Using 5e (2014 edition) I want to play a Lawful Good Human Vengeance Paladin to level 6, then Divine Soul Sorcerer the rest of the way, and am looking for the best build using the point-buy system with 27 points. I see him as a party-leader type, standing front/center of the party with longsword/shield, drawing the enemy's attacks and dishing it out in return (a heroic defender of the party, not simply an offensive killing machine), while serving as backup healer in case the party's Cleric goes down.
Primarily, what initial ABILITY SCORES, SKILLS, and FIGHTING STYLE to take? And then what FEATS/ASI'S, taken in what order?
Secondarily, what spell-selections are the aforementioned choices best paired with?
BACKGROUND:
I've been playing a "draft" version of a level 3 Paladin for a couple months, but my DM is fine with me rejiggering him since I'm new to 5e (2014 edition) and had only played 1e & 2e previously. I joined a campaign in-progress, with the rest of the party consisting of a Cleric, Druid, Bard, and Barbarian (and sometimes a Ranger).
I've never played a Paladin before, so I wanted to create a homage to the 1st edition Paladin I remember reading about in elementary school - that means the character must be Human and Lawful Good, a party leader, a self-sacrificing tank who puts himself between the rest of the party and as many bad guys as possible, to draw their attacks and take the hits. Classic sword-and-shield on foot, or lance-and-shield on horseback - a true knight in shining armor, inspired by the real Paladins of Charlemagne's court. I've been told Variant Human is the way to go, particularly for the bonus Feat at 1st level, so that's what my current "draft" version is.
After doing some research on 5e multiclassing, I was intrigued by the Sorcadin multiclass, particularly the Paladin 6 / Sorcerer 14 formulation, with the plan to play him straight-thru to Paladin 6 and then have a plot twist that starts him on a new path.
After digging into the Paladin Oaths, keeping in mind it will only be played through level 6, I saw Vengeance is highly recommended as being very strong through level 6, but initially I was troubled by how this could fit with keeping him Lawful Good and a party leader. "Batman" is the classic "good guy" Vengeance example, but even he's a vigilante, an outlaw, and not a leader. My guy doesn't dress in all-black, metaphorically speaking. Eventually, though, I thought of the right archetype: "The Lone Ranger", an upright man of justice who upholds the law while literally wearing a white hat, but ignores jurisdictions and does not take orders from any law enforcement organization. My version is the lone survivor of a party of six Knights of Samular who were ambushed by some sinister faction that didn't want the law interfering with their evil plans. Rather than a personal vendetta, he seeks revenge on the enemies of justice itself - the enemies of Tyr - but to defeat them he may follow a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" moral code (e.g. fighting to free slaves by destroying a slaver gang using intel provided by a competing slaver gang that wants to corner the local slave trade) and free of the political constraints of the Lords' Alliance that the Knights of Samular must operate within (e.g. don't start a war with the Drow by entering their territory to chase down slavers). My DM and another Gen X guy in my party love this formulation of a classic Paladin, so I'm pretty sold on Vengeance.
At first I did not like the various Sorcerer Origins I read about, because they muddied the Paladin backstory I had in mind and their features didn't seem to fit thematically, until a couple days ago I happened to stumble across the Divine Soul Sorcerer, which after some googling I see is extremely popular for Sorcadin builds. It also seems like a natural continuation of his Paladin backstory, where down the road he switches from being a follower of Tyr to being Tyr's prophesized "chosen one" who literally sprouts spectral wings at the end. There are two Affinities available to him: Good and Law - I'm curious if people have a preference for Cure Wounds vs. Bless for the optimum build.
CURRENT DRAFT BUILD (LEVEL 3 PALADIN):
He started out as a Variant Human (+1 STR & CHA) with 16/8/15/8/8/16, Defensive fighting style (seems like a no-brainer, given my longsword/shield preference for role-playing reasons), and Shield Master as his Variant Human feat (it doesn't seem like a great feat, but it fits from a roleplay standpoint by giving him better ability to control the battle via pushing enemies away from back-line members or pushing enemies to the ground for nearby party members to hit with advantage - although I'm open to other ideas), with the plan to take Resilient(CON) at Paladin 4 (giving him 16 CON) and then +CHA at Sorcerer 4 & 8, and some sort of TBD cherry-on-top at Sorcerer 12. He has the Knight of the Order background. His full skill list is: Athletics, Insight, Intimidation, Persuasion, and Religion - originally I picked Arcana with an eye ahead to when I switch to Sorcerer, but now that I've discovered DSS, and given how he's a member of the Knights of Samular who worship Tyr and his future DSS backstory will probably involve him fulfilling a prophecy of Tyr, Religion now seems like a better choice, while Intimidation/Persuasion are for role-playing his Charisma focus and party leader aspects.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I'm having second thoughts on Shield Master - it just doesn't seem that strong of a feat, or am I wrong?
