Author: Haen the Heretic
The HexWatchers (and the UndeadWatchers)
Our Flagship Paladin ends up taking more levels in Sorcerer than Paladin, but make no mistake—this character is no spell-slinging sorcerer, but is instead a vigilant centurion, standing steadfast and protecting all nearby allies from harm.
So what makes this build worthy of being a Flagship? The core of the power of this build comes from the base Paladin’s level 6 feature, Aura of Protection, and the Oath of the Watchers level 7 subclass feature, Aura of the Sentinel. Aura of Protection is one of the strongest defensive abilities in the game, significantly increasing the survivability of any tactical party (tactical here meaning “willing and able to stand within 10 feet of you”). Aura of the Sentinel’s boost to initiative essentially grants the party extra turns as they leapfrog enemies in the initiative order, an ability whose potency shouldn’t need an explanation. It’s also one of the subclass auras that’s easiest to make use of, as asking your party to stick together near you in dangerous areas shouldn’t be a difficult ask (contrasted to auras that require the party stay near you throughout the entire combat, which is more difficult).
Unfortunately, so much of the power of Paladins being generally concentrated in their level 6 and 7 features means that the true power of the build does not come online until tier 2, where our power spikes. Early levels for straight-classed Paladins can struggle as the prioritization of their ability scores and available class features do not synergize especially well with the typical two paths for martial damage dealers. Our Flagship Build remedies this with the ever-popular Warlock dip, which provides us with reasonable ranged attack options for the least investment possible. In tier 2, our Auras come online, providing the party with a massive boost to survivability and action economy, single-handedly justifying our choice to be a Paladin. In tier 3 and 4, we will eschew Warlock and Paladin levels entirely for Sorcerer levels, doing our best to bring as much utility to the table as we can despite our delayed caster progression. The Paladin / Warlock / Sorcerer combination is certainly not a new concept to 5E optimization, but we believe this progression and level split is the most effective among the multitudinous options.
So before we move on, which version of the build would you like to see?
Oath of the Watchers 7 / Hexblade 2 / Divine Soul 11 (Default)
This progression starts with 1 level in Paladin, then 1 level in Hexblade Warlock, goes 6 more levels in Paladin to reach Paladin level 7, picks up a second and final Hexblade level, and then levels Sorcerer the rest of the way. Levels in Hexblade provides us with access to the shield spell early, which is only the most important defensive spell in the game. It additionally provides us with the ability to go mostly SAD (single ability-score dependent), as we can make weapon attacks with Charisma. Though our general strategy should not focus on melee weapon attacks, sometimes getting caught up in the fray is inevitable, and this build acquits itself quite well in that situation. This build also allows for opportunities to Divine Smite, though this is an ability that should be used discerningly.
We aim for 15 Strength to start so as to make the best use of our heavy armor proficiency. If the idea of a Paladin in shining heavy armor that can attack with weapons or spells while protecting their party to the utmost, this is the build for you.
Oath of the Watchers 7 / Undead 2 / Divine Soul 11 (Variant)
Here, the progression differs from the main build not just in Warlock subclass, but in the leveling order. The synergy between Repelling Blast and Form of Dread is too good to pass up, and we sink 2 levels into Warlock early. We then proceed as before, getting to Paladin 7 as soon as possible and then going Sorcerer the rest of the way. This build sacrifices the ability to cast shield from level 2 and getting Aura of Protection and Aura of the Sentinel one level early for the superior damage and control afforded to us by Undead 2.
We opt for Fey Touched due to the sheer power boost of starting with gift of alacrity. Starting with 18 Charisma also maximizes our chances to trigger the on-hit effects of eldritch blast, which become even more powerful due to the Undead Warlock’s Form of Dread. If you would like to play a Paladin with a very different gameplay “feel” than what you might have played before, to embody terror on the battlefield, frightening foes while protecting your friends, this is the build for you.
Race: Custom Lineage
Ability Score Increases – +2 Cha. Aura of Protection is going to be our main contribution to the party, so we want our Charisma as high as possible. Soon we will be using this Charisma for our attack rolls as well, so high Charisma will help there as well.
Feat – Polearm Master. This provides us with a bonus action attack and a more common way to trigger opportunity attacks, which we will be making use of.
Size – Small. Custom Lineage lets us choose between Small and Medium size. Small size has its benefits, and dungeon traversal is much easier with cheaply obtained Medium size mounts. This does, however, mean we can’t use reach polearms or longbows without attacking at disadvantage. If you’d rather attack with a polearm than a quarterstaff, you should go Medium. We do get access to dimension door, and being of Small size does limit us in regards to that spell. Unfortunately, we access it so much later than other full caster builds that the benefits of being Small up to that point and beyond are much better than being able to help our Medium or smaller sized allies out of danger in tier 4. As a reminder, there are no downsides to being Small size and wearing heavy armor.
Variable Trait – Darkvision. It’s usually more useful to have Darkvision than to have proficiency in another skill. If the party consistently needs light sources like hooded or bullseye lanterns in dungeons, the value of racial Darkvision goes down, so picking up a skill of choice is acceptable in that case.
Languages – Common, Abyssal. Paladins have access to the command spell, which means the languages you speak have mechanical significance, assuming you cannot memorize five one-word commands in the languages you expect your enemies to speak. If you have any information about what languages you might encounter in your campaign then let that guide you. Otherwise, sharing a “secret” uncommonly spoken language amongst everyone in your party so you can communicate without NPCs knowing what you’re talking about can be handy.
Ability Score Increases – +2 Cha. Aura of Protection is going to be our main contribution to the party, so we want our Charisma as high as possible. Soon we will be primarily using eldritch blast as our damage contribution, so high Charisma will help there as well.
Feat – Fey Touched (+1 Cha). Fey Touched puts our main ability score (Charisma) at 18 at level 1, which is great. Two spells known is also a significant benefit, and we will be taking gift of alacrity for our 1st level divination spell. Gift of alacrity is a fantastic spell for its level, especially when used with rest casting. Adding 1d8 to four PCs’ initiative rolls is roughly equivalent to the party having one extra turn in the critical first round of combat, which means dangerous enemies are disposed of earlier, giving them fewer chances to hurt you and your allies. This feat is simply too good for the party to pass up. If gift of alacrity isn’t available to you, or someone else in the party has this spell, we suggest you go with Telekinetic instead, which provides us with a nice use for our bonus action every turn. Disengage an ally in melee, break a grapple for free, break open a fight with an ally or enemy blocking a key corridor, move an ally out of the way for an area of effect spell, peel a climbing enemy off a wall, or give the very last little push to get a melee ally into range.
Size – Small. Custom Lineage lets us choose between Small and Medium size. Small size has its benefits, and dungeon traversal is much easier with cheaply obtained Medium size mounts. Small means no longbows (which we won’t be using with our poor Dexterity) or heavy weapons, but we won’t be taking Polearm Master so Small size won’t hinder us there. We do get access to dimension door, and being of Small size does limit us in regards to that spell. Unfortunately, we access it so much later than other full caster builds that the benefits of being Small up to that point and beyond are much better than being able to help our Medium or smaller sized allies out of danger. As a reminder, there are no downsides to being Small size and wearing heavy armor.
Variable Trait – Darkvision. It’s usually more useful to have Darkvision than to have proficiency in another skill. If the party consistently needs light sources like hooded or bullseye lanterns in dungeons, the value of racial Darkvision goes down, so picking up a skill of choice is acceptable in that case.
Languages – Common, Abyssal. Paladins have access to the command spell, which means the languages you speak have mechanical significance, assuming you cannot memorize five one-word commands in the languages you expect your enemies to speak. If you have any information about what languages you might encounter in your campaign then let that guide you. Otherwise, sharing a “secret” uncommonly spoken language amongst everyone in your party so you can communicate without NPCs knowing what you’re talking about can be handy.
Class: Paladin
Skills – Persuasion, Athletics. Athletics allows us to grapple if we want, to resist an opponent’s grapple, and for other Strength-based activities. Given that Strength is commonly a dump stat for many more optimized builds, it can be good to have one person that covers this niche. Our high Charisma means we may be the party “face,” and Persuasion is generally the most commonly used skill based on Charisma.
Divine Sense – You get to scan the area for Celestial, Fiends, and Undead. You have quite a few uses of this even early on. While some creatures can employ tools to circumvent this, most cannot, so this is an alright scouting ability, especially if you think the NPC you’re talking to is hiding something.
Lay on Hands – This is a nice bonus that will allow us to restore 1 hit point to a friend who got dropped to 0, stabilizing them and getting them back in the fight. It will scale well as we level up, adding an additional 5 hit points to our pool per level, granting us a decent store of health to use.
1st Level: gift of alacrity.
2nd Level: misty step.
Misty step FT – A free teleport, what’s not to like? Pull yourself out of melee and escape an unpleasant amount of damage.
Gift of alacrity FT – Raising allies’ initiative as well as our own increases the likelihood of taking a turn before the enemy can act–a major tactical advantage. This paired with Aura of the Sentinel later will let our party get the jump on many enemies even without surprise.
Ability Scores
15 Str, 8 Dex, 14 Con, 8 Int, 10 Wis, 15+2 Cha
15 Str, 8 Dex, 14 Con, 8 Int, 10 Wis, 15+2+1 Cha
Our main ability score is Charisma–doubly so because it will soon be able to use it for attack rolls, though even a straight-classed Paladin is advised to go this route. We need 13 Strength to multiclass in or out of Paladin, so at this point we might as well make the most of it and put enough points in it to be able to use heavy armor without hindrance. Thus we want 15 Strength to wear plate armor without impaired movement speed, and a high Constitution is good on everything. 10 Wisdom lets us start without negatives in the deadliest save stat in the game.
Background (Custom)
Skills – Stealth, Perception. Stealth is important for surprise, and Perception in turn helps us to avoid being surprised and avoid traps and the like. If you believe that you will have the time and resources to reliably scribe scrolls, you could opt to replace one of the skills chosen with Arcana. We won’t consider scroll scribing to be a necessary strategy for this build, but we will note certain spells that are good to scribe. Check out our article on spell scrolls for more information.
Languages – Infernal, Draconic. Once again, choose whatever you believe you will need in your campaign, we want command to be applicable to as many targets as possible. If you can memorize five one-word commands, opt for tools proficiencies instead. Feel free to peruse our Complete Guide to Tools for ideas.
Feature – Heart of Darkness. This feature comes from the Haunted One background. You’ve got a special trick to get your way…with commoners. If you have another background feature you would prefer, choose it.
Creator’s Note – Making a custom background is RAW. Page 125 of the Player’s Handbook 125 states: “The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and role playing suggestions. To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds.” Using this, we are making a custom background and using the Heart of Darkness feature. Like always, we do not include any information about character traits because we believe that flavor is free and that you should roleplay the character the way you feel about it.
Equipment
Paladin Starting Equipment
- A greatsword that you should sell so you can buy a quarterstaff, and a shield.
- 5 javelins, unless you’re incapable of selling your starting equipment for a quarterstaff.
- An explorer’s pack.
- Chain mail and a holy symbol.
Haunted One Background Starting Equipment
- Monster hunter’s pack. There are some unique goodies here, but if you can sell starting equipment and buy your own this is of little import.
- A set of common clothes.
- One trinket of special significance (choose one or roll on the Horror Trinkets table).
- 1 silver piece.
Purchasing Goals
- Splint then plate armor.
- Javelins so you can engage at a distance instead of running into melee.
- Component pouches, multiple if you can.
- Backup spellcasting foci. Paladins can use a holy symbol emblazoned on their shield as a foci, and for Warlock and Sorcerer spells we will be using a staff. Staves are the best option here due to being weapons as well as foci, and are more weight-efficient than having a bunch of backup shields.
- If applicable to your game, quills, inks, parchment, and other items necessary to scribe scrolls. While the rules in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything do not explicitly require these items, the rules do incur a gold cost which is implied to be on these things. If your DM allows you to simplify this by just spending 25g and getting a 1st level spell scroll, save your money for that, otherwise just buy the required items while in town. Your downtime days should be spent scribing scrolls like feather fall to have your bases covered and afford you extra flexibility with your spell slots. Remember that the DC on spell scrolls is static so if you use a scroll offensively it will not use your spell DC, but the DC of the scroll, see the Dungeon Master’s Guide (pg 199-208).
A note on spellcasting foci: The Dungeon Master’s Guide has a section on spellcasting foci where it states that magic arcane foci staves can be used as quarterstaff:
“Unless a staff’s description says otherwise, a staff can be used as a quarterstaff.”
Dungeon Master’s Guide (pg. 140)
Paladins cannot use staves as spellcasting foci, staves are for when we need to cast Warlock spells. If necessary, you can drop your quarterstaff and cast Warlock spells with a free hand and your component pouch (which you have to do for spells without material components but with somatic components anyway until you pick up War Caster).
Given the rules for Improvised Weapons (“Often, an improvised weapon is similar to an actual weapon and can be treated as such”), it could be worth asking your DM if a staff that qualifies as a spellcasting focus can double as a quarterstaff, given that there is explicit precedent for this specific functionality for magical staves.
Level 1 Strategy
We are starting Paladin for heavy armor proficiency. Chain mail and a shield are included in the starting equipment for our class, which is enough to get us to 18 AC, respectable for this stage of the game. In combat, we want to use javelins and attack from range against most enemies while they approach us to engage in melee. While in melee we will attack twice with our staff while wearing our chain mail and wielding a shield. We have no use for our reaction other than opportunity attacks, so if an enemy enters your reach, make that opportunity attack.
