I don’t really get worrying about level 20. Unless you start at a really high level, you will never see 20. I played a game weekly, very long sessions, for months fighting creatures higher rating then we should have been able to take on because my character was a beast and the highest he got was 12. I recently finished Critical Role campaign one and SPOILERS:
They played that game for 5 years, 4+ hour sessions almost weekly and it took them the full 5 years to hit that level - and then the game ended, they never even used the level 20 abilities.
I have a paladin of conquest lvl 11 and Fighter 2 for the extra fighting style and action surge which means O can basically double my damage output on my turn. And I would multiclass in something else if I could get a higher AC.
I like the idea of multiclassing with paladin for both ability combos and role playing reasons.
I have a Fighter 6 / Paladin 4 / Cleric 10 character planned with a story arc from a person who has been kicked to the bottom of the heap and tends to focus on self preservation towards a redemption. The DM made it even more interesting when the character's closest bond - his brother - turned out to be a revenant. The campaign is on pause (level 6 so far) but now the likelihood of the paladin being Vengence is pretty sure. The Cleric Domain is planned to be Forge - "Slama" Kovac wants to restore his family heritage as smiths (Kovac is smith in croatian...and slama "little straw" in croatian is his derogatory nickname as his family were reduced to be scrounging thatchers. By taking cleric to level 10 the character can use Divine Intervention at level 20 for the first time and have their sacrifices and developed faith finally and emphatically vindicated by Helm directly interceding in some crisis.
Did the character start as a theory crafted multiclass - yes. Is it optimized - not really. Does the character have a well developed story and personality to roleplay with - yes (far beyond the brief outline here).
To be honest I feel like a single class paladin has less role playing built in to a story arc than a multi class one does.
Another mutliclass paladin of the ancients 6 / dragonblood sorcerer 14 I have designed but not played yet is for a Silverymoon / High Forest area campaign. As the character starts to transform (sorcerer level 1) he does not know if it is because of family ancestry linked to the Siluvanedes (demon elf civilization from the high forest's past - see the lore wiki) or the influence of a link to a dragon (either of two great gold dragons Valamaradace or Aerosclughpalar who dwell in the area of the High Forest - see the lore wiki). The abilities of links with fire and wings etc could connect either way. I would let the DM determine the actual outcome of this story arc culminating in the wings at character level 20 (sorcerer level 14) being gold dragon wings or black demon wings.
This character also is a planned out multiclass character but it isn't for optimizing (I am missing the awesome Aura of Warding by a single level) but for RP so that the culmination of the journey of discovery of self and ancestry comes to a climax at the end of the campaign - level 20 sorc 14.
Both my ideas would not be especially weak. They miss out on the defensive party buffing paladin abilites but they have spellcaster depth adding smite slots so they would be powerful offensively.
Paladin 20 is amazing due to the fantastic oath captstones, but unless you're starting near level 20 or planning to spend an unusual amount of time gaming at level 20 there's a lot of levels to get through for the promise of a capstone that, for most characters in most campaigns, will never come. So we're not looking at a single question of 'how does paladin 20 compare to multiclass', but rather 19 different questions of "how does paladin 2 compare?" , "How does paladin 3 compare?", etc etc.
Paladin 1-6 is great for all subclasses. If you aren't taking at least 6 levels then you aren't a paladin considering multiclassing into something else, you're something else that's maybe dipping paladin. Such builds can be fine - Paladin 2 into one of the more martial subclasses of warlock, bard, or sorcerer can work great for instance - but I wouldn't call them "paladin builds".
So taking paladin 6 as a given...
Paladin 7: the main thing you get is your oath aura feature. Some are fantastic or even build defining, but others are largely forgettable. Ancients, Conquerors, and Oathbreakers value paladin 7 very highly, but Devotees and Avengers don't care as much. Crowns may or may not care depending on the party and their roll in it. Redeemers, with their wider range version of the same feature care more.
