestly probably not searching hard enough but I was curious to see if it's a good idea.
— δ ψινο • the croc master • hε/hιm δ —
“sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.”
——————| EXTENDED SIG |——————
Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
I'm not sure, but I'd assume a Champion Fighter 3/Paladin X would be good for crit-fishing.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew: Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
alright thanks sm
— δ ψινο • the croc master • hε/hιm δ —
“sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.”
——————| EXTENDED SIG |——————
Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
OK. But why? You have a legendary character class already.
I think a fighter multi is pretty neat. I play one myself, where I started out with a level in fighter for that con proficiency. In hindsight, now that I'm a little more experienced, I have to say it comes with it's strengths and weaknesses.
When you pick fighter as your starting, you're forgoing your saves in CHA and WIS. This can be a pretty big deal, but I shored up those weaknesses by going devotion paladin. Gaining access to immunity to charm, and fear a bit later, meant that the wisdom save was fairly redundant for me, and the CHA save? Well, since I have a +6 mod along with my aura, I just don't miss it.
In my opinion, this kind of character build means you really want to get your hands on ogre gauntlets early on, which was available to me in AL, but I understand that doesn't apply for everyone. But by forgoing strength, you afford yourself the opportunity to grab those neat feats like GWM, or up your CHA for your saves. Devotion paladin has excellent synergy with GWM thanks to its channel divinity.
I recently participated in a module with a two other paladin multiclasses, two other sorcadins, one vengeance and one conquest. Excuse me for tooting my own horn here, but I think I stood out as pulling my weight fairly well. In a combat encounter centered around attrition and multiple waves of enemies, devotion excels because its higher accuracy meant I rarely missed as opposed to my peers who missed the expected amount. My playstyle meant I was very conservative with my spell slots and smites, but using my concentration on spirit shroud along with gwm, and improved divine smite meant I was hitting like a truck every turn, and proccing the bonus action from GWM fairly frequently in subsequent turns. Yes, I missed out an entire round just buffing myself with sprit shroud and channel divinity, but it was worth it.
Just keep in mind, lvl 5 really hurts for you because you can't extra attack until lvl 6 (assuming you only took one level of fighter starting out).
Champion fighter makes some sense, but as with everything, there are some pros and cons.
Pros
3 levels of Champion will get the expanded crit range, all the time.
Extra fighting style
Action Surge - if I were ever going to multi-class into fighter from paladin, this is the reason to do it imo. Action Surge is very powerful.
Cons
Lack of spell slots is already an issue for paladins, but compounded by multi-classing into something without it's own spell slots. Bard, sorcerer or warlock may make better multi-class options, therefore. A paladin actually gains more spell slots, instead of losing them with these options.
3 levels of Champion gives expanded crit range all the time, but 1 level of Hexblade gives expanded crit range once per short rest with Hexblade's Curse. Unless your DM likes to throw multiple combats at you, you will likely have it for most fights. Also, Hexblades's Curse gives more than just expanded crit range, it also gives added damage of your proficiency bonus and heals you when the target dies. So, for 1 level of Warlock, you arguably have something more powerful than the capstone of 3 levels into Champion fighter.
I'm sure there are other cons to the paladin fighter combination, but these came to mind right away. I can see the lure. Action Surge, perma expanded crit range are very good. A second fighting style is always nice, but hardly game changing. I would probably go with a charisma based spell caster for my multi-class, but that's not to say that fighter doesn't also make sense. It may also fit your backstory better for a fighter/paladin.
I think the paladin saves of Wis and Cha are generally better options than the fighter saves of Str and Con. While all failed saves can be bad, failing Wis and Cha saves can be particularly bad! As a paladin, adding Con proficiency would be nice for maintaining concentration on a spell, but there are other ways to increase that save without having proficiency.
"Strength: Opposing a force that would physically move or bind you
Dexterity: Dodging out of harm's way
Constitution: Enduring a disease, poison, or other hazard that saps vitality
Intelligence: Disbelieving certain illusions and resisting mental assaults that can be refuted with logic, sharp memory, or both
Wisdom: Resisting effects that charm, frighten, or otherwise assault your willpower
Charisma: Withstanding effects, such as possession, that would subsume your personality or hurl you to another plane of existence" - DMG
One thing to keep in mind is extra attack doesn’t stack, you get either 2 per action from pally or fighter. The only way to get to 3 is to get to 11 in fighter. So a 3- level dip for a subclass feature, or even 4 for an asi might make sense, but a 5 th level of fighter would do nothing for you. And as torvald said, it would greatly delay your spell progression. To me, not worth the trade off of delaying your auras and spells, asi and class features to pick up action surge, a little self healing and a low power subclass feature.
I think, in general, you have a point when it comes to the importance of WIS and CHA saves over concentration.