I'm also considering the Inspiring Leader feat, which is said to be very helpful to the entire party and one of the best feats in the game (and would be fun to roleplay and consistent with the Paladin being a party leader), except the problem with it is with it boosting everyone in the party prior to every combat, people say that DM's inevitably tend to compensate for the party being broadly stronger by upping the CR of the campaign, so my character faces stronger enemies and is weaker compared to the other party members whose feats make them more powerful rather than using one of their feats to benefit everyone in the party evenly as I am.
I've also seen people recommend choosing Custom Lineage rather than Variant Human, and (since I insist on playing an old-school 1e Human Lawful Good Paladin, not some other race like Fey Touched) making him just like a Variant Human except for putting +2 into one attribute rather than +1 into two attributes - people claim this lets me start out-of-the-gate with CHA 18, but the 2014 Player's Handbook and the DnD Beyond character creator don't let me have more than 15 points in an ability before adding the racial bonus, so that would only get me to CHA 17. Also, the DnD Beyond character creator doesn't even have Custom Lineage listed as an option - but perhaps it requires my DM to own the digital version of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything in order to have Custom Lineage as an option.
Custom Lineage requires Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Note that regardless of what you build the DM will compensate because what's the point of running a combat if the party easily smashes it in a couple of rounds? If you min-max for AC, they will simply hit you with Dex-saves or Int-saves, if you max your aura they will simply increase enemy DCs or target the party members outside the aura. So regardless of how min-maxed you make your character you will never make the game trivial / easy unless you talk to the DM and other players and agree as a table to make the game trivially easy all you will do is frustrate / annoy your DM or other players at the table. So my first suggestion is to ask the DM/players how min-maxed they are building their characters, because if you are the only min-maxer at the table that's a recipe to get yourself uninvited to that game.
Now then if you still want to min-max your character for defence then this is the build you want:
Ability Scores: 15, 8, 15, 8, 8, 15 Custom Lineage +2 CHA + Feat: Telekinetic +1 CHA (this gives you a BA push to separate enemies from your allies at range) = 18 CHA at level 1
Level 1-6 - Paladin (Watchers) - This gives you a Channel Divinity to shut down one enemy or give your whole party advantage on mental saving throws, FS: Defense Feat/ASI: +2 CHA, Spells: Shield of Faith, Sanctuary, Find Steed, Zone of Truth Level 7 - Warlock (Hexblade) - Spells: Eldritch Blast, Shield, Hex - this lets you use CHA for your weapon attacks Level 8-20 - Divine Soul Sorcerer - Spells: Absorb Elements, Misty Step, Hold Person, Polymorph, Wall of Force, Hypnotic Pattern, Slow, Haste, Bigby's Hand Feats: Resilient:CON, Resilient:DEX, Tough
You damage will be pathetic but you will be essentially immortal.
I've been playing a similar build in my Eberron campaign. Started as a Vengeance Paladin, multiclassed into Aberrant Mind Sorcerer at level 7. Aberrant seemed to fit the best for storyline reasons, since we were doing a lot of adventuring in what's basically the magic version of a nuclear wasteland. I got sorcerer up to level 5 for some good offensive spells, then went back to Paladin to raise that up to 11 for Improved Divine Smite. My final goal is to end up as Paladin 13 / Sorcerer 7, so he'll have 4th level spells in both classes.
My thoughts on your build, in no particular order:
Whatever your longterm plans are, definitely get Paladin up to level 6 first, then go into sorcerer levels. You might end up switching back and forth like I did, depending on what features you find yourself wanting more of. The sorcerer's spellcasting doesn't feel super impactful until sorcerer level 5, where the big damage spells come in.
Improved Divine Smite (Paladin 11 feature) is huge. If there are other melee characters in your party, you might feel like you're falling behind as you level into Tier 3. You have plenty of ways to make up for it, just know that your baseline will be lagging if you don't do anything about it.
Spellcasting:
The question on whether to take Bless or Cure Wounds from the sorcerer side really doesn't matter, since both of these are available to prepare on your paladin side. Learn one, prepare the other.
Before picking up a cleric spell on your sorcerer side, make sure it isn't already available to your paladin side. Sorcerers get very few spells known, so accidentally wasting one hurts.
Off the top of my head, some super important spells you should consider for the sorcerer side: Absorb Elements, Shield, Healing Word, Spirit Guardians, any 3rd level area damage spell (fireball, lightning bolt, or even erupting earth or tidal wave for variety's sake), Dimension Door, Greater Restoration, Mass Cure Wounds. Definitely pick up a ranged damage cantrip or two.
Metamagic: Quickened spell is amazing, but uses your sorcerery points fast. Subtle Spell is nice if your party is routinely doing sneaky things, but otherwise feels like a waste. Twinned or Transmuted are good options.