Note that you need to be wielding your quarterstaff or glaive to make this opportunity attack. Save Lay on Hands for between combat healing unless an ally has gone down, in which case you should give them one point of healing.
We are starting Paladin for heavy armor proficiency. Chain mail and a shield are included in the starting equipment for our class, which is enough to get us to 18 AC, respectable for this stage of the game. Procure and then throw javelins until close quarters combat is inevitable, then switch to a quarterstaff. Save Lay on Hands for between combat healing unless an ally has gone down, in which case you should give them one point of healing. Non-Polearm Master Paladins unfortunately aren’t especially strong at level 1, but we have to start here to get heavy armor proficiency. Not much we can do about it, other than enjoy the boon of our daily Fey Touched spells.
Level 2: Warlock (Paladin 1/Warlock 1)
Otherworldly Patron – The Hexblade. We now pick up our first level of Warlock in order to boost our defenses and spellcasting. The Hexblade is a strong choice that allows us to use Charisma for weapon attack and damage rolls and provides a selection of useful spells, including shield.
Expanded Spell List (Hexblade feature) – Shield is great (hopefully we’ve driven that point home by now), but wrathful smite has its uses.
Hex Warrior (Hexblade feature) – Proficiency in martial weapons, medium armor and shields is something we already had from our level in Paladin, but this allows us to select a one-handed weapon and use our Charisma modifier in place of Strength for attack and damage rolls. We will be using a quarterstaff for this.
Hexblade’s Curse (Hexblade feature) – We are never going to be the biggest damage-dealer, but as eldritch blast scales to additional beams and our proficiency bonus increases, this will eventually become a good nova option for extra damage. Use this when you are mostly eldritch blasting a target. We get Quickened Spell very late, but a Quickened Spell four-ray eldritch blast with Hexblade’s Curse is reasonable nova damage. Note that the damage bonus is small, so it will take two rounds to make up for the loss in damage per round compared to our output had we simply used our bonus action attack, and a minimum of three rounds to get a return on our investment. Use on particularly tough bosses only, or at range.
Pact Magic – Warlock’s spell slot progression is unique and recharges on a short rest. We are not taking more than 2 Warlock levels for this build, but you will use plenty of 1st level spells throughout the adventuring days in your career, so getting 1-2 of those slots back on a short rest is nice. Ideally, your party should be amenable to short resting at least once, preferably twice on an adventuring day. Always use your Pact Magic spell slots first (even to cast your non-Warlock spells, when able.)
Spell Changes: +shield, +wrathful smite, +eldritch blast, +magic stone.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: shield, wrathful smite.
Shield – As you will see across the Flagship Build Series, we believe shield is a must-have spell for any build in contention to be called the best in 5E. +5 AC for a whole round is huge, and is often the difference between taking the full brunt of a monster’s attacks and going unscathed, taking no damage at all. Do not be afraid to use this. Extremely useful on a Paladin who would otherwise be unable to do much when facing attacks at this level.
Wrathful smite – It can be useful to cast this spell, swing your staff, and hopefully frighten the creature. If you opted for Medium size, it’s actually better to use your glaive, as, you’ll want to then back away (with the quarterstaff, you’ll subject yourself to an opportunity attack, but if the creature is frightened it will be at disadvantage, so even if you plan on using this spell, quarterstaff + shield is still likely better). Frightened enemies cannot get closer to you, so with smart positioning you may be able to keep it away from not only you but your allies as well. Furthermore, since the condition to break the spell is succeeding on a Wisdom check (not save) as an action, and since frightened imposes disadvantage on ability checks, it becomes extremely difficult for most enemies to break the condition. If the enemy is dependent on being in melee, you have effectively removed them from the fight. Not bad for the cost of a 1st level spell and potentially eating one opportunity attack.
Alternatively, if you have the capability to scribe scrolls and/or a Wizard in your party, you could learn expeditious retreat or unseen servant, scribe a scroll, have the Wizard copy it down, and swap the spell out later (this can be especially beneficial for unseen servant, which the Wizard can then ritual cast without needing to spend a preparation slot on). We won’t be going Warlock 2 until Level 9 on this progression, though, so keep in mind that you won’t be able to swap out whatever spell you choose for another for a while.
Eldritch blast – The Warlock staple, we will actually not be using this very often right now because magic stone does more damage, but we’re picking it up at our only opportunity for when we improve the spell later with invocations. It does have twice the range now though.
Magic stone – If your party has summons, they will thank you. If you have an NPC tagging along with the party, this can also be used to make them relevant in combat. Lastly, this provides some much-needed help to melee martials (if you have any in your party) that don’t have other ranged options and are unable to close the gap in a given turn, and 1d6 + your spellcasting ability modifier is better damage than other cantrips in Tier 1.
Level 2 Strategy
Now that we have eldritch blast and magic stone (the latter being a priority due to 1d6 + our Charisma modifier being more damage than 1d10), we can reliably attack from a much further range than we could before. Stick to your ranged cantrips and attacks and use your melee weapons only when enemies enter your reach. Remember not to charge enemies, stay closer to your allies. With shield, a shield, and heavy armor, our AC is as good or better than anyone else in the party.
Since we are wielding a shield, we will need to drop our staff in order to provide somatic components for spells or throw stones. Dropping requires no action economy, but we need to use an object interaction to pick it up again.
Level 2: Warlock (Paladin 1/Warlock 1)
Otherworldly Patron – Undead. This patron provides with Form of Dread, a proficiency bonus/long rest transformation with some very nice abilities.
Expanded Spell List – Adds bane and false life to the Warlock spell list.
Form of Dread (Undead feature) – Bonus action to transform for 1 minute, proficiency bonus times per long rest. 1d10+ Warlock level temporary hit points, an on-hit effect to force the targeted creature to make a Wisdom save or become frightened until the end of our next turn (once during each of our turns), and immunity to the frightened condition. The temporary hit points will always be 6.5 to 7.5 temporary hit points on average because we only go as deep as Warlock 2, but still nice to have, especially in tier 1. Frightening enemies is one of the best ways to deny them their turns, and can be used to kite enemies more easily or at the very least reduce their damage output as they must opt for (generally weaker) ranged options. This is a truly great ability, is easy to activate (bonus action), and scales with proficiency bonus. We gushed about it in Why You Should Play Undead Warlock if you want to hear more about why we think this ability is so nice.
Pact Magic – Warlock’s spell slot progression is unique and recharges on a short rest. We are not taking more than 2 Warlock levels for this build, but you will use plenty of 1st level spells throughout the adventuring days in your career, so getting 1-2 of those slots back on a short rest is nice. Ideally, your party should be amenable to short resting at least once, preferably twice on an adventuring day. Always use your Pact Magic spell slots first.
Spell Changes: +expeditious retreat, +hex, +eldritch blast, +magic stone.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, hex.
2nd Level: misty step.
Expeditious retreat – This spell might not be immediately useful, but it’s a great spell to scribe scrolls of, if you are capable of doing so. This spell can help you kite enemies more easily in combat, or speed up your travel speed if you need to get somewhere in a hurry. This is a spell that can be useful for your entire career if you can continue to produce scrolls of it reliably. Sometimes, the ability to out-speed foes can simplify encounters significantly with minimal resource expenditure.
Hex – “Wait a minute, Tabletop Builds,” you might be thinking. “Don’t you guys hate this spell?” Yes, we don’t typically consider this spell to be a good use of our concentration. But at this level, there’s slim pickings from the 1st level Warlock spell list, and scribing scrolls of hex can be useful for those combats that you want to end faster, but don’t want to spend slots on.
Eldritch blast – A staple for Charisma casters. Does reasonable damage and offers great control once the Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast invocations come into play, respectively. More range than…
Magic stone – Outdamages eldritch blast for one level because we can add our Charisma modifier to this. Great to hand out to summons that have rotator cuffs, NPCs, or even party members if you don’t want to spend money on javelins. If you don’t think you will get use out of handing off magic pebbles to minions or summons, feel free to pick up a different cantrip in exchange for having to make do with non-Agonizing eldritch blast, which is a slightly worse damage option for one level.
Level 2 Strategy
We still have good AC for our level, upgraded from javelins to magic stone for ranged damage, and have Form of Dread for stickier situations. Try to stick to chucking rocks from a distance if you can, as staying at range is much safer than being in melee. You have two uses of Form of Dread to ration out across the adventuring day.
There aren’t any especially great 1st level spells on the base Warlock spell list, so we opted for hex (we will swap this out next level) and expeditious retreat, which have additional value if you can scribe scrolls of them. If you desperately want a control option instead, you could opt for bane, but that’s also a spell you’ll want to swap out and you can only unlearn one Warlock spell with our suggested progression. Alternatively, if you have a Wizard in the party, you could learn unseen servant, scribe a scroll of it, and have the Wizard copy it into their spellbook. Now they can cast it as a ritual, you can unlearn it for a new spell next level, and have saved the Wizard a learned spell. Protection from evil and good and armor of Agathys are also options.
Level 3: Paladin (Paladin 2/Warlock 1)
Fighting Style – Dueling. This allows us to deal +2 damage with each quarterstaff attack (including the butt-end polearm attack). Defense is likewise worth considering, but we will be taking dueling to improve our melee damage.
Divine Smite – An ability that is both overrated and underrated, this allows us to expend considerable resources to get a damage spike, particularly against fiends and undead. While it is not a bad ability, the cost of a spell slot is a heavy toll, and one that should be weighed carefully against additional uses of your precious 1st level spells. Unless you score a critical hit in a situation where said creature living for even one more turn spells assured doom for you or your party, you should probably be holding onto your spells slots to actually cast spells. Smiting even on standard hits can be justified in severe nova situations (where your entire party decides to pile on as much damage as possible in the opening round, resource conservation be damned. The damage gains may be inefficient, but the value of killing things quickly before they get a turn is immense). Often, you will see Divine Smite front and center in all build decisions in Paladin guides and builds on other places around the internet…but we think overfocusing on Divine Smite is actually leaving power on the table for Paladins. You are not a typical martial that simply has a mere damage boost, you are a spellcaster that can also be effective with martial weapons!
Spellcasting – We are able to cast spells from the Paladin spell list, which for now will mean bless most of the time.
Spell Changes: +bless, +command, +protection from evil and good, +shield of faith.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: shield, wrathful smite.
1st Level: bless, command, protection from evil and good, shield of faith.
Bless – Bless is an interesting spell. Universally agreed upon to be very powerful, it’s also not surprising to see this spell abandoned after tier 1 as other concentration spells become available at higher levels. With our delayed caster progression due to being a half caster and dipping Warlock levels, this likely relegates us to being the character most suited to bless upkeep as the Clerics get access to spirit guardians soon. Remember that bless is most effective when your martials have lower to-hit but high damage weapon attacks, so if you want to get the most out of this spell, coordinate builds with your party to a non-intrusive degree. Given that we likely won’t have a better option to concentrate on, this is our go-to use of spell slots for now and the foreseeable future. The numerical advantages of bless are meaningful enough that you could concentrate on this spell until and into tier 4, and people shouldn’t be complaining.
Command – A nice non-concentration option that can disable a creature (later we will be able to upcast it to affect more than one) for a round, and potentially generate opportunity attacks from our melee allies in the process if we use the “flee” option. The creature will also waste a turn Dashing away, while also making them waste another turn running back if they rely on melee (possibly giving you a PAM reaction attack in the process if they approach).
Protection from evil and good – This spell is admittedly highly situational as there are only a few creature types that are affected by it at all, but it excels against them. Disadvantage on attack rolls against the spell’s target, as well as inability to be charmed or frightened, can turn a crippling defeat at the hands of a vampire or aboleth into a narrow escape.
Shield of faith – A solid buff spell that increases AC by 2 and only takes a bonus action to cast. Bless is usually better, but sometimes you want this. +2 AC can help us hold a doorway, especially since it’s a bonus action and thus can be combined with the Dodge action right away for some good staying power. Between this and shield, we can become nigh-impervious to harm against low-CR foes for a short while. Block off a chokepoint and let your allies make ranged attacks through you (albeit with half cover).
Level 3 Strategy
Our primary strategy will be similar for the next several levels, until our aura is available. Our primary use of our spell slots now is bless. Then, either stay back and hand out magic stones while taking the Dodge action or throw magic stones yourself. Whacking things with your quarterstaff will do more damage, but comes with associated risks of melee combat. Go into melee if you are able to do so without getting yourself killed (or losing concentration). Remember that you may regain one first level spell slot per short rest that you can spend to continue casting bless on your party, so you should utilize these Pact Magic slots first when possible. Don’t forget that the benefit of bless applies on the saving throw to maintain concentration on itself.
You should consider casting command instead if the impact it would have on the target is greater–for example, if it would allow a large number of opportunity attacks, or it would remove the biggest threat from the battle for two rounds.
Level 3: Warlock (Paladin 1/Warlock 2)
Eldritch Invocations – Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast.
Agonizing Blast – We get to add our Charisma modifier to the damage roll of eldritch blast. This makes it a superior damage option to magic stone.
Repelling Blast – Forced movement without a saving throw is huge. The combat utility of this cannot be overstated. Blast an enemy over a bridge or a ledge. Blast an enemy into an environmental hazard such as a web spell. Blast a ghoul charging your party and force a Dash action. Blast a zombie out of melee range of your caster ally away so your ally can run without having to Disengage. Blast a wolf out of the Polearm Master Fighter’s reach so they get another opportunity attack next time it approaches. This is also guaranteed to break a grapple barring the grappler having a 15’ or longer reach if you choose to use it, so keep that in mind. And if we are in our Form of Dread, they get pushed back and there’s a chance they become frightened of us.
