Planning a Paladin / Hexblade (possibly eventually going for Hexsorcadin down the road), and I wanted some advice.
Level 1 - I take Paladin. Heavy armor is too good to pass up.
Level 2 - I was thinking I'd take my first level of Hexblade Warlock here, as I get those Warlock spells, the Hexblade curse, the spell slots that come back on short-rest.... you know the deal.
Hex and Shield will be my first two spells known.
My question is about the Cantrip selection. I feel compelled to take Eldritch blast, even if i'm usually doing melee, its just too good.
So i'm thinking about Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade.
I get why Booming Blade is popular, but that kind of 'battlefield control' type of situation doesn't come up much in my current campaign. (Frankly, half the time the DM just says "Eh, we don't need a map for this one.")
I’ll answer your question about Booming Blade versus GFB - there’s a few provisos. If you’re just looking to deal damage, green-flame blade will come up more often than booming blade, but it’s also very campaign-dependent. Fire damage is very commonly resisted, and thunder damage is not.
Without a way to extend your reach or escape melee, however, there’s very little chance that you’ll trigger the extra damage from booming blade, but it’s a good way to pin an enemy if you intend on tanking, perhaps with Armor of Agathys. If you go down the PAM/War Caster route, booming blade is excellent against melee enemies, and you’ll have eldritch blast, hexblade’s curse and hex for range. You need two enemies close to you to trigger GFB’s bonus, however, which may not come up very often depending on if you tend to fight swarms of weaker enemies or large, powerful enemies.
As per your heavy armour assertion, that depends entirely on your stats. If you have a spare 14 to throw in to DEX, that’s less of an investment than the minimum 15 you’ll need to wear heavy armour without penalties. Paladin also doesn’t get smite until level 2. It might be taking paladin level 1 anyway and instead rolling starting gold, and buying medium armour and whatever else you need instead. There is a 1 AC penalty, but that’s not a huge amount especially with spells like Ceremony and Shield of Faith.
Additional multiclassing into sorcerer sounds good on paper, but you won’t get much benefit from it until a pretty hefty mid campaign three level investment. You might find it’s not worth it.
That’s my thoughts. I’d say more but it’d be getting into the realm of serious theorising which wouldn’t help you much.
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Planning a Paladin / Hexblade (possibly eventually going for Hexsorcadin down the road), and I wanted some advice.
Level 1 - I take Paladin. Heavy armor is too good to pass up.
Level 2 - I was thinking I'd take my first level of Hexblade Warlock here, as I get those Warlock spells, the Hexblade curse, the spell slots that come back on short-rest.... you know the deal.
Hex and Shield will be my first two spells known.
My question is about the Cantrip selection. I feel compelled to take Eldritch blast, even if i'm usually doing melee, its just too good.
So i'm thinking about Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade.
I get why Booming Blade is popular, but that kind of 'battlefield control' type of situation doesn't come up much in my current campaign. (Frankly, half the time the DM just says "Eh, we don't need a map for this one.")
Thoughts? How do i get the most of this?
I’ll answer your question about Booming Blade versus GFB - there’s a few provisos. If you’re just looking to deal damage, green-flame blade will come up more often than booming blade, but it’s also very campaign-dependent. Fire damage is very commonly resisted, and thunder damage is not.
Without a way to extend your reach or escape melee, however, there’s very little chance that you’ll trigger the extra damage from booming blade, but it’s a good way to pin an enemy if you intend on tanking, perhaps with Armor of Agathys. If you go down the PAM/War Caster route, booming blade is excellent against melee enemies, and you’ll have eldritch blast, hexblade’s curse and hex for range. You need two enemies close to you to trigger GFB’s bonus, however, which may not come up very often depending on if you tend to fight swarms of weaker enemies or large, powerful enemies.
As per your heavy armour assertion, that depends entirely on your stats. If you have a spare 14 to throw in to DEX, that’s less of an investment than the minimum 15 you’ll need to wear heavy armour without penalties. Paladin also doesn’t get smite until level 2. It might be taking paladin level 1 anyway and instead rolling starting gold, and buying medium armour and whatever else you need instead. There is a 1 AC penalty, but that’s not a huge amount especially with spells like Ceremony and Shield of Faith.
Additional multiclassing into sorcerer sounds good on paper, but you won’t get much benefit from it until a pretty hefty mid campaign three level investment. You might find it’s not worth it.
That’s my thoughts. I’d say more but it’d be getting into the realm of serious theorising which wouldn’t help you much.