Paladin 8: An ASI. ASIs are very valuable, particularly for martial classes and those with heavy pressure on their ability scores. Paladin is both of those things, so if you took level 7 then you definitely want level 8 as well. However, it's worth keeping in mind that every class grants ASIs.
Paladin 9: 3rd level spells & spell slots. How important this is is highly dependent on how much you care about your paladin & oath spells. Conquerors absolutely love level 9, access to Fear is almost as big a prize for them as their build-defining Aura of Conquest. Crowns pick up Spirit Guardians, and that's nearly the biggest reason to take that oath in the first place. Many of these spells can also be accessed by multiclassing into a spellcasting class, especially Divine Soul sorcerer or Lore Bard, but accessing higher level spells can take longer. For instance, a a conqueror can get Fear from five levels of Sorcerer or Warlock. However, that conqueror is going to take 7 levels for Oath of Conquest, and then is going to take one more for the ability score improvement. At that point, accessing Fear from their oath spells is only one level away, compared to the five levels they'd have to take to get it from a multiclass. A Crown Paladin is going to take 6 levels for Aura of Protection, at which point they are three levels away from Spirit Guardians via paladin levels, but 5 levels away via Divine Soul Sorcerer levels - a smaller but still not insignificant advantage to not multiclassing. Even if you're smiting all your spell slots away and not actually casting spells, a higher level of spell slots still feels good for bigger smites, but that can be deceiving, since if all you want are spell slots to smite with then you'll get faster access to more and higher level spell slots by multiclassing into a primary caster class.
Paladin 10: Aura of Courage, for immunity to frighten. Cool, but unfortunately something of a ribbon, since enemies using frighten effects aren't all that common, and your Aura of Protection already insulates yourself and nearby allies via a boost to saving throws. Conquerors present a notable exception, however, as their favorite and best spell is Fear, an unfriendly 30 foot cone. Suddenly worrying about frighten is an every-fight issue for your party instead of a rare outlier. Aura of Courage goes a long way to makeing that cone easier to use effectively. It's also good for Fallen Aasimar paladins, effectively making their frightening burst racial ability party friendly.
Paladin 11: Improved Divine Smite is great, any paladin would love having it, but was it worth the investment to get there? For Conquerors the answer might be an easy yes, since any paladin is happy up to Aura of Protection at level 6, and conquerors of course want level 7 for Aura of Conquest, and level 8 for the ASI (they can get it from other classes, but it was only one level away instead of 4), and level 9 for Fear (they can get it from other classes, but it was only one level away instead of 5), and level 10 for Aura of Courage (a ribbon for other paladins, but a nice feature for Conquerors). So after all of that, it's only one more level for IDS, and for one level of course it's worth it.
On the other hand, for your typical crit-fishing, divine-smiting Avenger, though? The trip there is harder for them to justify, since they don't care as much about the levels inbetween. Improved Divine Smite would be great for them, but that's a lot of levels that the Vengeance paladin doesn't care a lot about to get to a feature that they do, levels where they could have been getting more spell slots and more relevant features from multiclassing something else. Compare to 5 levels of sorcerer, with less HP, but the same ASI, more and higher level spell slots to smite with, better spell list access, and metamagic for quicken or twin. Or maybe 4 levels of sorcerer and one of hexblade for the expanded crit range from hexblade's curse.
After level 11, you get a similar situation running from levels 12 to 20. Pretty much every oath has an amazing capstone at level 20, but not every oath has a compelling 15th level feature, and paladin features otherwise over those levels can be a bit lacking depending on your build priorities and whether or not you actually care about the specific 4th and 5th level paladin spells you gain or whether you only care about the slots for smiting, which again you'll get more of from multiclassing into a full caster class.
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Paladin Oath of Vengeance all 20 levels for Avenging angel. Focus on Haste and your speed is 120 flying
Keoni Bush
I almost always multiclass.
ddb.ac/characters/2992368/0YEsEX
I don’t really get worrying about level 20. Unless you start at a really high level, you will never see 20. I played a game weekly, very long sessions, for months fighting creatures higher rating then we should have been able to take on because my character was a beast and the highest he got was 12. I recently finished Critical Role campaign one and SPOILERS:
They played that game for 5 years, 4+ hour sessions almost weekly and it took them the full 5 years to hit that level - and then the game ended, they never even used the level 20 abilities.
Add 2 lvls of Spore Druid for additional 1d6 melee damage for 10 minutes, and 6 auto damage per round.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I have a paladin of conquest lvl 11 and Fighter 2 for the extra fighting style and action surge which means O can basically double my damage output on my turn. And I would multiclass in something else if I could get a higher AC.
@Aaronwho
How do you get spells from the fighter class on your sheet?
Est Sularus oth Mithas
That build is an Eldritch Knight so he has spell casting and you can just add spells same as you would a wizard or any other caster.
I like the idea of multiclassing with paladin for both ability combos and role playing reasons.
I have a Fighter 6 / Paladin 4 / Cleric 10 character planned with a story arc from a person who has been kicked to the bottom of the heap and tends to focus on self preservation towards a redemption. The DM made it even more interesting when the character's closest bond - his brother - turned out to be a revenant. The campaign is on pause (level 6 so far) but now the likelihood of the paladin being Vengence is pretty sure. The Cleric Domain is planned to be Forge - "Slama" Kovac wants to restore his family heritage as smiths (Kovac is smith in croatian...and slama "little straw" in croatian is his derogatory nickname as his family were reduced to be scrounging thatchers. By taking cleric to level 10 the character can use Divine Intervention at level 20 for the first time and have their sacrifices and developed faith finally and emphatically vindicated by Helm directly interceding in some crisis.
Did the character start as a theory crafted multiclass - yes. Is it optimized - not really. Does the character have a well developed story and personality to roleplay with - yes (far beyond the brief outline here).
To be honest I feel like a single class paladin has less role playing built in to a story arc than a multi class one does.
Another mutliclass paladin of the ancients 6 / dragonblood sorcerer 14 I have designed but not played yet is for a Silverymoon / High Forest area campaign. As the character starts to transform (sorcerer level 1) he does not know if it is because of family ancestry linked to the Siluvanedes (demon elf civilization from the high forest's past - see the lore wiki) or the influence of a link to a dragon (either of two great gold dragons Valamaradace or Aerosclughpalar who dwell in the area of the High Forest - see the lore wiki). The abilities of links with fire and wings etc could connect either way. I would let the DM determine the actual outcome of this story arc culminating in the wings at character level 20 (sorcerer level 14) being gold dragon wings or black demon wings.
This character also is a planned out multiclass character but it isn't for optimizing (I am missing the awesome Aura of Warding by a single level) but for RP so that the culmination of the journey of discovery of self and ancestry comes to a climax at the end of the campaign - level 20 sorc 14.
Both my ideas would not be especially weak. They miss out on the defensive party buffing paladin abilites but they have spellcaster depth adding smite slots so they would be powerful offensively.
Paladin 20 is amazing due to the fantastic oath captstones, but unless you're starting near level 20 or planning to spend an unusual amount of time gaming at level 20 there's a lot of levels to get through for the promise of a capstone that, for most characters in most campaigns, will never come. So we're not looking at a single question of 'how does paladin 20 compare to multiclass', but rather 19 different questions of "how does paladin 2 compare?" , "How does paladin 3 compare?", etc etc.
Paladin 1-6 is great for all subclasses. If you aren't taking at least 6 levels then you aren't a paladin considering multiclassing into something else, you're something else that's maybe dipping paladin. Such builds can be fine - Paladin 2 into one of the more martial subclasses of warlock, bard, or sorcerer can work great for instance - but I wouldn't call them "paladin builds".
So taking paladin 6 as a given...
Paladin 7: the main thing you get is your oath aura feature. Some are fantastic or even build defining, but others are largely forgettable. Ancients, Conquerors, and Oathbreakers value paladin 7 very highly, but Devotees and Avengers don't care as much. Crowns may or may not care depending on the party and their roll in it. Redeemers, with their wider range version of the same feature care more.
Paladin 8: An ASI. ASIs are very valuable, particularly for martial classes and those with heavy pressure on their ability scores. Paladin is both of those things, so if you took level 7 then you definitely want level 8 as well. However, it's worth keeping in mind that every class grants ASIs.
Paladin 9: 3rd level spells & spell slots. How important this is is highly dependent on how much you care about your paladin & oath spells. Conquerors absolutely love level 9, access to Fear is almost as big a prize for them as their build-defining Aura of Conquest. Crowns pick up Spirit Guardians, and that's nearly the biggest reason to take that oath in the first place. Many of these spells can also be accessed by multiclassing into a spellcasting class, especially Divine Soul sorcerer or Lore Bard, but accessing higher level spells can take longer. For instance, a a conqueror can get Fear from five levels of Sorcerer or Warlock. However, that conqueror is going to take 7 levels for Oath of Conquest, and then is going to take one more for the ability score improvement. At that point, accessing Fear from their oath spells is only one level away, compared to the five levels they'd have to take to get it from a multiclass. A Crown Paladin is going to take 6 levels for Aura of Protection, at which point they are three levels away from Spirit Guardians via paladin levels, but 5 levels away via Divine Soul Sorcerer levels - a smaller but still not insignificant advantage to not multiclassing. Even if you're smiting all your spell slots away and not actually casting spells, a higher level of spell slots still feels good for bigger smites, but that can be deceiving, since if all you want are spell slots to smite with then you'll get faster access to more and higher level spell slots by multiclassing into a primary caster class.
Paladin 10: Aura of Courage, for immunity to frighten. Cool, but unfortunately something of a ribbon, since enemies using frighten effects aren't all that common, and your Aura of Protection already insulates yourself and nearby allies via a boost to saving throws. Conquerors present a notable exception, however, as their favorite and best spell is Fear, an unfriendly 30 foot cone. Suddenly worrying about frighten is an every-fight issue for your party instead of a rare outlier. Aura of Courage goes a long way to makeing that cone easier to use effectively. It's also good for Fallen Aasimar paladins, effectively making their frightening burst racial ability party friendly.
Paladin 11: Improved Divine Smite is great, any paladin would love having it, but was it worth the investment to get there? For Conquerors the answer might be an easy yes, since any paladin is happy up to Aura of Protection at level 6, and conquerors of course want level 7 for Aura of Conquest, and level 8 for the ASI (they can get it from other classes, but it was only one level away instead of 4), and level 9 for Fear (they can get it from other classes, but it was only one level away instead of 5), and level 10 for Aura of Courage (a ribbon for other paladins, but a nice feature for Conquerors). So after all of that, it's only one more level for IDS, and for one level of course it's worth it.
On the other hand, for your typical crit-fishing, divine-smiting Avenger, though? The trip there is harder for them to justify, since they don't care as much about the levels inbetween. Improved Divine Smite would be great for them, but that's a lot of levels that the Vengeance paladin doesn't care a lot about to get to a feature that they do, levels where they could have been getting more spell slots and more relevant features from multiclassing something else. Compare to 5 levels of sorcerer, with less HP, but the same ASI, more and higher level spell slots to smite with, better spell list access, and metamagic for quicken or twin. Or maybe 4 levels of sorcerer and one of hexblade for the expanded crit range from hexblade's curse.
After level 11, you get a similar situation running from levels 12 to 20. Pretty much every oath has an amazing capstone at level 20, but not every oath has a compelling 15th level feature, and paladin features otherwise over those levels can be a bit lacking depending on your build priorities and whether or not you actually care about the specific 4th and 5th level paladin spells you gain or whether you only care about the slots for smiting, which again you'll get more of from multiclassing into a full caster class.