I'm mulling this combination for a one-shot campaign, and I have a couple questions.
1) Going this route, is it more sensible to take the Hexblade patron to get all attacks under CHA and reduce the dependency on STR? I like the possibilities of a Celestial patron, but it does seem like I'm giving up a huge benefit of funneling everything through one stat.
2) I've seen in other posts that this combo allows the use of Divine Smite using the Warlock spell slots, which recover on a short rest. When I read the paladin Divine Smite ability, it specifically says using a "paladin spell slot". Is there another rule or clarification I'm missing that does allow the Warlock spell slots to be used for this?
For what its worth, this would be a 3rd level character.
Hexblade is absolutely the strongest warlock patron for a paladin multiclass, and arguably the strongest patron for warlocks in general. That said, base paladin is already good enough, and base warlock already synergizes well enough with paladin that you can play other patrons for role play reasons and still have a perfectly effective character. Shifting your weapon stat to charisma does help, but it isn't as big a deal as you might think, especially at early levels. Remember that you still need at least a 15 strength to wear the heaviest armor. And if you go for medium armor instead then you need at least a 14 dexterity to make that work, plus a 13 strength to multiclass paladin, and that's already more expensive in point buy than the 15 strength is on its own. So at the earliest levels hex warrior saves only enough points in strength to bump a single score of 8 up to a 10.
It matters more in your paladin's mid levels, when you can be raising cha and weapon attack at the same time, and at later levels when maxing out just one score instead of two frees up late game ASIs for feats. But even then, strength-fixing magic items aren't all that rare. Gauntlets of ogre power to set your strength to 19 which is honestly good enough to not worry about it can be found at relatively early levels in several published adventure modules, and if you get some of those, or even better a belt of giant strength, then your weapon attack stat is covered and you can just raise charisma and move onto feats even without hex warrior.
Alternatively, if you're mostly using weapon attacks, buffs, and divine smites, and don't depend much on save DCs, then you could go the other way, raising strength or dexterity and leaving charisma at 16 for your whole career. Obviously a higher score would be nice for Aura of Protection if nothing else, but AoP is already good at a starting +3 bonus to charisma, and it can be entirely viable to leave it there, especially for vengeance paladins who don't rely on charisma to make effective use of their oath spells or channel divinity.
Even without hex warrior, a warlock dip can help paladins considerably in diversifying their resource pool. Most paladin abilities are on daily cool downs, so you need to be careful about rationing out your spell slots. Some of the longer lasting buff spells can help with this - a single bless cast at the start of combat can deliver returns equivalent to two or more divine smites over the course of a combat. As a melee character, though, you might need to invest some extra resources into shoring up your concentration saves, generally through resilient: constitution if you use two handed weapons or warcaster if you use a shield.
2+ levels of warlock smooth things out considerably with a couple of short rest slots, a patron feature, a couple cantrips, and a couple invocations. Even if you never take more than 2 levels, just those two first level slots can still remain relevant through your entire career based on bless and divine smite alone, let alone whatever other spells you might use those for. Though there again Hexblade in particular shines with access to the Shield spell, which is as good at level 20 as it is at level 1. Although shield wielders will need War Caster to cast it. But as discussed above, War Caster is already well worth consideration, all the more so if you can pick up Booming Blade as one of your warlock cantrips.
I don't want to suggest that warlock multiclass is obligatory. If you pace out your spell slot use and get some reasonable utility out of your channel divinity, or if you pick up Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, or both to hype up your at-will weapon attack damage, then a single classed paladin can stay strong all day long. And even if you're multiclassing, there are strong cases to be made for Sorcerer or Bard as alternatives to warlock. But the combination of a warlock's short rest resources with a paladin's long rest resources do make for a very versatile character. Especially with hexblade patron, but still quite good with any of the others.
Re divine smite on pact magic slots, check FAQs. Basic explanation is that there is no such thing as a "paladin spell slot". Regular daily spell slots are not associated with specific classes on multiclass characters. Note that there is such a thing as a 'pact magic' spell slot distinct from your regular daily spells, so while you can use a pact magic slot for divine smite, you cannot use a daily slot for the equivalent bladelock invocation.
It looks like this is going to happen, as we will be using secondary characters while are main PC's are in extended downtime. We would be starting at level 3. I'm looking to go with a Zariel subrace, and I can take a Feat right out the box if I also take one of our homebrew Flaws (which would be a penalty on ranged attacks, so EB is not in my plans).
Which class should I take the 2 levels in first, and has any thoughts on great weapon paladins vs. using a shield?
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I'm mulling this combination for a one-shot campaign, and I have a couple questions.
1) Going this route, is it more sensible to take the Hexblade patron to get all attacks under CHA and reduce the dependency on STR? I like the possibilities of a Celestial patron, but it does seem like I'm giving up a huge benefit of funneling everything through one stat.
2) I've seen in other posts that this combo allows the use of Divine Smite using the Warlock spell slots, which recover on a short rest. When I read the paladin Divine Smite ability, it specifically says using a "paladin spell slot". Is there another rule or clarification I'm missing that does allow the Warlock spell slots to be used for this?
For what its worth, this would be a 3rd level character.
Hexblade is absolutely the strongest warlock patron for a paladin multiclass, and arguably the strongest patron for warlocks in general. That said, base paladin is already good enough, and base warlock already synergizes well enough with paladin that you can play other patrons for role play reasons and still have a perfectly effective character. Shifting your weapon stat to charisma does help, but it isn't as big a deal as you might think, especially at early levels. Remember that you still need at least a 15 strength to wear the heaviest armor. And if you go for medium armor instead then you need at least a 14 dexterity to make that work, plus a 13 strength to multiclass paladin, and that's already more expensive in point buy than the 15 strength is on its own. So at the earliest levels hex warrior saves only enough points in strength to bump a single score of 8 up to a 10.
It matters more in your paladin's mid levels, when you can be raising cha and weapon attack at the same time, and at later levels when maxing out just one score instead of two frees up late game ASIs for feats. But even then, strength-fixing magic items aren't all that rare. Gauntlets of ogre power to set your strength to 19 which is honestly good enough to not worry about it can be found at relatively early levels in several published adventure modules, and if you get some of those, or even better a belt of giant strength, then your weapon attack stat is covered and you can just raise charisma and move onto feats even without hex warrior.
Alternatively, if you're mostly using weapon attacks, buffs, and divine smites, and don't depend much on save DCs, then you could go the other way, raising strength or dexterity and leaving charisma at 16 for your whole career. Obviously a higher score would be nice for Aura of Protection if nothing else, but AoP is already good at a starting +3 bonus to charisma, and it can be entirely viable to leave it there, especially for vengeance paladins who don't rely on charisma to make effective use of their oath spells or channel divinity.
Even without hex warrior, a warlock dip can help paladins considerably in diversifying their resource pool. Most paladin abilities are on daily cool downs, so you need to be careful about rationing out your spell slots. Some of the longer lasting buff spells can help with this - a single bless cast at the start of combat can deliver returns equivalent to two or more divine smites over the course of a combat. As a melee character, though, you might need to invest some extra resources into shoring up your concentration saves, generally through resilient: constitution if you use two handed weapons or warcaster if you use a shield.
2+ levels of warlock smooth things out considerably with a couple of short rest slots, a patron feature, a couple cantrips, and a couple invocations. Even if you never take more than 2 levels, just those two first level slots can still remain relevant through your entire career based on bless and divine smite alone, let alone whatever other spells you might use those for. Though there again Hexblade in particular shines with access to the Shield spell, which is as good at level 20 as it is at level 1. Although shield wielders will need War Caster to cast it. But as discussed above, War Caster is already well worth consideration, all the more so if you can pick up Booming Blade as one of your warlock cantrips.
I don't want to suggest that warlock multiclass is obligatory. If you pace out your spell slot use and get some reasonable utility out of your channel divinity, or if you pick up Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, or both to hype up your at-will weapon attack damage, then a single classed paladin can stay strong all day long. And even if you're multiclassing, there are strong cases to be made for Sorcerer or Bard as alternatives to warlock. But the combination of a warlock's short rest resources with a paladin's long rest resources do make for a very versatile character. Especially with hexblade patron, but still quite good with any of the others.
Re divine smite on pact magic slots, check FAQs. Basic explanation is that there is no such thing as a "paladin spell slot". Regular daily spell slots are not associated with specific classes on multiclass characters. Note that there is such a thing as a 'pact magic' spell slot distinct from your regular daily spells, so while you can use a pact magic slot for divine smite, you cannot use a daily slot for the equivalent bladelock invocation.
It looks like this is going to happen, as we will be using secondary characters while are main PC's are in extended downtime. We would be starting at level 3. I'm looking to go with a Zariel subrace, and I can take a Feat right out the box if I also take one of our homebrew Flaws (which would be a penalty on ranged attacks, so EB is not in my plans).
Which class should I take the 2 levels in first, and has any thoughts on great weapon paladins vs. using a shield?