Spell Changes: +protection from evil and good, +unseen servant, -hex.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant,
2nd Level: misty step.
Protection from evil and good – This spell is admittedly highly situational, as there are only a few creature types that are affected by it at all, but it excels against those creature types. Disadvantage on attack rolls against the spell’s target, as well as inability to be charmed or frightened, can turn a crippling defeat at the hands of a vampire or aboleth into a narrow escape. Learning this spell here also opens up a potential preparation slot for our Paladin spells later down the line (though in tier 1 and early tier 2 we almost have more preparations than we need). If this spell won’t be useful in your campaign, pick something else, like armor of Agathys, which isn’t a great spell but at least can have some utility later down the line as a defensive buffer to spend extra slots on.
Unseen servant – Create a mindless, shapeless force which acts at your command within 60 feet of you for an hour. This can solve a lot of problems and prevent a lot of headaches if you can ritual cast it. Unfortunately, the Warlock’s 1st level spell list is quite barren, so even though this spell is a ritual spell, and thus better cast by ritual casters like a Bard or a Wizard, there is not much of an opportunity cost lost by you taking it. If you don’t feel servants will be useful in your game for whatever reason, armor of Agathys can end up being a reasonable use of leftover spell slots if you are certain you are heading into the last fight of the day.
Level 3 Strategy
Switch from magic stone to eldritch blast as your primary offensive cantrip now. We have doubled the number of spell slots we get per short rest, which is nothing particularly impressive now but we will appreciate more when we get better spells next level. Agonizing Blast with Repelling Blast and Form of Dread are quite potent together for how early we are in the game, which makes up for our lackluster spell selection.
Level 4: Paladin (Paladin 3/Warlock 1)
Divine Health – Disease immunity rarely comes up, but this feature isn’t unwelcome.
Sacred Oath – Oath of the Watchers. At this level, we choose our subclass and this one is nothing short of fantastic, providing us with exceptional features and decent spells.
Watcher’s Will (Oath of the Watchers feature) – As an action, we give ourselves and up to three friends advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma saving throws. The effect is incredibly potent. The difficulty here is assessing when it’s worth using your action on your first turn of combat to use this.
Abjure the Extraplanar (Oath of the Watchers feature) – As an action, we can force our extraplanar creatures—aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey and fiends—to make a Wisdom saving throw or flee. It’s not a Channel Divinity option that you will use every day, but it’s absolutely fantastic when it’s relevant.
Harness Divine Power (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything optional feature) – Once per day (for now), you can expend a use of your Channel Divinity to get back a spell slot, the level of which can be no higher than half our proficiency bonus rounded up. Use this when you’re about to short rest and have your Channel Divinity use left. If you’re out of spell slots, you can also use this preemptively if you wish, as a spell slot is likely more useful than a use of your Channel Divinity, but that judgment is somewhat campaign dependent. When combined with the Pact Magic feature from our Warlock level, we now regain up to 2 first level slots per short rest, turning what has traditionally been viewed as a long rest dependent class to one that can utilize short rests to maintain effectiveness.
Spell Changes: +alarm O, +detect magic O.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: shield, wrathful smite.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, protection from evil and good, shield of faith.
Alarm O – A decent way to protect our party while resting if we have additional spells at the end of the day, but this use for our leftover spell slots will be obsolete next level.
Detect magic O – Someone in the party should ideally have this up at all times. However this should not be you, but a ritual caster. Leave this job to the fullcaster. If you don’t have one: break glass in case of emergency.
Level 4: Paladin (Paladin 2/Warlock 2)
Fighting Style – Defense. More AC is always good, and we’ll need it, especially since we don’t have shield for quite a while.
Divine Smite – An ability that is both overrated and underrated, this allows us to expend considerable resources to get a damage spike, particularly against fiends and undead. While it is not a bad ability, the cost of a spell slot is a heavy toll, and one that should be weighed carefully against additional uses of bless or even command. Unless you crit in a situation where said creature living for even one more turn spells assured doom for you or your party, you should probably be holding onto your spells slots to actually cast spells. Smiting even on standard hits can be justified in severe nova situations (where your entire party decides to pile on as much damage as possible in the opening round, resource conservation be damned. The damage gains may be inefficient, but the value of killing things quickly before they get a turn is immense). Often, you will see Divine Smite front and center in all build decisions in Paladin guides and builds on other places around the internet…but we think overfocusing on Divine Smite is actually leaving power on the table for Paladins. You are not a typical martial that simply has a mere damage boost, you are a spellcaster that can also be effective with martial weapons!
Spellcasting – We are able to cast spells from the Paladin spell list, which for now will mean bless most of the time.
Spell Changes: +bless, +command, +cure wounds, +heroism, +shield of faith.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: bless, cure wounds, command, heroism, shield of faith.
Bless – Bless is an interesting spell. Universally agreed upon to be very powerful, it’s also not surprising to see this spell abandoned after tier 1 as other concentration spells become available at higher levels. With our delayed caster progression due to being a half caster and dipping Warlock levels, this likely relegates us to being the character most suited to bless upkeep as the Clerics get access to spirit guardians soon. Remember that bless is most effective when your martials have lower to-hit but high damage weapon attacks, so if you want to get the most out of this spell, coordinate builds with your party to a non-intrusive degree. Given that we likely won’t have a better option to concentrate on, this is our go-to use of spell slots for now and the foreseeable future. The numerical advantages of bless are meaningful enough that you could concentrate on this spell until and into tier 4, and people shouldn’t be complaining.
Command – A nice non-concentration option that can disable a creature (later we will be able to upcast it to affect more than one) for a round, and potentially generate opportunity attacks from our melee allies in the process if we use the “flee” option. The creature will also waste a turn Dashing away, while also making them waste another turn running back if they rely on melee.
Cure wounds – If you can short rest repeatedly an unlimited (hours in the day permitting) number of times, you can cast this spell twice per short rest, multiple times to get people back into fighting shape. For reviving downed characters, Lay on Hand is still the superior option.
Heroism – Fear effects can be debilitating, especially for melee-oriented allies, so it’s good to have some insurance against them. Casting this on a frightened ally will suppress the fear effect of the duration of the spell.
Shield of faith – A solid buff spell that increases AC by 2 and only takes a bonus action to cast. Bless is usually better, but sometimes you want this to block off a chokepoint. +2 AC can help us hold a doorway, especially since it’s a bonus action and thus can be combined with the Dodge action right away for some good staying power. Dodge plus shield of faith isn’t as potent without access to the shield spell, but with Defense and (hopefully by now) full plate, 23 AC is nothing to scoff at. Stand strong against the horde of zombies and let your allies make ranged attacks through you (albeit with half cover).
Level 4 Strategy
Our primary strategy will be similar for the next several levels, until our aura is available. Our primary use of our spell slots now is bless. The mathematical benefits this provides to your party’s offense and defense is superb. Just maintaining bless uptime is a strong offensive and defensive contribution to the party (unless your party somehow opted for a party that makes no attack rolls), and the spell even helps maintain its own concentration due to its bonus to saving throws. +2.5 to concentration saving throws on average isn’t terrible, though you should still be aiming to disentangle yourself from melee situations as much as possible.
You should consider casting command instead if the impact it would have on the target is greater–for example, if it would allow a large number of opportunity attacks, or it would remove the biggest threat from the battle for two rounds.
Without shield, our AC doesn’t match up to armor-dipped full casters, but the control afforded by Repelling Blast is good enough that eldritch blast is the primary use of your action. Push enemies into areas of effect like web or into difficult terrain or off of cliffs, if applicable. Form of Dread and bless for tough fights, and inflict frightened on enemies to debuff them and keep them at a distance.
Level 5: Paladin (Paladin 4/Warlock 1)
Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Fey Touched (+1 Cha). For our additional 1st-level spell, we will select gift of alacrity. If Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount content is not allowed at your table, then consider the Telekinetic feat instead, which is the next best half-feat despite the occasional bonus action clog. As a Warlock we can utilize short rest casting to buff our entire party should we be given enough time.
Martial Versatility – You may change to Defense Fighting Style here if you would like (this is your last chance to do so unless you deviate from our level progression). This is the stronger choice as you reach higher levels, but for now you are still probably hitting things with a quarterstaff at least some of the time. If you expect the game to end soon (~level 10) you should keep Dueling, but if you plan for the game to go to levels 13 and beyond, you should change to Defense here and take the small damage hit for now. If you are planning on ending between 11-12, the choice is close, so pick the Fighting Style you like. Changing from Dueling to Defense is a minor, but potentially life saving change.
Spell Changes: +misty step FT, +compelled duel, +cure wounds, +gift of alacrity FT.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity, shield, wrathful smite.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, compelled duel, cure wounds, detect magic, protection from evil and good, shield of faith.
Misty step FT – A free teleport, what’s not to like? Pull yourself out of melee and escape an unpleasant amount of damage.
Compelled duel – Despite having a lot of preparations to play with, the 1st level Paladin list isn’t very deep, so we’re picking some very niche options. Compelled duel has a lot of issues, namely that it actually prevents focus fire from your teammates, which is generally the most efficient method of finishing off enemies and thus denying them turns and the opportunity to hurt you. Still, if you have one especially hard-hitting enemy that you want to stay away from a weakened ally at all costs, this could perhaps come in handy. You probably won’t ever end up casting this, but it’s at least something (and we’ll only have it for a level, as we get 2nd level spells soon). If you prefer, choose another niche or utility spell of your choice.
Cure wounds – We can get spell slots back on a short rest, meaning we can spam this over multiple consecutive short rests to heal the party, if necessary. Otherwise, stick to using Lay on Hands to revive people, as in-combat healing tends to be inefficient. If healing outside of Lay on Hands isn’t necessary, heroism could be better.
Gift of alacrity FT – Raising allies’ initiative as well as our own increases the likelihood of taking a turn before the enemy can act–a major tactical advantage. This paired with Aura of the Sentinel later will let our party get the jump on many enemies even without surprise. Naturally, stop using your leftover spell slots for the day on alarm and use them on this spell instead.
Level 5 Strategy
Not much changes in terms of your in-combat game-plan, but note that eldritch blast has two rays now while you can still only throw one magic stone. Rest cast gift of alacrity to give your allies and yourself an average initiative bonus of +4.5, which is a taste of your powers to come.
For any martial allies you have, however, level 5 is a big deal. To give some rough estimates, against an AC 15 creature, a 1st level bless on subsequent rounds will increase your damage per round by ~2, a subclass-less Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter Ranger’s damage per round by ~4, and a “subclass-less” Polearm Master/Great Weapon Master Barbarian’s damage per round by ~6.5 (more total damage than your average eldritch blast against an AC 15 enemy), in addition to increasing their average save by 2.5.
Level 5: Paladin (Paladin 3/Warlock 2)
Divine Health – Disease immunity rarely comes up, but this feature isn’t unwelcome.
Sacred Oath – Oath of the Watchers. At this level, we choose our subclass and this one is the best the class has to offer, providing us with exceptional features and decent spells.
Watcher’s Will (Oath of the Watchers feature) – As an action, for the cost of one use of our Channel Divinity, we give ourselves and up to four friends advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma saving throws. The effect is incredibly potent. The difficulty here is assessing when it’s worth using your action on your first turn of combat to use this.
Abjure the Extraplanar (Oath of the Watchers feature) – As an action, we can force our extraplanar creatures—aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey and fiends—to make a Wisdom saving throw or flee. It’s not a Channel Divinity option that you will use every day, but it’s absolutely fantastic when it’s relevant.
Harness Divine Power (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything optional feature) – Once per day (for now), you can expend a use of your Channel Divinity to get back a spell slot, the level of which can be no higher than our proficiency bonus rounded up. Use this when you’re about to short rest and have your Channel Divinity use left. If you’re out of spell slots, you can also use this preemptively if you wish, as a spell slot is likely more useful than a use of your Channel Divinity, but that judgment is somewhat campaign dependent. When combined with the Pact Magic feature from our Warlock level, we can regain 2 to 3 first level slots per short rest, turning what has traditionally been viewed as a long rest dependent class to one that can utilize short rests to maintain effectiveness.
Spell Changes: +alarm O, +detect magic O.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, cure wounds, command, detect magic, heroism, shield of faith.
Alarm O – You probably shouldn’t cast this spell, rest cast gift of alacrity instead. Remember that oath spells are prepared automatically, but don’t increase the actual number of spells you can prepare. You have it if you really need it, and no one else has it as a ritual.
Detect magic O – Someone in the party should ideally have this up at all times. However this should not be you, but a ritual caster. If you don’t have one: break glass in case of emergency.
Level 5 Strategy
Not much changes here, other than eldritch blast now firing off two rays per casting, which is more chances to trigger the 10 foot pushback from Repelling Blast, or a Wisdom save for frightened when in Form of Dread.
For any martial allies you have, however, level 5 is a big deal. To give some rough estimates, against an AC 15 creature, a 1st level bless on subsequent rounds will increase your damage per round by ~2, a subclass-less Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter Ranger’s damage per round by ~4, and a “subclass-less” Polearm Master/Great Weapon Master Barbarian’s damage per round by ~6.5, in addition to increasing their average save by 2.5.
Level 6: Paladin (Paladin 5/Warlock 1)
Extra Attack – A great feature that will be relevant for quite a while, assuming we will be getting into melee a lot. If we’re staying in the back and dodging more often, this is of course less helpful, but magic stone still benefits from this increase, and is better than going into melee.
Spell Changes: +aid, +find steed, +locate object, +moonbeam O, +see invisibility O, –compelled duel, –cure wounds, –protection from evil and good.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, wrathful smite.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command,
2nd Level: aid, find steed, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Aid – This is an important spell for every party to have. Rest cast it every time you can, with the additional use as a healing spell to bring up 3 downed allies.
Find steed – Do you want a horse? Of course you do! You get a mount that basically works like a familiar. This is an excellent asset and you should summon a new mount as soon as possible if it dies. If your mount is alive and likely not at risk of dying, you may wish to unprepare it in favour of heroism. The mount is an incredible feature—at the very least, it is a free Disengage or Help action. In combat, it can add some pretty significant damage, or it can Dash or Disengage to keep you away from annoying threats you don’t want or lack the means to deal with. You can learn more about this spell in our Spell Spotlight: Find (Greater) Steed.
Locate object – This spell is fantastic utility and a must-take. See our Spell Spotlight on it for more information.
Moonbeam O – A situational spell to help out against werewolves, vampires, and other shapechangers. We usually won’t be casting this except against the above enemies.
See invisibility O – Another minor piece of utility that can sometimes come up. Despite being a strong subclass overall, the Oath of the Watchers bonus spells start out relatively poor.
Level 6 Strategy
We are chiefly still concentrating on bless, but now we can throw two stones per Attack action (better than two rays from eldritch blast unless damage type or range is an issue), or make 3 swings with our quarterstaff. We can also conjure up a mount if we cannot buy one. We aren’t investing feats in mounted combat, but it’s still quite useful and powerful, given the free Disengage or Help, and additional movement. Make use of it when you can. This is also our last level before our strategy changes significantly.
Melee weapon combat has more nova potential than your magic pebbles, with 3 attacks per turn and the ability to use Divine Smite. Around now is when you might be feeling like you have enough slots to start smiting, but remember what we said in the initial blurb for the ability. This is an ability that is best used either in a pinch or when using it would result in direct enemy turn denial (via death).
Level 6: Paladin (Paladin 4/Warlock 2)
Ability Score Improvement – +2 Cha. We maximize our chances to activate the on-hit effects of eldritch blast, and ensure our Aura of Protection is at full power as soon as we get it. Also opens up an additional Paladin spell preparation.
Martial Versatility – We can change our Fighting Style here to another option available to Paladins, if we so choose. This is also the last time we would be able to do so, so sticking with Defense is almost assuredly the right choice, unless your DM permanently blinds your character or you are playing in some sort of heavy obscurement-based party.
Spell Changes: +compelled duel, +wrathful smite.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, compelled duel, cure wounds, command, detect magic, heroism, shield of faith, wrathful smite.
Compelled duel – Despite having a lot of preparations to play with, the 1st level Paladin list isn’t very deep, so we’re picking some very niche options. Compelled duel has a lot of issues, namely that it actually prevents focus fire from your teammates, which is generally the most efficient method of finishing off enemies and thus denying them turns and the opportunity to hurt you. Still, if you have one especially hard-hitting enemy that you want to stay away from a weakened ally at all costs, this could perhaps come in handy. You probably won’t ever end up casting this, but it’s at least something (and we’ll only have it for a level, as we get 2nd level spells soon). If you prefer, choose another niche or utility spell of your choice.
Wrathful smite – It can be useful to cast this spell, swing your staff, and hopefully frighten the creature. As above, we don’t have great options. If you opted for Medium size, it’s actually better to use your glaive, as, you’ll want to then back away (with the quarterstaff, you’ll subject yourself to an opportunity attack, but if the creature is frightened it will be at disadvantage, so even if you plan on using this spell, quarterstaff + shield is still likely better). Frightened enemies cannot get closer to you, so with smart positioning you may be able to keep it away from not only you but your allies as well. Furthermore, since the condition to break the spell is succeeding on a Wisdom check (not save) as an action, and since frightened imposes disadvantage on ability checks, it becomes extremely difficult for most enemies to break the condition. If the enemy is dependent on being in melee, you have effectively removed them from the fight. Still, with 15 Strength we’re not great at hitting enemies with our quarterstaff. Another preparation your are unlikely to cast, but again we will drop it soon.
Level 7: Paladin (Paladin 6/Warlock 1)
Aura of Protection – This is why you play Paladin. The most important feature of the entire class is finally here. +4 to all saving throws for allies within 10 feet of you. This feature single-handedly keeps Paladins relevant in a party of otherwise exclusively full casters, and it is truly incredible. Even if we were not able to use Charisma for weapon attacks, we would invest in it instead of Strength because this is the class’ true workhorse.
Spell Changes: +protection from evil and good.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, wrathful smite.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, protection from evil and good, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Protection from evil and good – We add this spell back to our list of daily preparations because we can, and there isn’t much else that’s better. It’s the same as it was before–situational but useful in those situations. 7 levels in, you should understand your party and campaign better than we do, so you might find that heroism is a better prep (if you are facing some punishing frightened save DCs that are tough to beat even with your Aura of Protection).
Level 7 Strategy
We now have our aura, meaning it’s a harder choice between getting in the thick of the fight and staying back to guard our (hopefully numerous) ranged friends. Ideally, we should try to stay back and near our allies as much as we can, as Aura of Protection is more valuable to the party than our damage. Do not hesitate to take the Dodge action or use ranged options. If your fellow casters have invested in concentration protection, they might be making concentration saves at +10 with advantage in your aura, and that’s without bless. This is why we have been increasing our Charisma whenever we could. You may be worried you are setting up the party positionally for nasty areas of effect, clustering the party together. In our experience, the aura benefits the group (in total damage taken and turns not missed from spells and effects) far more than spreading out. A little boost can go a long way in a system of bounded accuracy, and we’ve made sure our boosts are as big as they can be.
Level 7: Paladin (Paladin 5/Warlock 2)
Extra Attack – You can attack twice on your turn now. This is often irrelevant to us, as we are usually casting eldritch blast instead.
Spell Changes: +aid, +find steed, +locate object, +moonbeam O, +see invisibility O, –compelled duel, –cure wounds, -wrathful smite.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless,
2nd Level: aid, find steed, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Aid – This is an important spell for every party to have. Rest cast it every time you can, with the additional use as a healing spell to bring up 3 downed allies.
Find steed – Do you want a horse? Of course you do! You get a mount that basically works like a familiar. This is an excellent asset and you should summon a new mount as soon as possible if it dies. The mount is an incredible feature–at the very least, it is a free Disengage or Help action. In combat, it can add some pretty significant damage, or it can Dash or Disengage to keep you away from annoying threats you don’t want or lack the means to deal with. You can learn more about this spell in our Spell Spotlight: Find (Greater) Steed.
Locate object – This spell is fantastic utility and a must-take. See our Spell Spotlight on it for more information.
Moonbeam O – A situational spell to help out against werewolves, vampires, and other shapechangers. We usually won’t be casting this except against the above enemies.
See invisibility O – Another minor piece of utility that can sometimes come up. Despite being a strong subclass overall, the Oath of the Watchers bonus spells start out relatively poor.
Level 7 Strategy
We are chiefly still concentrating on bless (and will be for a very long time). We can also conjure up a mount if we cannot buy one. We aren’t investing feats in mounted combat, but it’s still quite useful and powerful, given the free Disengage or Help and additional movement. Make use of it when you can. This is also our last level before our strategy changes significantly.
Level 8: Paladin (Paladin 7/Warlock 1)
Aura of the Sentinel – We are now basically proficient in initiative—and so are all our friends! We should always stay in the back now with the group for this very reason—granting an initiative boost effectively means giving our friends a free extra turn, that’s much better than getting into melee sooner. Bully your party members into always staying within 10 feet of you, even out of combat.
Level 8 Strategy
We have now effectively reached the end of the aura-stacking prestige class that is Paladin. The final level nets us our final aura. Now it’s even more imperative that your party members stay near you, not just during combat but before it starts. Huddle up like penguins and travel together no matter what.
Level 8: Paladin (Paladin 6/Warlock 2)
Aura of Protection – This is why you play Paladin. The most important feature of the entire class is finally here. +5 to all saving throws for allies within 10 feet of you. This feature single-handedly keeps Paladins relevant in a party of otherwise exclusively full casters, and it is truly incredible. Even if we were not able to use Charisma for our eldritch blast attacks, we would still invest in Charisma because this feature is the true workhorse feature of the class.
Spell Changes: +lesser restoration.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, heroism, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Lesser restoration – The paralyzed condition in particular is a major threat to characters, but any of the effects this wards against can be debilitating. Someone in the party should be able to cure them when the need arises. Some of these conditions can be cured by Lay on Hands, so consider carefully before expanding a spell slot.
Level 8 Strategy
We now have our aura, meaning prioritizing covering as many of our allies with it as possible is our main objective. The defensive power of Aura cannot be understated, which paired with bless results in an incredible +7.5 to saving throws (enough that we can easily protect concentration outside of massive damage). Maintaining Aura coverage is important, so do not hesitate to take the Dodge action when necessary. If your fellow casters have invested in concentration protection, they might be making concentration saves at +10 with advantage in your aura, and that’s without bless. This is why we are increasing our Charisma as much as we can. You may be worried you are setting up the party positionally for nasty areas of effect, clustering the party together. In our experience, the aura benefits the group (in total damage taken and turns not missed from spells and effects) far more than spreading out. A little boost can go a long way in a system of bounded accuracy, and we’ve made sure our boosts are as big as they can be.
As before, you should ride your steed when possible as mounted combat is very effective, and can sometimes be the key to maintaining proper positioning to protect your party.
Level 9: Warlock (Paladin 7/Warlock 2)
Eldritch Invocations – Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast.
Agonizing Blast – Agonizing Blast gets you some additional damage dealt and puts you at a solid baseline for damage when not casting your big spells.
Repelling Blast – We are now able to push enemies back 10 feet on a hit, potentially keeping them out of melee range (most monsters are significantly more effective in melee), and throwing them back into our allies’ area spells like web, sleet storm, plant growth and wall of fire.
Spell Changes (Warlock): +protection from evil and good, +unseen servant, -wrathful smite.
Spell Changes (Paladin): +lesser restoration, –protection from evil and good.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, protection from evil and good, unseen servant,
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic,
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Lesser restoration – The paralyzed condition in particular is a major threat to characters, but any of the effects this wards against can be debilitating. Someone in the party should be able to cure them when the need arises. Some of these conditions can be cured by Lay on Hands, so consider carefully before expanding a spell slot.
Unseen servant – Create a mindless, shapeless force which acts at your command within 60 feet of you for an hour. This can solve a lot of problems and prevent a lot of headaches if you can ritual cast it. Unfortunately, the Warlock’s 1st level spell list is quite barren, so even though this spell is a ritual spell, and thus better cast by ritual casters like a Bard or a Wizard, there is not much of an opportunity cost lost by you taking it. If you don’t feel servants will be useful in your game for whatever reason, armor of Agathys can end up being a reasonable use of leftover spell slots if you are certain you are heading into the last fight of the day.
Protection from evil and good – This spell now has three blurbs in a single build, probably a Tabletop Builds record, not that anyone is tracking or cares. You could replace this with armor of Agathys (if you want something for when you are near certain that you are nearing the last encounter of a mission and have slots to burn) or expeditious retreat (for out of combat purposes) if you want, given that you do have the flexibility to prepare this from the Paladin spell list should the situation arise.
Level 9 Strategy
We have now taken our second and final level of Warlock. Eldritch blast has finally delivered its full power, and we are able to blast enemies back for good battlefield control. Our weapon is now less relevant, and we can stay in the back and shoot our enemies with the best attack cantrip in the game. You should prioritize keeping your friends within your Aura (and on the flip side, your friends should prioritize staying in the Aura. This is why ranged options are good!). As before, however, in terms of raw damage our quarterstaff with smites remains a superior nova option.
Level 9: Paladin (Paladin 7/Warlock 2)
Aura of the Sentinel (Oath of the Watchers feature) – We are now basically proficient in initiative—and so are all our friends! We should always stay in the back now for this very reason—granting an initiative boost effectively means giving our friends a free extra turn, that’s much better than getting into melee. Bully your party members into always staying with 10 feet of you, even out of combat.
Level 9 Strategy
Same as before, but it’s even more imperative that your allies are near you at all times, so that they can benefit from the initiative boost of Aura of the Sentinel. With gift of alacrity and Aura of the Sentinel, your allies have an average of +8.5 to initiative, which is a whole bunch of extra turns for the party.
Level 10: Sorcerer (Paladin 7/Warlock 2/Sorcerer 1)
Sorcerous Origin – Divine Soul. Thus begins our progression into full caster territory. Sorcerer is the class of choice here because we really desperately need access to absorb elements and shield, and we can’t obtain both from Bard or additional Warlock levels.
We opted for Divine Soul as the subclass of choice here, though Clockwork Soul and Aberrant Mind are very close. Favored by the Gods is a valuable tail protection ability, but it does lose some relative value when the floor for our saves is higher due to Aura of Protection. Restore Balance from the Clockwork Soul, on the other hand, has its number of uses scale off of proficiency bonus, and can be used to negate enemies with Magic Resistance. We ultimately evaluated some of the Cleric spells obtained from Divine Magic over the additional spells learned from Clockwork Magic (which have some overlap with our existing spell list), in part because we are obtaining these levels so late.
If you would rather go the Clockwork Soul route, you can roughly follow the Clockwork Soul Sorcerer Flagship Build progression instead, looking at the 10 levels of Sorcerer for inspiration. Aberrant Mind has a less appealing spell list, and worse features until level 6, but Psychic Defenses and Psionic Sorcery are good features and would be strong in tier 4.
Favored by the Gods (Divine Soul feature) – Use this on saves, not attack rolls. The only time you should use it on an attack roll is if your party is in dire straits and you are near certain that you can swing a miss into a hit and can finish off a powerful enemy before they get to take their turn. Adding 2d4 means you have over an 80% chance of converting a failed save into a successful one if you missed by 4, over a 60% chance if you missed by 5, but less than a 40% chance if you missed by 6, and less than a 20% chance if you missed by 7. Keep these numbers in your head when assessing whether it might be worth using this. If the stakes are high enough, it might be worth using even with somewhat poor odds of success, but the worse the odds the higher the stakes should be to justify spending this resource, which you can use once per short rest.
Divine Magic (Divine Soul feature) – You learn one additional spell based on the affinity of the source of your divine power (this is not an alignment restriction). As we gain a level in Sorcerer, we can immediately swap out bless and take healing word instead. Note that we did not do this on the Flagship Hexclock build as it is ambiguous whether you “gain a Sorcerer level” during character creation, but here we are unambiguously gaining a Sorcerer level, which lets us unlearn a spell for another. If this somehow doesn’t work for you in the first Sorcerer level period, adjust your Paladin preparations now and swap it next level.
Spell Changes: +absorb elements, +healing word, +silvery barbs, +fire bolt, +guidance, +mind sliver, +mold earth.
Spell Changes: +absorb elements, +healing word, +shield, +fire bolt, +guidance, +mind sliver, +mold earth.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, silvery barbs.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, shield.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, heroism, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Absorb elements – With heavy armor, a shield, and potentially the Defense Fighting Style, our defenses are already quite solid. This spell rounds out our key defensive needs, covering us against non-weapon sources of damage such as breath weapons from dragons, elemental spells, and other hostile area of effect spells. Elemental damage is only becoming more common, so it’s worth an investment to ward yourself against it. This spell is a mandatory pick for any character who wishes to stay alive in Tier 3.
Healing word – Use only in case of emergency, to pick someone back up from 0 hit points. Rarely do you want to use this preemptively, and never to “top people off,” it’s just not an efficient use of your spell slots.
Shield – As you will see across the Flagship Build Series, we believe shield is a must-have spell for any build in contention to be called the best in 5E. That we delay picking it up for this long is a testament to the power of Form of Dread. +5 AC for a whole round is huge, and is often the difference between taking the full brunt of a monster’s attacks and going unscathed, taking no damage at all. Do not be afraid to use this, especially at this level, since you can afford to upcast bless to cover all or most of your party.
Silvery barbs – This is a brand new spell that is both potent and flexible. With this spell you primarily inflict a debuff on a target without an attached saving throw, and then if that wasn’t good enough for a first level spell, you simultaneously buff an ally as well. We will mostly be using this to make spells that are reliant on enemies failing their saving throw land more. The advantage you grant to an ally is less important, but it’s nice regardless. This is a must pick for anyone that can get it.
Fire bolt – We add this to our repertoire because unlike most spells, it explicitly states it can damage objects. Feel free to pick something else if your DM runs object targeting less strictly.
Guidance – We can learn this spell through our Divine Magic feature. One of the most useful cantrips in the game. Concentrate on it whenever you’re not concentrating on anything else, and try and get a bonus on initiative. This has incredible versatility.
Mind sliver – Most monsters have bad Intelligence saving throws. The damage is nice to have, but the rider is what we’re really after. Capitalize on that and combo this with a debilitating spell you know an allied caster is going to cast and improve their chance of success. To have better control over the timing of the save penalty, you could use your action to Ready a Spell, casting it on your turn and releasing it right before the turn of an allied caster to guarantee the rider will affect the correct spell, provided you’re not concentrating on another spell already.
Mold earth – This cantrip can be used to create cover on some battlefields, and it also comes in handy for creating graves to respectfully send off enemies (or fallen allies, should that come to pass).
Level 10 Strategy
Our strategy will begin to evolve as we gain the ability to do more full caster-like things. Still, do not forget that your primary role is to confer the benefits of your aura to your allies however possible, and that bless is still probably the best use of your concentration.
Level 11: Sorcerer (Paladin 7/Warlock 2/Sorcerer 2)
Font of Magic – We have two sorcery points, but we don’t have a very good use for them at this level. Next level, we get some nifty use out of this.
Flexible Casting – Flexible Casting is an expensive option for our sorcery points but right now it’s all we have. This is essentially another 1st level slot at this level, but it’s important to note we can convert unused Warlock slots into sorcery points before we short rest and possibly regain some 1st level slots from our Spellcasting feature. Once we get our Metamagic options we will use this to convert the occasional unused Warlock slot into a sorcery point but otherwise we will very rarely use this.
Spell Changes: +magic missile.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, magic missile, silvery barbs.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Magic missile – We will be swapping this out next level, but until we reach 2nd-level spells this is a small amount of damage that synergizes with Hexblade’s Curse. If you have the ability to scribe scrolls, consider learning fog cloud and scribing scrolls of that.
Spell Changes: +silvery barbs.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, shield, silvery barbs.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, heroism, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Silvery barbs – This is a brand new spell that is both potent and flexible. With this spell you primarily inflict a debuff on a target without an attached saving throw, and then if that wasn’t good enough for a first level spell, you simultaneously buff an ally as well. We will mostly be using this to make spells that are reliant on enemies failing their saving throw land more. The advantage you grant to an ally is less important, but it’s nice regardless. This is a must pick for anyone that can get it.
Level 12: Sorcerer (Paladin 7/Warlock 2/Sorcerer 3)
Metamagic – Subtle Spell, Twinned Spell. The ability to cast spells without using verbal or somatic components with Subtle Spell is often described as useful for discretion. This is accurate, but more importantly it prevents an enemy from using counterspell on our spells and allows us to overcome the effect of silence. While we probably won’t run into this too often right now, we’ll need this at higher levels, especially when we learn counterspell and use it against enemy casters without components. Currently, twinning gift of alacrity will let you share the wealth. We will also discuss twinning phantasmal force below. Theseare great spells to twin, and you get even better twinnable spells later.
Spell Changes: +phantasmal force, +web, –magic missile.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word,
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Phantasmal force – This is a very strong and twinnable effect that can severely impair one (or two if twinned) enemies. A classic use is something covering the target– a bucket on their head, a cloaker, a swarm of biting insects– that blocks their vision and subjects them to heavy obscurement while potentially also dealing damage, but the sky’s the limit on other potential uses. It initially targets an Intelligence save, usually the weakest for monster stat blocks, and on subsequent turns, it is an Investigation check, something only 17 monsters throughout all official published material have proficiency in (if you look at just the Monster Manual and Volo’s Guide to Monsters, that number drops to 2!), making the spell as a whole very hard to stop. Note illusion-based spells tend to have fairly high amounts of variance in how they are run table to table, so make sure to have a chat with your DM on how monsters will react to this spell first. If you feel that this spell won’t be a useful combat spell, Tasha’s mind whip (also twinnable), suggestion, or Rime’s binding ice are all excellent alternatives.
Web – Even at a level this late, this spell is still good, and we can expect to get our spell slots’ worth from it. Web creates a 20 foot cube of webbing which restrain enemies and is one of the most potent spells in the game, period. Right now, this is the biggest thing we can do, but even as we reach high levels, we’ll continue to use web for its value-in-slot, and it’ll continue to be effective. For you video-minded folks, our friend Pack Tactics discusses the power of web here.
Spell Changes: +web.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, shield, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: web.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Web – Even at a level this late, this spell is still good, and we can expect to get our spell slots’ worth from it. Web creates a 20 foot cube of webbing which restrain enemies and is one of the most potent spells in the game, period. Right now, this is the biggest thing we can do, but even as we reach high levels, we’ll continue to use web for its value-in-slot, and it’ll continue to be effective. For you video-minded folks, our friend Pack Tactics discusses the power of web here.
Level 12 Strategy
We now get access to Metamagic and 2nd-level spells from the Sorcerer and Cleric spell lists through our Divine Magic feature. It might not feel great to get access to spells now that your friends have had for ages, but remember that your Auras contribute just as much, and now you’re adding some additional firepower to augment those too. Bless is still a great play even at this level, especially since no one else is likely to be concentrating on it, but having the option to cast twinned phantasmal force or web is a nice option to have.
If you feel that learning phantasmal force and web would result in “concentration clog” because you think your group would be better off with bless than additional castings of phantasmal force and web, Rime’s binding ice and Tasha’s mind whip are good non-concentration alternatives. The damage Rime’s binding ice does at this level is close to irrelevant, and enemy Constitution saves become relatively higher as CR increases, but the control effect is still good.
At this point, our progression follows a similar progression to many straight Sorcerer builds, but with some considerations made for subclass spells (namely, spirit guardians) and the higher level threats we are facing. You should have a good grasp of the campaign, the DM’s tendencies, party tactics, as well as how some of the spell picks we suggest have worked for your allies at earlier levels, so if you know something won’t work or that an alternative choice is a better fit for you, pick that instead.
We now get access to Metamagic and 2nd-level spells from the Sorcerer and Cleric spell lists through our Divine Magic feature. It might not feel great to get access to spells now that your friends have had for ages, but remember that your Auras contribute just as much, and now you’re adding some additional firepower to augment those too. Bless is still a great play even at this level, especially since no one else is likely to be concentrating on it, but having the option to cast web is a nice to have.
Rime’s binding ice and Tasha’s mind whip are good non-concentration alternatives. The damage Rime’s binding ice does at this level is close to irrelevant, and enemy Constitution saves become relatively higher as CR increases, but the control effect is still good.
At this point, our progression follows a similar progression to many straight Sorcerer builds, but with some considerations made for subclass spells (namely, spirit guardians) and the higher level threats we are facing. You should have a good grasp of the campaign, the DM’s tendencies, party tactics, as well as how some of the spell picks we suggest have worked for your allies at earlier levels, so if you know something won’t work or that an alternative choice is a better fit for you, pick that instead.
Level 13: Sorcerer (Paladin 7/Warlock 2/Sorcerer 4)
Ability Score Improvement – +2 Cha. We finally get to maximize our Charisma, granting +5 to all allied saving throws. Increased save DC on Paladin and Sorcerer spells, and a better to-hit for our eldritch blasts. Also an additional preparation for our Paladin spells.
Spell Changes (Sorcerer): +Tasha’s mind whip, +mending.
Spell Changes (Paladin): +heroism.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, Tasha’s mind whip, web.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, heroism, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Heroism – Fear effects become more and more common at high levels, so it’s good to be insured against them.
Tasha’s mind whip – Tasha’s mind whip allows for extra control while concentrating on another spell. A great shutdown option that does not require our concentration and upcasts quite well. It has the additional use of cheaply burning an enemy’s legendary resistances. On top of that, it’s also twinnable. If an enemy has to live with it, it allows the whole party to move away for free. Note that unlike phantasmal force, our other twinnable single-target spell, Tasha’s mind whip can be upcast for more targets.
Mending – Repairing objects or some specific constructs is a bit of neat utility. Artillerist Artificers and the like will thank us. This also opens up some thrifting opportunities.
Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – War Caster. This is somewhat of a flexible pick. Without Polearm Master, we cannot take advantage of the “Forcelance” interaction (cast eldritch blast at approaching foes to knock them away and out of melee range) with a reach polearm in hand, but we do get the more straightforward benefits as per usual. We can cast spells with a shield and magical staff without having to engage with the icky spellcasting component rules. With Aura and bless, we have a +7.5 on concentration saves, but we’re at the point where the DC of concentration saves is creeping higher than 10, so advantage can certainly help. Alternatively, Resilient (Con), Lucky, or Alert are all great choices. At this point, you should have a good grasp of the cadence of your campaign, and can likely choose between these four options better than our general recommendations can guide you (the same goes for spell picks).
Spell Changes: +phantasmal force, +mending.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, shield, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Phantasmal force – This is a very strong and twinnable effect that can severely impair one (or two if twinned) enemies. A classic use is something covering the target– a bucket on their head, a cloaker, a swarm of biting insects– that blocks their vision and subjects them to heavy obscurement while potentially also dealing damage, but the sky’s the limit on other potential uses. It initially targets an Intelligence save, usually the weakest for monster stat blocks, and on subsequent turns, it is an Investigation check, something only 17 monsters throughout all official published material have proficiency in (if you look at just the Monster Manual and Volo’s Guide to Monsters, that number drops to 2!), making the spell as a whole very hard to stop. Note illusion-based spells tend to have fairly high amounts of variance in how they are run table to table, so make sure to have a chat with your DM on how monsters will react to this spell first. If you feel that this spell won’t be a useful combat spell, Tasha’s mind whip (also twinnable), suggestion, or Rime’s binding ice are all excellent alternatives.
Mending – Repairing objects or constructs is a bit of neat utility. Our friends with construct minions like the Artillerist Artificer will thank us.
Level 14: Sorcerer (Paladin 7/Warlock 2/Sorcerer 5)
Magical Guidance – We can reroll ability checks we fail for 1 sorcery point. Sadly, this does not allow us to reroll initiative, but it’s a big help on counterspell.
Spell Changes: +counterspell, +spirit guardians, –Tasha’s mind whip.
Magical Guidance – We can reroll ability checks we fail for 1 sorcery point. Sadly, this does not allow us to reroll initiative.
Spell Changes: +spirit guardians.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force,
3rd Level: counterspell, spirit guardians.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, heroism, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, shield, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
3rd Level: spirit guardians.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Counterspell – Being able to negate a spellcasting enemy’s strategy is very valuable, and can make or break a combat on its own. A reaction to get rid of an enemy’s important action is almost always worth it. In a party with many other full casters, you might be able to get away with keeping Tasha’s mind whip instead of this, but it’s probably better to be safe than sorry.