In reality, however, those saves are rare. With devotion paladin covering both charm and fear immunity, what use is that WIS save going to be for me when I've covered most of my bases? With a +14 in my CHA save, no proficiency, it'd be really hard for me to fail a CHA save. But oh man, how frequently do CON saves come up? It feels so good to have a +16 and +20 to your CON and STR saves respectively. A Balor can tantrum all they want and try to whip my paladin and pull him in, but he'll never succeed. I can't physically fail a concentration check unless I take more than 34 damage.
To me, the main benefit of multiclassing into fighter is you get some of those short rest abilities. A paladin, by itself, has so few slots, it can't go all out as often as they like. It doesn't benefit from a short rest as much aside from their channel divinity (though TCOE alleviated some of that with the slot conversion). But multi-ing into battlemaster, for example, grants access to really useful maneuvers, it adds utility and power. You get action surge, and those abilities are up on a short rest like nothing ever happened, and they can add to your nova potential when you do crit. In your typical campaign that might reach level 10, a paladin who multiclasses 3 levels into battle master fighter has their spellcasting, their smites, their auras, but now gets 99% of the fighter package along with them. You're a fighter, except even better in that tier of play.
Now, would I recommend fighter multi on every paladin? Hell no, especially not one like vengeance or glory that wants to prioritize other attributes over CHA. Those paladins might not have as great saves, and they'd result on relying more on those default WIS and CHA saves. For those guys, I'd whole heartedly recommend taking resilient con!
As with all things, there are pros and cons. Three levels of champion fighter, as mentioned give you an expanded crit range. Also as mentioned it can get you proficiency on con saves, which you may or may not value more highly than wis/cha saves. For a paladin, personally, I value wis/cha saves higher but not all players value things at the same rate.
Champ fighter also gives you action surge and second wind though, which nearly all paladins I think would value about equally, and fairly highly. I don't generally value crit fishing highly though, so for me champ fighter is a bust. The MC paladin at my table has added war priest, and uses war priest strike to get himself extra attacks with his 2h. When he has WPS available, he can put out 3 swings in a round and smite on all of them. He's got very nasty, bursty DPS, and it's there when he wants it until it's been expended. He determines when he's awesome, not the dice.
With multi-classing, it's always tradeoffs. You get, and you give. You have to determine is it worth it. You /should/ have specific goals as what you want to add to the class via MC. MC for the sake of MC is nearly always the wrong answer, and it's a mistake I see new players looking for advice on all the time. Take the OP for example. He's looking for a fighter/paladin build, but has no stated goals. This is a classic case of looking to MC for the sake of MC. So you're giving away or delaying features of paladin...with no true goal other than having "fighter" as part of the name. This is a mistake.
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
While I love multiclassing, I find it hard to justify this one in particular. Paladins want one thing - more spell slots, meaning there are two ways to multiclass "up" as a paladin and that is as a warlock or sorcerer. Sorcerer lets you use charisma for attacks and gives you spell slots on short rest, while sorcerer lets you cast spells as a bonus action and gives you a ton of spell slots.
honestly, ive seen powerful sorcerer warlock etc paladin multiclass builds, so i was just interested if there was a potentially strong build for fighter mc, mostly due to the fact that i love both classes and was curious if they worked together beneficially.
— δ ψινο • the croc master • hε/hιm δ —
“sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.”
——————| EXTENDED SIG |——————
Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
Is multiclassing fighter with paladin the best? No, that much is clear. Is it viable and able to yield good results? Very much so! The way I approach paladin is the same way I approach the other martials: give them a greatsword and GWM and go to town. I personally smite on crits almost exclusively with few exceptions, so my slots tend to suffice. A purebred paladin has no issue getting their task done, two or 3 levels of fighter really doesn't rob them of that ability but supplements to it. It feels great to go nova and blow your slots on smites, but afterwards? It feels awful. Having fighter in the mix means you don't have to smite if you want to perform some burst, action surge has you covered, or you do more with it.
Sorcadins and hexadins both come with their baggage, to be honest. If you get paladin to 6 for their aura, and multiclass into sorcerer for another 3, you really only get on more 3rd level slot compared to a regular paladin, and just enough sorc points to either quicken one spell a day or what have you. You still rely on long rests to get your slots back. Sorcadins are still MAD, and you can't necessarily guarantee gauntlets of ogre strength or a hill giant belt. Being MAD, your CHA might not be up to snuff, and your save DC for the precious quicken hold person combo might not go off as needed (that's not to make any mention of that option being limited only to humanoids.) Two more levels and you gain access to 3rd level spells (if your campaign even gets to that point) and only have two more 4th level slots, while the pure paladin's immune to fear and has improved divine smite.
Hexadins, while solving MADness and long rest-dependency, still have a lot of conflicting mechanics. If you play the popular choice of vengeance hexadin, you have bonus action bloat that translates into requiring multiple rounds of set up, and you only have enough pact slots for one eldritch/divine smite combo before needing a nap. Access to EB+agonizing blast is pretty sweet though!
Look, there's nothing wrong with either option, there's plenty of reason why sorcadins and hexadins are both praised and beloved and recommended to all, but In short, aside from the awkard-puberty of lvl 5, you don't have issues as a paladin fighter. Your gameplay is supplemented. One slot more or less in your multiclass choice isn't going to make that big a difference, but an action surge with GWM+sacred weapon/vow of enmity? That will, and always will no matter what.
They do work beneficially. I think there is some synergy, just probably not as much as with the bard, warlock and sorcerer imo. But Action Surge is always a strong option. If you like playing a more pure melee type character, then play what you like! There is no truly right or wrong answer here, just our opinions. :)
Multiclassing to a non-caster class as a Paladin doesn't hurt spells slots by a ton, if you only go 2-3 levels. A 17th level paladin gets 4/3/3/3/1 spell slots; while a 20th level gets 4/3/3/3/2. So you loose out on 1 5th level spell slot that can't be used for Smites anyway. So 17 Paladin/3 Fighter can be a really good way to pick up some really good short rest abilities. You would be sacrificing 1 5th level spell slot, 1 ASI, 30' auras, and 20th level Oath capstone. You would be gaining second wind, action surge, 2nd fighting style, and whatever abilities you get from your subclass choice. It may or may not be worth it to you depending on your Oath and Subclass choices.
For my halfling paladin of Tymora, I think 3 levels of battle master will probably be worth it as he is a Dex based Oath of the Watchers Paladin (still has a 15 STR due to rolled stats) to use Heavy Armor if he finds a nice set and it's worth it.
I think it matters on your role in the group but it sounds like you want to be the main melee combatant. What about an Eldritch Knight fighter with 2 lvl in paladin so you have divine smite and then you have multi attacks, action surges, and some more spell slots then with a different fighter. The ability inc/feats are also nice for you to adjust where your party needs you. I also think booming blade with war magic is pretty funny combo for a jr paladin and then action surge to command:retreat into opportunity attack. Depending on your DM, you may get a bonus action attack from war magic in before they retreat from your command. It looks like it could be a fun build but like any multiclassing there are downsides. No aura, spell slots with higher spells, etc. Truthfully it has peaked my interest in trying this build. Plus i find that if you like your character, the build will come and your DM will work with you.
The problem when you do those calculations at level 20 is that you miss the biggest problem with multiclassing: that you slow down all your progress x levels. If you dip with 3 levels of fighter, you slow your progress as a paladin by 3 levels. So, if you multiclass to fighter at your lvl 5 paladin, you won't get your lvl 3 spell slot until your lvl 12 (in addition to all the other stuff the paladin gets).
If that sounds good to you for your build, go ahead. But calculating what you are going to have at x level is fallacious. Unless you are going to play a oneshoot, builds are not static.
After over a year, I'm finally coming back to this lmao. I made a pretty decent paladin fighter tank, 17 Ancients Paladin/3 Battlemaster fighter. I took the 3 level fighter dip for the fighting style (+1 for defense), Action Surge ofc, Second Wind is always nice, and the Battlemaster maneuvers too. I'd say the most helpful things from fighter would be the fighting style and action surge, but the Battlemaster maneuvers can be really good. Riposte is always nice for a tank with an AC of 30, Grappling Attack is really good when paired with grappler ofc, and I'm kind of an addict for Menacing Attack. I made the build mostly for a tanky/high save character, so the goal wasn't really a DPR boost thing, but divine smites are really good for boosting damage. I would say that if you go mainly fighter, it's kind of a hassle to get your charisma up as well as your strength (I haven't tried fighterdin dex based yet), but the Action Surge is definitely worth it. I took 3 levels of fighter too bc taking 2 levels wasn't really worth is considering that 18th level paladin doesn't give me anything useful.
Here's the build tested out, I won a few 20th level gladiator arena battles with it https://ddb.ac/characters/79108503/U1pUFP
Disclaimer is that all my opinion and I'm not an expert.
— δ ψινο • the croc master • hε/hιm δ —
“sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.”
——————| EXTENDED SIG |——————
Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
But again, I built it at straight level 20, most of the multiclasses where you have to start at low levels sucks really bad for a while because you're always behind the rest of the non multiclassing party members
— δ ψινο • the croc master • hε/hιm δ —
“sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.”
——————| EXTENDED SIG |——————
Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
I have not played a Paladin multiclass, but if I did and I was going enough to get a subclass I would go Eldritch Knight for the shield spell, cantrips and a caster level.