ASIs and Feats:
Set up your point buy and racial stats to give you at least 16 str/cha as a starting point, and 14 or 16 con depending on whether you care about other stats.
You want high strength and charisma. However, boosting your strength only really affects your weapon attacks, and it's at lot easier to make up for low strength. A +X magic weapon will keep your attack bonus on track, or you could get Gauntlets of Ogre Power or even a Belt of Giant Strength. There's no charisma-setting items, and the spellcasting buff items generally target only the paladin spells or only the sorcerer spells.
Shield Master is okay. Not a bad choice, but not a great one either. It is at least nice to have a consistent use of your bonus action. If you want to keep this feat, consider pairing it with Skill Expert for expertise in shoving people around.
Inspiring Leader is a nice bit of extra HP throughout the day and makes good thematic sense. I don't think it's the best choice, but it's certainly impactful.
Warcaster would help with your concentration spells, and is near-mandatory if you plan on going 1-handed + shield and your DM cares about the somatic component of spellcasting.
Polearm Master is pretty good even with a shield, since it can still be used with a spear or staff used in one hand. The bonus action attack and reaction attack easily make up for the lower damage die, especially with Dueling fighting style. As a late-game goal, wielding a Staff of Power both as a beat-stick and for spellcasting is pretty nice.
Mobile and Alert are also worth considering, so you can get where you need to be when the fight starts.
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IN SHORT:
Using 5e (2014 edition) I want to play a Lawful Good Human Vengeance Paladin to level 6, then Divine Soul Sorcerer the rest of the way, and am looking for the best build using the point-buy system with 27 points. I see him as a party-leader type, standing front/center of the party with longsword/shield, drawing the enemy's attacks and dishing it out in return (a heroic defender of the party, not simply an offensive killing machine), while serving as backup healer in case the party's Cleric goes down.
Primarily, what initial ABILITY SCORES, SKILLS, and FIGHTING STYLE to take? And then what FEATS/ASI'S, taken in what order?
Secondarily, what spell-selections are the aforementioned choices best paired with?
BACKGROUND:
I've been playing a "draft" version of a level 3 Paladin for a couple months, but my DM is fine with me rejiggering him since I'm new to 5e (2014 edition) and had only played 1e & 2e previously. I joined a campaign in-progress, with the rest of the party consisting of a Cleric, Druid, Bard, and Barbarian (and sometimes a Ranger).
I've never played a Paladin before, so I wanted to create a homage to the 1st edition Paladin I remember reading about in elementary school - that means the character must be Human and Lawful Good, a party leader, a self-sacrificing tank who puts himself between the rest of the party and as many bad guys as possible, to draw their attacks and take the hits. Classic sword-and-shield on foot, or lance-and-shield on horseback - a true knight in shining armor, inspired by the real Paladins of Charlemagne's court. I've been told Variant Human is the way to go, particularly for the bonus Feat at 1st level, so that's what my current "draft" version is.
After doing some research on 5e multiclassing, I was intrigued by the Sorcadin multiclass, particularly the Paladin 6 / Sorcerer 14 formulation, with the plan to play him straight-thru to Paladin 6 and then have a plot twist that starts him on a new path.
After digging into the Paladin Oaths, keeping in mind it will only be played through level 6, I saw Vengeance is highly recommended as being very strong through level 6, but initially I was troubled by how this could fit with keeping him Lawful Good and a party leader. "Batman" is the classic "good guy" Vengeance example, but even he's a vigilante, an outlaw, and not a leader. My guy doesn't dress in all-black, metaphorically speaking. Eventually, though, I thought of the right archetype: "The Lone Ranger", an upright man of justice who upholds the law while literally wearing a white hat, but ignores jurisdictions and does not take orders from any law enforcement organization. My version is the lone survivor of a party of six Knights of Samular who were ambushed by some sinister faction that didn't want the law interfering with their evil plans. Rather than a personal vendetta, he seeks revenge on the enemies of justice itself - the enemies of Tyr - but to defeat them he may follow a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" moral code (e.g. fighting to free slaves by destroying a slaver gang using intel provided by a competing slaver gang that wants to corner the local slave trade) and free of the political constraints of the Lords' Alliance that the Knights of Samular must operate within (e.g. don't start a war with the Drow by entering their territory to chase down slavers). My DM and another Gen X guy in my party love this formulation of a classic Paladin, so I'm pretty sold on Vengeance.
At first I did not like the various Sorcerer Origins I read about, because they muddied the Paladin backstory I had in mind and their features didn't seem to fit thematically, until a couple days ago I happened to stumble across the Divine Soul Sorcerer, which after some googling I see is extremely popular for Sorcadin builds. It also seems like a natural continuation of his Paladin backstory, where down the road he switches from being a follower of Tyr to being Tyr's prophesized "chosen one" who literally sprouts spectral wings at the end. There are two Affinities available to him: Good and Law - I'm curious if people have a preference for Cure Wounds vs. Bless for the optimum build.