Spirit guardians – The best area of effect damaging spell in the entire game, now ours to claim. This can add great damage on top of our standard output. Also one of the reasons we opted for Divine Soul. This doesn’t supplant bless as your general gameplan yet, but it should enter the stable of spells that you should consider concentrating on for tough encounters. Given that we have higher level spell slots than spells, upcasting this spell has very real value.
Spirit guardians – The best area of effect damaging spell in the entire game, now ours to claim. This can add great damage on top of our standard output. Also one of the reasons we opted for Divine Soul. This doesn’t supplant bless as your general gameplan yet, but it should enter the stable of spells that you should consider concentrating on for tough encounters. Given that we have higher level spell slots than spells, upcasting this spell has very real value.
Level 14 Strategy
Before, bless was the primary choice for our concentration, with our other concentration options being significantly more niche. Now, we are finally getting spells that are worthy of becoming our primary play for our concentration over bless, such as spirit guardians (and in the coming levels other prominent full caster specialties like hypnotic pattern). In many cases, bless may still be your best play, but spirit guardians can increase your damage contributions to a fight significantly and make it harder to reach you in melee combat. Determining how to balance bless for your concentration versus more niche spells, or more traditional battlefield control spells, is the crux of your playstyle now and until the end of the game.
Level 15: Sorcerer (Paladin 7/Warlock 2/Sorcerer 6)
Empowered Healing (Divine Soul feature) – Better dice rolls on healing spells that happen within 5 feet of us for sorcery point cost. This feature does not matter.
Spell Changes: +hypnotic pattern.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
3rd Level: counterspell, hypnotic pattern, spirit guardians.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, heroism, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, shield, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
3rd Level: hypnotic pattern, spirit guardians.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Hypnotic pattern – This is one of the best spells for its level in the game, and it’s still a useful addition to our repertoire even if it comes 8-10 levels later than when full casters get access to it. It incapacitates and immobilizes creatures in a 30 foot cube who fail a Wisdom save, and they don’t get any additional saves on subsequent turns. Their allies can use an action to break them out of it, but even if they do, that’s more creatures doing things with their turns that aren’t attacking you. The biggest limitation of this spell is that it doesn’t work on creatures immune to being charmed, which aren’t infrequent at this level. Cast this spell discerningly.
Level 16: Sorcerer (Paladin 7/Warlock 2/Sorcerer 7)
Spell Changes: +dimension door.
Spell Changes: +counterspell.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
3rd Level: counterspell, hypnotic pattern, spirit guardians.
4th Level: dimension door.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, heroism, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, shield, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
3rd Level: counterspell, hypnotic pattern, spirit guardians.
4th Level:
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Dimension door – Teleporting out of dangerous situations can be very helpful. Our Aura of Protection is crucial to the party’s survival, if we get in some serious trouble this can be a gateway to safety, or towards the rest of our party if we’re not in misty step plus Dash distance. Sometimes, you have to plan for failure, and this is one of those spells that helps us in those situations. If you picked Medium size Custom Lineage, you should now be happy you made it this far as you can take someone with you when you cast this spell.
Counterspell – Being able to negate a spellcasting enemy’s strategy is very valuable, and can make or break a combat on its own. A reaction to get rid of an enemy’s important action is almost always worth it. Remember that you can use Magical Guidance on the ability check here.
Level 17: Sorcerer (Paladin 7/Warlock 2/Sorcerer 8)
Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – War Caster. This choice may look less helpful than Resilient, but it allows us to “Forcelance” (cast eldritch blast at approaching foes to knock them away and out of melee range) with our polearm and helps out with casting spells while our hands are full with a shield and hopefully magical staff (though holy symbol on shield still works). We explain the concept of Forcelance in more detail in our Ghostlance build, which is inspired by the former. If you play at a table that doesn’t recognize the validity of this interaction, Resilient (Con), Lucky, or Alert are strong alternatives.
Spell Changes: +sleet storm.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
3rd Level: counterspell, hypnotic pattern, sleet storm, spirit guardians.
4th Level: dimension door.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, heroism, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Lucky. As we just mentioned, tail protection can be vital, and this feat helps us do that, giving us an out when the dice just aren’t going our way. As before, Alert or Resilient (Con) could be useful here as well.
Spell Changes: +sleet storm.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, shield, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
3rd Level: counterspell, hypnotic pattern, sleet storm, spirit guardians.
4th Level:
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Sleet storm — Create difficult terrain, heavy obscurement, and an ongoing save-against-prone effect in a massive area. This is best used to split up approaching enemy forces while incidentally making life hell for their casters. As we level we begin to more likely see lots of enemies immune to being charmed, so sleet storm gives us a reliable 3rd level option besides hypnotic pattern. This spell works best in large open spaces, making it especially notable for its combined coverage when paired with spirit guardians, a spell that works best in tight quarters. Once again, we are procuring this spell later than most, but it still has in-slot value.
Level 18: Sorcerer (Paladin 7/Warlock 2/Sorcerer 9)
Spell Changes: +synaptic static.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
3rd Level: counterspell, hypnotic pattern, sleet storm, spirit guardians.
4th Level: dimension door.
5th Level: synaptic static.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, heroism, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, shield, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
3rd Level: counterspell, hypnotic pattern, sleet storm, spirit guardians.
4th Level:
5th Level: synaptic static.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Synaptic static – We can afford to be somewhat liberal with our spell slots, so throwing out an elite blast like this even using a sixth level slot may not be a bad idea. It’s like fireball, but targets a better save and comes with an extremely debilitating rider. It is also a much less frequently resisted damage type. Since it delivers damage and control in an area of effect without using our concentration, this spell is actually more comparable to something like Rime’s binding ice than it is to fireball. No concentration required makes this spell easy to use, and there isn’t much competing for our 5th level slots outside of upcast spirit guardians.
Level 19: Sorcerer (Paladin 7/Warlock 2/Sorcerer 10)
Metamagic – Subtle Spell, Twinned Spell, Quickened Spell. Quickened Spell is moderately expensive at a cost of 2 sorcery points, but we can afford it at this level, and it serves as an extremely versatile and potent nova. The most basic and well-known use is eldritch blast + Quickened eldritch blast, which can temporarily give us a single target damage output on par with an optimized Fighter’s, as well as 8 chances to land Repelling Blast for some potent control. In general, though, you should consider Quickening for an extra action or eldritch blast in any situation where you have the resources to burn and the combat seems particularly challenging. In particular, consider combining eldritch blast with Quickened area of effect control spells such as web or hypnotic pattern to herd more enemies into the area.
Spell Changes: + mage hand, +banishment.
Metamagic – Subtle Spell, Twinned Spell, Quickened Spell. Quickened Spell is moderately expensive at a cost of 2 sorcery points, but we can afford it at this level, and it serves as an extremely versatile and potent nova. The most basic and well-known use is eldritch blast + Quickened eldritch blast, which can temporarily give us a single target damage output on par with an optimized Fighter’s, as well as 8 chances to land Repelling Blast for some potent control. In general, though, you should consider Quickening for an extra action or eldritch blast in any situation where you have the resources to burn and the combat seems particularly challenging. In particular, consider combining eldritch blast with Quickened area of effect control spells such as web or hypnotic pattern to herd more enemies into the area.
Spell Changes: +mage hand, +dimension door.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mage hand, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
3rd Level: counterspell, hypnotic pattern, sleet storm, spirit guardians.
4th Level: banishment, dimension door.
5th Level: synaptic static.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, heroism, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mage hand, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, shield, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
3rd Level: counterspell, hypnotic pattern, sleet storm, spirit guardians.
4th Level: dimension door.
5th Level: synaptic static.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Banishment – This is comparable to the debuff half of polymorph, but with a few significant upsides. Its Charisma save is often better to target than Wisdom at this level, and its effect can become permanent if the target is not native to the Material Plane, or whatever goofy plane you may be on at the time. (Note that due to how 5E is, a creature’s native plane can be difficult to ascertain and isn’t always logical). At this point, outsiders may be our primary enemies! It also upcasts decently, and we pick it up at a point where we have higher level slots available. If you can’t upcast it you can twin it instead, though note that it’s usually cheaper to upcast this than it is to twin it, since you can sell a 4th level slot for 4 sorcery points and create a 5th level slot for 7 to effectively twin the spell for a cost of 3 sorcery points instead of 4.
Dimension door – Teleporting out of dangerous situations can be very helpful. Our Aura of Protection is crucial to the party’s survival, if we get in some serious trouble this can be a gateway to safety, or towards the rest of our party if we’re not in Dash distance. Sometimes, you have to plan for failure, and this is one of those spells that helps us in those situations. If you picked Medium size Custom Lineage, you should now be happy you made it this far as you can take someone with you when you cast this spell.
Mage hand – This spell on its own is a good utility spell. Open doors, check for mimics, and activate/investigate traps. That being said, this late in the game you can probably pick whatever cantrip you want.
Level 20: Sorcerer (Paladin 7/Warlock 2/Sorcerer 11)
Spell Changes: +heroes’ feast.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mage hand, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
3rd Level: counterspell, hypnotic pattern, sleet storm, spirit guardians.
4th Level: banishment, dimension door.
5th Level: synaptic static.
6th Level: heroes’ feast.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: gift of alacrity shield, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, heroism, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Cantrips: fire bolt, guidance, mage hand, mending, mind sliver, mold earth.
1st Level: absorb elements, healing word, shield, silvery barbs.
2nd Level: phantasmal force, web.
3rd Level: counterspell, hypnotic pattern, sleet storm, spirit guardians.
4th Level: dimension door.
5th Level: synaptic static.
6th Level: heroes’ feast.
Cantrips: eldritch blast, magic stone.
1st Level: expeditious retreat, gift of alacrity, protection from evil and good, unseen servant.
2nd Level: misty step.
1st Level: alarm, bless, command, detect magic, shield of faith.
2nd Level: aid, find steed, lesser restoration, locate object, moonbeam, see invisibility.
Heroes’ feast – Wisdom saves are of high importance and at this point in the campaign we should be able to easily afford the spell (or you’re the poorest and possibly most underappreciated level 20 party in existence). All the benefits heroes’ feast grants will be of great value.
And so our time with the Flagship Paladin comes to a close. This build is a force multiplier that lets a party punch far above its weight class with respect to defenses. Our recommendations for this build may not have been the most exciting, with a lot of assurance that bless is very good and that Auras are even better. We expect this one to be somewhat divisive, given that the early levels may not ramp up in exciting ways like the full casters do, and that we ultimately end with more Sorcerer levels than Paladin levels. Is it fun to play a Paladin as a support character? We certainly think so. We believe that if you are unconvinced, once you play this build or see it in action, that you will change your mind about the sheer protective power this build packs. You may even convince your group Paladins aren’t just Fighters with Smites…should they currently hold on to such a notion.
It looks like there may have been an editing oversight at level 9. You select unseen servant as the new warlock spell, but you only talk about expeditious retreat, as if that were the spell selected.
Oops. That is indeed a mistake on my part, thanks for pointing it out!
Also looks like there are some elements in the Undead Warlock build that were not changed from the Hexblade build, as well as a couple other things that might have been editorial oversights:
Level 1: soon use charisma for weapon attack
Level 3: Strategy mentions hex, even though it was unselected this level
Level 4: Divine smite mentions shield and wrathful smite
Level 6: Strategy mentions find steed. Also mentions heroism as if it were a new spell, even though it was selected at an earlier level
Level 7: Find steed description mentions unpreparing the spell in favor of heroism, even though both are prepared at the same time on this build
Level 8: Aura of protection mentions using charisma for weapon attacks
Level 20: Banishment is bolded as if it were just added
Yeah, it looks like we messed up the progression-switcher on this one, it’s a quick fix once it’s approved. Thanks again for the eagle-eyed attention to detail, these posts can be long and unwieldy to edit (and to put into the WordPress editor).
I don’t see Polearm Master being useful in this build in a long run. I would just get Eldritch Adept to leverage Agonizing Blast since day 1 and not even bother with Warlock 2. Just my 2 cents. Regardless of that, really good insight about Oath of Watchers versatility. My usual optimized Paladin is a Conquest one.
A level 1 Paladin wouldn’t be able to take Agonizing Blast as the Invocation from Eldritch Adept for two reasons:
It doesn’t meet the Agonizing Blast prerequisite (eldritch blast cantrip)
and
“If the invocation has a prerequisite of any kind, you can choose that invocation only if you’re a warlock who meets the prerequisite.”
You could certainly start Warlock at first level instead, but then you’re missing out on Heavy Armor Proficiency.
Thank you for these builds…. I love watcher paladin…. but there is something with this one that in my view does need to synergize with why you took Pole arm master at inception. In that respect – War Caster is Key, for the ability to cast a spell on entering reach and the invocation push back. At level 10, i think it’s better to take Paladin 8 so you get that feat. Also with your advice on spear shield / Glaive, I would have thought the opposite…. at low levels spear shield, for the AC when you have low hit points and then switch to Glaive for later levels for the reach 10ft when you have some hit points to absorb damage. If you are relying on the opportunity attack of polearm master with a staff with only 5ft reach the eldritch blast cantrip would be cast with disadvantage very bad to build around, so I think the 10 ft Glaive is essential. The end build of sorcerer 10 vs 11 hardly matters when you have had the elite combo of pole arm master/ repelling blast / warcaster / 10 ft reach combo from level 10.
Wanted to note you can get the PAM+Warcaster+Repelling Blast combo at Hexblade 4 without multiclassing. You could even do it with Undead patron (you do not need to be proficient in the polearm to use PAM/WC to trigger blasts), but this trades fear effects for less effective bonus attacks (maybe you can find something else to do with your bonus action?)
A level 1 Paladin does not meet the prerequisite for War Caster (the ability to cast at least one spell). You could start Warlock but then you’d be missing out on Heavy Armor proficiency.
That isn’t a requirement.
it most certainly is a requirement
This is a fantastic write-up! Starting at level 3, how would the hex build have 5 first-level spells–it looks like you’d only get 4? Is Heroism listed as an alternate prepared spell? Thanks for all the details and discussion 🙂
Good eye! Heroism on that specific list was a mistake. We changed at what level to prep and unprep it a few times in the iterative process of making the build, and this remnant of an older version slipped through.
Heroism is right on the border of being a preparation you should take (or not) depending on your other options, so if there is ever a point in the build where we took something you just didn’t like using in play, it is a good spell to sub in and try out.
What about booming blade instead of magic stone?
Wouldn’t it be just one less base damage than extra attack and more if the creature moves?
Just a minor point: the rules of spell-scrolling – recommended for you here as a downtime activity – are pretty adamant about the necessity to have proficiency in the arcana skill… And your proposed build is only skilled in persuasion, athletics, stealth, and perception. Do you reckon that the ability to write scrolls is worth switching one of those skills for arcana?
Hey Jerzy! Some of us, like myself, were insistent that we at least inform people which spells would be best to scribe during downtime days. However the authors and editors of this particular build were disinclined to mandate Arcana proficiency despite my objections. It’s difficult to say which skill you should forgo to take Arcana. Paladins do not get Arcana naturally so we have to take Arcana through our background and both Perception and Stealth are absolutely crucial skills in any campaigns. All that said I would keep Stealth proficiency because Surprise really is that strong and we need all the help we can get to offset disadvantage from our armor. Giving up Perception is really painful, but I’m the kind of player who likes to have a lot of scrolls to protect myself and my party. If you can take a week off to make 3 absorb elements and 4 shield scrolls, why wouldn’t you?
Please note that unless characters reach level 3 in warlock and obtain the Pact of the Blade Boon, they will be unable to apply the Hex Warrior feature to the Glaive.
The Glaive has the Heavy, Reach and Two-Handed properties. The Hex Warrior feature specifies the requirements of the weapon as follows: “Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch one weapon that you are proficient with and that lacks the two-handed property.”
The restrictions of the Hex Warrior are relaxed by the final line of the feature: “If you later gain the Pact of the Blade feature, this benefit extends to every pact weapon you conjure with that feature, no matter the weapon’s type.”
The only two weapons that work with both the Polearm Master feat and Hex Warrior feature are spear and quarterstaff, neither of which have reach. Aside from the the Crawford Tweet which suggests that the intended reaction attack is to be performed with the polearm, the “forcelance tech” is less effective with a spear or a quarterstaff because the trigger is once another creature enters your reach, i.e. 5 feet, which in turn causes ranged attacks like eldritch blast to be made at disadvantage.
While I recognize this build is intended to be a ranged combatant, your intended interaction must be scrutinized carefully if you’re sinking an entire feat into achieving it. Based on my analysis, Polearm Master is suboptimal.
I don’t think you’ve made any incorrect observations here, but the article does say that the quarterstaff is the main weapon of choice the majority of the time. It also addresses the reason for the polearm master feat as primarily concerned with the offensive boost provided by the bonus action. The OA and how quarterstaff vs glaive play out is touched on early in the build, albeit in an oblique way under the wrathful smite spell. I would be interested to hear what your “optimal” alternative would be if PAM is suboptimal
This build is quite feat starved since Paladin goes 3 levels and warlock 2 levels without going towards a feat. So feat selection is extra important for this class. I don’t think an extra feat is worth taking paladin to level 8 however.
Instead of PAM, I think that I’d start with Fey Touched so that we get 18 Charisma right at level 1. The character will be weaker at level 1 due to unused bonus actions. But once the character hits level 2, they are ranged combatants primarily anyways, which means that the PAM bonus action isn’t regularly going to be used anyways. In contrast, the bonus to initiative and misty step will be quite useful. The forcelance tech wouldn’t even be online until level 9, when the second level in warlock is taken.
War Caster would be then be my preferred choice at level 4. My rationale is as follows:
(1) This character will regularly cast spells like bless to increase party DPR. Gaining advantage for concentration saves from damage will be useful to maximize the duration of party buffs.
(2) As a character who is trained in and able to use heavy armor and shield, this paladin has a greater likelihood of getting on the frontlines and therefore using the third feature of the War Caster feat, i.e. use a reaction to cast a spell at a creature who provokes an attack of opportunity.
(3) It grants greater flexibility when it comes to weapon selection. You don’t have to stick with wielding a staff to use eldritch blast or cast Warlock spells (and then eventually sorcerer spells).
The stats could also be shuffled so the character starts with a 15 in constitution (and 8 in wisdom?), and then take Resilient (Constitution) to achieve a similar benefit to keeping concentration spells up and also increase total HP. Although War Caster is better for maintaining concentration, Constitution based saving throws are very common during Tier 1 and Tier 2 play.
Level 17 is very late to acquire either of these feats.
I think this is super relevant for the Undead Warlock variant and it looks like that one was updated to take Fey Touched at Paladin 1 and War Caster at Sorcerer 4 with Resilient (Con) or Lucky at Sorcerer 8. I think War Caster first or 20 Cha first is up to personal preference, there are good arguments for both.
But for the Hexblade version… I feel like if you are going Paladin and Hexblade you probably want to make some melee attacks at some point even if it’s sub-optimal, so Polearm Master at Paladin 1 feels appropriate to satisfy the rule of cool. Not sure if that’s the most optimized option, but I’m pretty sure the Undead Warlock ends up being stronger than Hexblade if you are going all ranged with Eldritch Blast as your main source of at-will damage because of the Form of Dread plus Repelling Blast Synergy.
Nice build, even though I would go for clockwork soul instead of divine soul, I know favored by the gods is amazing as well as healing word, spirit guardians, and guidance, but the extra 10 spells are more valuable in my opinion you still get things like tiny servant, freedom of movement, greater restoration, and wall of force.
And I’m not a huge fan of PAM (I get that forcelnace is good) but I still think you are better of getting something like alert or even eldritch adept.
Also, one minor thing you added the 6th sorcerer cantrip at level 9, sorcerers get their 6th cantrip at level 10.
Thanks for the feedback!
We actually spent quite a bit of time deliberating between Divine Soul and Clockwork Soul. Both are quite powerful, and either option is defensible; which one is better overall depends on your campaign and level range, though we thought Divine Soul would be slightly better more of the time.
Hi TTB. Really enjoyed this build, especially the Undead version.
One thing I don’t understand is why do you propose Paladin to be essential for optimized play. It seems to me that in any given scenario, a party will be better served by an extra SorLock than a Paladin.
I get it that +5 to all saves is powerful defensively, but isn’t it a better defense to just be a full caster and using control to defend the party preemptively?
A Fog Cloud trumps all sight effects and spells automatically (so no saves needed). A Sleet Storm shuts down melee (and sight) for several rounds. Wall spells can defend aganist breath weapons…are those 7 Pal levels worth it when you could have by that time 9 levels of full caster?
Several reasons you still need a paladin build in an optimized party:
1. Despite what people think, you still need someone to bonk creatures in melee range and Paladin is the best melee build. A party with a sorlock instead of a paladin might just run out of spell slots.
2. Watchers has bonus to initative.
3. Paladin has a separate resource to heal and cleanse, possibly removing several effects or effectively resurrecting players without spell slots.
4. Even in an encounter where there are several control spells thrown around you still have Bless and EB+AB+RB
5. There’s still the need of one or more of the party members to benefit from control spells, just casting a control spell itself does not win the encounter if one or more of the players don’t act on the situation.
“This progression starts with 1 level in Paladin, then 1 level in Hexblade Warlock, goes 7 more levels in Paladin, picks up a second and final Hexblade level”
I think it should be *6* more levels in pal no?
If your DM doesn’t allow the PAM/Warcaster/Eldritch Blast interaction per JC’s suggestion that RAI the opp attack from PAM should use your pole-arm, is it worth having PAM on this build? (Seems like probably not).
Currently playing at low levels a version of this build (warlock2/paladin4) and the idea had been to use this combo, but my DM poopoo’d it…so went Fey-Touched instead at paladin4. (Yes, should probably have not taken the 2nd warlock level so early and rushed extra-attack / aura etc., but it fit the story and Devil’s Sight seemed important for this V-human).
I wasn’t sure where to take the build (and still not really sure), but was considering this exact set-up vs 6/14 warlock vs. piling on oathbreaker paladin to take advantage of PAM’s bonus action attack. Still torn but will see how the party dynamics shake out before deciding.
PAM is good regardless of its War Caster interaction to give you extra power and contribution in tier 1.
With the early second warlock level you chose to take (assuming you took agonizing blast as your other invocation), I’d be inclined to not take it though since eldritch blast and the extra pact slot similarly push your early game power – maybe even to use the more eldritch blast focused Undead Warlock variant of the build.
As for where to take the build: there’s a hilarious number of viable possibilities from warlock 2 paladin 6 that it really explodes the scope of the comment section. Paladin 7 if you have a good subclass, otherwise stay at 6. and then any of Divine Soul, Clockwork, or Abberrant Mind Sorcerer, more Warlock with pact of the blade and eldritch smite, or even Bard with Lore, Glamour, Swords, or Eloquence are all valid considerations.
I’d recommend you drop by our Discord server for faster responses and a quite engaged optimization community: https://discord.gg/ExzygQtA5Q | https://tabletopbuilds.com/august-2021-update-join-our-discord/
Thanks for the reply and the invite. Not much of a discord person, but I am trying to get with the times so I’ll pop in 🙂
First off great article. The one thing I do not get is why take a warlock dip when you take both polearm master, and choose divine soul sorcerer for spirit guardians? I get that eldritch blast with agonizing blast, and repelling blast is strong. But you need to be close to enemies to use both polearm master, and spirit guardians.
Dipping warlock for a powerful ranged attack is counterintuitive when your other character features are more effective when you are close to enemies. I get that we cannot always guarantee we will be close to enemies, but we can use ranged cantrips for a small amount of damage if necessary.
If you are going to dip warlock to pick up agonizing blast, and repelling blast, it makes more senses to go Oath of the Watchers 7 / Clockwork Soul 11 / (Genie 2 / Undead 2). The reason you go divine soul sorcerer on a sorcadin, is for spirit guardians. If you are not going into melee, spirit guardians will not be effective, and you are better off going clockwork soul sorcerer for the expanded spell list. The genie warlock offers genie’s wrath which is more reliable for damage then hexblade’s curse, and the fear effect from form of dread on the undead warlock would still be relevant in my hypothetical suggested build.
If you want to stick will polearm master, and spirit guardians, drop the warlock levels entirely and go Oath of the Watchers 7 / Divine Soul Sorcerer 13.
Thanks for writing a great article. My thoughts are meant to be constructive criticism and not to attack you in any way. Feel free to respond with your input if you have any.
If i could share some insights, I have been playing a character following the main leveling guide and am currently level 12. The melee damage boost provided by PAM at tier 1 cannot be overstated. At those low levels, an extra attack (and two divine smites for emergency nova) can completely shut down a combat in one turn. While this advantage depreciates after unlocking Extra Attack, it is still incredibly valuable as a bonus action outlet and, again, the “break glass” option to attack/ smite + extra attack/smite + PAM ba attack/ smite has been a defining tool in my arsenal. This build has excelled at keeping my character usefully engaged in every combat round because of how flexible it is. I’ve spent a lot of time in the past year looking at tweaking the build, but I have yet to find a change that is more than a side-grade. That said, optimization is contextual. Depending on the campaign setting, party composition, and DM style, flexibility may be less important than specialization.
Spirit Guardians and Eldritch Blast actually pairs together very well.
>Melee-Only enemy runs into Spirit Guardians, likely not making it to you due to having movement cut in half.
>You push them out with Repelling Blast.
>Enemy might not even be able to reach you next turn without wasting an action on dashing.
Personally I do lean towards the variant Undead Warlock version of this build. PAM is mostly taken here for a significant Tier 1 boost, but I don’t really care for taking feats that aren’t going to be frequently used at higher levels.
Generally speaking, though, the only reason you have a Pally in the party to begin with is just to be an Aura bot, anything else it does is just a small bonus, and it’s not going to be able to do additional things particularly well. Weapons aren’t very good in 5e without taking two Feats that compete for our Charisma ASIs (Smites have their applications, they are poor value for your spell slots.), so we aren’t even close to matching the Basic Build Fighter/Ranger at that. And we have a spellcasting progression closer to a Third-Caster up until later Tier 3, so we’re defiantly not matching a Cleric at that.
Having Eldritch Blast is a saving grace because it’s one of the few actions this kind of build can do that’s better than dodging once we cast our spell to concentrate on. Because if we do get in Melee with multiple enemies while Spirit Guardians up, dodging is likely the better thing to do anyways.
My thoughts on optimized Paladins have changed over time. Therefore, I have created an update on my original post here so you guys can see how my opinions have changed.
Originally, I did not like the Paladin flagship build TableTopbuilds created. However, after playing an Oath of the Watchers Paladin in Treantmonk one-shots ranging from levels 11-20, along with seeing people play several other Paladins, I have come to the following conclusion:
Paladins can be optimized in several different ways. Paladins can be optimized for:
1 Melee attacks
2 Ranged Attacks (Using Agonizing Blast + Repelling Blast)
3 Area of Effect Abilities. Spirit Guardians / Fear + Oath of Conquest
4 Support / Healing (Lay On Hands + Aura of Vitality + Inspiring Leader)
5 Tanking (Oath of Redemption / Oath of Conquest)
6 Spellcasting (Make a Sorcadin)
7 Burst Damage (Fighter 2 for Action Surge)
No matter which of the above playstyles you want, You can do it as a Paladin. The versatility of the Paladin base class gives players numerous options for how they want to build their character.
Paladins are a model example of how every class should be. Every class should have the ability to be effective with different playstyles. I hope the design team of D&D looks to the Paladin class as an example of how they can improve other classes in the next version of D&D.
My personal preference for how to make a Paladin may be different than yours. But everyone can optimize a Paladin to fit a specific playstyle. So make the Paladin that best suits YOUR interest and your party’s needs.
How would a variant of the build substituting Mark of Passage, Mark of Shadow, or Earth Genasi for Custom Lineage, giving you access to Pass without Trace, perform? While you do lose PAM (which probably won’t be that relevant past level 4 anyway) or Misty Step and Gift of Alacrity (only until level 4, when you’ll take them anyway), you get access to one of the best spells in the game starting at level 5, along with a whole host of other goodies, depending on the race you pick. I personally think this is an extremely good tradeoff, assuming (of course) that you don’t have a Ranger or anyone else with access to the spell in your party (because that would be redundant. It’s also thematically similar to initiative – both surprise and winning initiative provide a similar benefit, and they also stack.
Similarly, how worthwhile would a dip of Twilight or Peace Cleric be on this build? Twilight providing advantage to initiative makes sense for obvious reasons, and stacks with all the other bonuses, whereas Peace is just plain busted. Is it worth it, particularly if no one else in your party is dipping one?
This feels like it’s glossed over a bit in the build, but the note saying you would need to drop your staff to use somatic components for spells without material components (then using using your object interaction to pick your staff back up) doesn’t go into the fact that you need to leave your Arcane Focus sitting at your feet any time it isn’t your turn to be able to cast Shield.
RAW I can’t see anything that would let you drop your staff when it isn’t your turn, and Shield has Somatic Components but no Material ones, so that means your only option is to drop your weapon at the end of your turn before picking it back up at the start of your next turn.
Not only can this be incredibly risky depending on where you’re fighting (say, if the terrain is moving or you’re on a slope), but also means that someone you’re fighting could just use their object interaction to just pick up your arcane focus and take it. That means that this build either won’t be able to effectively use Shield until level 17 when you get War Caster, or has to buy a big pile of arcane foci as backups.
Go to a blacksmith or cobbler, buy a 1 foot long leather cord, tie one end into a loop big enough for your wrist and tie the other end around your staff. Et voila
Definitely a fun solution, but I’d worry that would your character easy to grapple (if they just pick up your dangling staff, they now have you on a leash).
It’s the old adage that you shouldn’t start looking for loopholes unless you want your DM to do the same.
Would Lunar Sorcerer change this build? I noticed the Cleric Flagship was altered to Lunar, so would it also change this build if it was selected? Maybe Divine Soul is still stronger?
This build doesn’t need Lunar to pick up “all three” reaction spells from a single level of dip, unlike the Cleric, so it is still best served with Divine Soul.
Didn’t check the math on this but I would probably keep strength at 13 (for multiclassing) and bump wisdom up to 12 (or 13 if you have enough left over from point buy) and take a half feat to get to 13 if needed. Then later on getting my aura of protection I’d jump to peace cleric 1. You pick up bless and emboldening bond.
Now your party is getting 5 + 2.5 + 2.5
+10 to their saves (7.5 to all saves and +10 once per turn!)
That combo is really OP and unstoppable. Then divine or clockwork sorc rest of the way. Emboldening bond should tech add to initiative as well.
There’s a typo in level 5 (harness divine power): “no higher than our proficiency bonus rounded up” is missing the word “half”.
Ignore that, it does say half (also I got the level wrong). I can’t work out how that happened, since I actually copied the quote from the page and pasted it into the comment… (unless I somehow(?) turned on contentEditable and accidentally deleted the word)
Can someone explain to me how the hexblade build gets the Bless spell?
Bless is a Paladin spell, so it prepares it as a Paladin.
I don’t understand how this build is getting an extra leveled sorcerer spell at all levels. “Divine magic” does essentially let there be 13 instead of 12 spells known by the time you’re at level 11. All despite bless still being listed under paladin meaning that if it was listed correctly there’d be 14 sorcerer spells listed.
This is explained at Sorcerer 1: “You learn one additional spell based on the affinity of the source of your divine power (this is not an alignment restriction). As we gain a level in Sorcerer, we can immediately swap out bless and take healing word instead. ”
Bless is correctly attributed to paladin because it is in fact paladin that prepares it, not divine soul sorcerer
Hi. I have some questions.
Is it possible to use Eldrich blast as opportunity attacks above 5th lvl? i mean, you cannot twin eldrich blast above 5th level, because it can target more than one creature. Isnt this the case here too?
And the other question is, wouldnt all the blasts from eldrich blast be done with disadvantage? i mean its a ranged spell and the PAM/War Caster triggers when the enemy is within 5 ft. (when using a shield and a spear/quaterstaff)?
“The spell must have a casting time of 1 action and must target only that creature.”
Ambiguous what ‘must target’ means, notably it’s phrased differently from twinned spell which says “targets”. So a bit unclear.
We decided that as long as you’re targeting a single creature, you should be in the clear. But War Caster is a good pickup either way purely for concentration.
Yes the EBs would be at disadvantage, though your modifier is quite high so you’re still quite likely to hit. And if you hit once, repelling blast will knock the enemy back and the rest will not be at disadvantage.
What do you think of the variant for this which includes a peace cleric dip. Then your party has. 5+2d4 (≈5) to their saves, essentially +10 to all mental saves with advantage.
Going bard 10 after sorcerer would allow party members to add a d10 to their save essentially making their bonus +15.5.
Eloquence would allow them to keep their bardic inspiration if somehow +15 fails and lore bard will allow you to obtain counterspell and spirit guardians at bard 6.
This is viable, though there are many builds that have a smaller opportunity cost for the peace 1 dip than paladin does. A party should try to have someone else take the peace dip if possible, but if no one does, then it’s worth it despite the ability score cost
Sage advice (https://www.sageadvice.eu/focus-staff/) suggests that the quarterstaff can be used as an arcane/druidic focus.
So since the hand for the the somatic components can also hold the focus, does that not mean that one can cast fine with their quarterstaff hand as if it is a wand?
This seems to make a case for picking up Toll the Dead over Magic stone too
The problem is that you cannot perform the S component if the spell does NOT have an M component: https://tabletopbuilds.com/components/
The somatic rules are just way too clunky, no wonder the tables I play with generally handwave the somatic components unless one is paralyzed, bound etc.
Also, what are your thoughts about picking toll the dead over Magic stone?
Why would you ever want to be a melee paladin when you will end up with Ebarb anyway? Shouldn’t you just do ebarb and not waste feats?
It’s not a waste of a feat if you’re using it in tier 1 and it’s boosting your damage output by a significant margin. We optimize for L1-20 and not taking Polearm Master greatly reduces your ability to contribute in tier 1 before you get EBARB. Check out what WZaDoftheCoast had to say about this last year in the comments, it’s exactly what most of us have experienced and mathed out with respect to the build. Also, our variant also does just this, taking Fey Touched and 2 levels of Warlock right away and delaying the aura boosts.
This is an amazing guide I am looking forward to playing this build. However I am thinking of not taking the two levels in Warlock mainly for flavor reasons. Any advice on how I should spend those two levels without any other multiclassing besides Paladin and Sorcerer?
While personally I am a believer of multiclassing not needing to be restricted based on preconceived flavor (see PHB p. 163 “Multiclassing allows you to gain levels in multiple classes. Doing so lets you mix the abilities of those classes to realize a character concept that might not be reflected in one of the standard class options.”), you would likely just take more levels in Sorcerer, pick up _shield_ through that instead, and cope with having a worse at will ranged option. Should perform fine though, even if it is worse :-).
Great idea! I really enjoy all of your articles and it’s clear you have an eye for detail and theory’d them out well. Regarding this one and in general – you have gone from 5th level to 13th with access to a feat/asi. This leads me to believe that you do not value them very highly (I have read your opinion on ASI vs Feats). So my guess is as a general rule when looking to multiclass you would suggest to players to not worry about planning to build their characters around a 12/8 or 16/4 level scheme but instead to just pick up levels that find the most useful levels possible for that character, as stated in the multiclass guide? It just seems you have disdain for all but maybe 3 or so feats/ASI per character.
Fundamentally feats and ASIs are just features that give you power – it’s just you happen to pick from a larger breadth of options than you do for class features and the like. And often times the opportunity cost for taking them is investing multiple levels into a class that gives you sometimes bad features along the way.
We have no heuristic at play that says “only go for 3 ASIs” or the like. What we do is that we look at a level split (and its progression!) and look at the total power it offers as you build and complete your character.
A simple example that happens quite often is the choice between an ASI or a Divine Soul 1 dip, and very often the latter wins out cause Shield + Absorb Elements + Favored by the Gods tends to be more powerful than an ASI (obviously there are some larger concerns here like potentially the level after the ASI being good – which is pretty much uniformly the case for the level 4 ASI unlocking level 5 features the next level) so many builds will probably be better as a classA 16 / classB 3 / Divine Soul 1 than a 16/4 split. What adds to this is that every feat and ASI pick will be worse than the previous one (otherwise you would’ve picked that feat first and *then* the statement is true). So it’s not even DSS1 vs “a feat” it’s DSS1 vs the SIXTH BEST feat, so there’s a big decline of quality here: DSS1 might not win against Warcaster, but it sure as hell wins against Tough or +2 WIS etc.
At the end of the day: Look at the possible versions of your character and compare their power, do not give special treatment to feats and ASIs; do not give them special value and do not disregard them for being ASIs either. A good thought exercise here is looking at the flagship ranger build and comparing the capabilities it unlocks through class features at every level to the +2 DEX ASI it could be having from proceeding in one of its existing classes.
As for this build: We continuously make the decision to value sorcerer progression over the ASI. Which is basically a tradeoff of being down 1 CHA every other level but in compensation being one spell level up every other level. Knowing the next level of spells is vastly more powerful than 1 CHA modifier so the former is chosen and the ASI is left by the wayside. Now if you know that your campaign will end on the next level, and you have the choice between an even sorcerer level and paladin 8 for the ASI, you should choose the latter, the build just doesn’t do that because it ends on an odd sorcerer level, not an even one; though for that specific decision, you’ll also want to think about the benefits of warlock 3 vs the ASI, which could go either way depending on how long your adventuring days are.
So, this might be a bit of an odd question, but I am going to play a solo module soon and want to run something very powerful. I love Paladins, so when I saw this I was intrigued. Do you think this build will be effective in solo play aswell?
A lot of the main benefits are towards group buffs (particularly Bless and the Auras), so while the build is very well rounded it would certainly suffer from not having any allies.
That being said, if you have npc allies in your adventure then problem solved. Magic Stone is a great buff to your party’s damage out the gate.
Thanks for the swift reply! I think the campaign is balanced around 1 or 2 PC’s, do you think 1 npc ally is enough or does this build need a full party of three or more?
In my experience, it isn’t reliant on having allies to buff. You should be fine. It does, however, get much stronger if you do have people to share with
The choice of Polearm Master is pretty suspicious ( for the hexblade version ). Invest in a lvl 1 feat just for the first tier of play? Nah. Would rather pick another race or another feat ( probably another race ).
You can just take the Undead Variant if you don’t value tier 1 performance. That would be more powerful than a different race following the Hexblade path. These builds are made with 1-20 in mind, but not every table starts at level 1.
Hi, love your website and content. I noticed that a lot of your flagship builds don’t have the table of contents sidebar on mobile. Using Chrome on iOS.
We had to disable the sidebar table of contents feature for these builds, the way we implemented the toggle-able variants made it unhelpful for navigation.
Hello, may i ask how this paladin is casting a shield spell or counterspell in reaction before taking Warcaster?
I get that their Shield is Holy Symbol and their staff an Arcane symbol. Thats ok for V;M and V,S,M.
And i get they can spend sorcery points to suble the spells.
But they cannot cast shield spell/CS in reaction without spending sorcery points or having warcaster right? Despite having two foci in hands.
Just one level after you get _shield_, you get Agonizing+Repelling Blast, and so you are not using your staff that much any more (though if you need the extra damage it’s still an option of course). And even if you want to go for some big smite damage early in a fight, you can always drop your staff afterwards (assuming you drew it that turn) so your hands are free between turns for defense. You have options, in other words.
Well, thats what i though. It just points towards the Undead version of the build. Hex one is better at start as you can make use of your bonus action more, but the Undead one does not “waste” feat.The Hex one takes PAM thus delays the Warcaster and you need to make decision between having the attack of opportunity or Shield/CS. TBH i would change the Hex one to go for Lock2/Pally8 and drop Dueling for AC there if you want and take the Warcaster. So the Hex one would be nice for shorter campaign while the Undead one for longer one.
Im crazy?
I am curious how you think this build will work in the “Eve of Vecna” campaign. The lack of high level spell slots concerns me since Vecna cannot be affected by 5th level spells and lower. Perhaps it shifts a bit to more of a buffing and protecting build but I want to know your thoughts.