CURRENT DRAFT BUILD (LEVEL 3 PALADIN):
He started out as a Variant Human (+1 STR & CHA) with 16/8/15/8/8/16, Defensive fighting style (seems like a no-brainer, given my longsword/shield preference for role-playing reasons), and Shield Master as his Variant Human feat (it doesn't seem like a great feat, but it fits from a roleplay standpoint by giving him better ability to control the battle via pushing enemies away from back-line members or pushing enemies to the ground for nearby party members to hit with advantage - although I'm open to other ideas), with the plan to take Resilient(CON) at Paladin 4 (giving him 16 CON) and then +CHA at Sorcerer 4 & 8, and some sort of TBD cherry-on-top at Sorcerer 12. He has the Knight of the Order background. His full skill list is: Athletics, Insight, Intimidation, Persuasion, and Religion - originally I picked Arcana with an eye ahead to when I switch to Sorcerer, but now that I've discovered DSS, and given how he's a member of the Knights of Samular who worship Tyr and his future DSS backstory will probably involve him fulfilling a prophecy of Tyr, Religion now seems like a better choice, while Intimidation/Persuasion are for role-playing his Charisma focus and party leader aspects.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I'm having second thoughts on Shield Master - it just doesn't seem that strong of a feat, or am I wrong?
I'm also considering the Inspiring Leader feat, which is said to be very helpful to the entire party and one of the best feats in the game (and would be fun to roleplay and consistent with the Paladin being a party leader), except the problem with it is with it boosting everyone in the party prior to every combat, people say that DM's inevitably tend to compensate for the party being broadly stronger by upping the CR of the campaign, so my character faces stronger enemies and is weaker compared to the other party members whose feats make them more powerful rather than using one of their feats to benefit everyone in the party evenly as I am.
I've also seen people recommend choosing Custom Lineage rather than Variant Human, and (since I insist on playing an old-school 1e Human Lawful Good Paladin, not some other race like Fey Touched) making him just like a Variant Human except for putting +2 into one attribute rather than +1 into two attributes - people claim this lets me start out-of-the-gate with CHA 18, but the 2014 Player's Handbook and the DnD Beyond character creator don't let me have more than 15 points in an ability before adding the racial bonus, so that would only get me to CHA 17. Also, the DnD Beyond character creator doesn't even have Custom Lineage listed as an option - but perhaps it requires my DM to own the digital version of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything in order to have Custom Lineage as an option.
Custom Lineage requires Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Note that regardless of what you build the DM will compensate because what's the point of running a combat if the party easily smashes it in a couple of rounds? If you min-max for AC, they will simply hit you with Dex-saves or Int-saves, if you max your aura they will simply increase enemy DCs or target the party members outside the aura. So regardless of how min-maxed you make your character you will never make the game trivial / easy unless you talk to the DM and other players and agree as a table to make the game trivially easy all you will do is frustrate / annoy your DM or other players at the table. So my first suggestion is to ask the DM/players how min-maxed they are building their characters, because if you are the only min-maxer at the table that's a recipe to get yourself uninvited to that game.
Now then if you still want to min-max your character for defence then this is the build you want:
Ability Scores: 15, 8, 15, 8, 8, 15
Custom Lineage +2 CHA + Feat: Telekinetic +1 CHA (this gives you a BA push to separate enemies from your allies at range) = 18 CHA at level 1
Level 1-6 - Paladin (Watchers) - This gives you a Channel Divinity to shut down one enemy or give your whole party advantage on mental saving throws, FS: Defense
Feat/ASI: +2 CHA, Spells: Shield of Faith, Sanctuary, Find Steed, Zone of Truth
Level 7 - Warlock (Hexblade) - Spells: Eldritch Blast, Shield, Hex - this lets you use CHA for your weapon attacks
Level 8-20 - Divine Soul Sorcerer - Spells: Absorb Elements, Misty Step, Hold Person, Polymorph, Wall of Force, Hypnotic Pattern, Slow, Haste, Bigby's Hand
Feats: Resilient:CON, Resilient:DEX, Tough
You damage will be pathetic but you will be essentially immortal.
I've been playing a similar build in my Eberron campaign. Started as a Vengeance Paladin, multiclassed into Aberrant Mind Sorcerer at level 7. Aberrant seemed to fit the best for storyline reasons, since we were doing a lot of adventuring in what's basically the magic version of a nuclear wasteland. I got sorcerer up to level 5 for some good offensive spells, then went back to Paladin to raise that up to 11 for Improved Divine Smite. My final goal is to end up as Paladin 13 / Sorcerer 7, so he'll have 4th level spells in both classes.
My thoughts on your build, in no particular order:
Spellcasting:
ASIs and Feats: