Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Warmonger34 Jul 13, 2015 3:01:51	Hello all! I am new to 5e and i was wanting to roll a LE Pally/Warlock. But I am trying to figure out what paths to take. I had the idea when I was thinking it would be cool to be a dark Pally who is reminiscent of a Sith Lord. First off his alignment I was thinking Lawful Evil because in his mind he is doing the right thing by opressing others and he follows his gods codes strictly. The god/goddess I was thinking of worshiping are Loviatar, goddess of pain LE Death or Bane, god of tyranny LE War.   Now for the build I am new havent played 5e as of yet, but my friends are wanting to start an adventure up next month so I am trying to get the char build done early. I was thinking Human Varient as the race (dont like elves or HE's) this allows me to pump 1 pt into CHA and I was thinking the other pt will go into CON. For the Feat I was thinking either Durable for the bump in CON, or Resiliant an bump CHA. Now for the fighting style this one I am torn on I really dont know if Defense is worth the 1 AC,  Dueling sounds good but can i use a shield and get the bonus? and does anyone think Protection is worthwhile? I want to be the groups tank so whichever one is more benificial is what im looking for. As for my Oath I was thinking Vengence as it goes with my RP of this char and the spells seem adequate. But I was looking for advice on how many levels do I invest in Pally? I was thinking 3 and then I will start taking lvls in Warlock I was thinking of taking 3 lvls there, I am wanting to go with Fiend and Pact of the blade. As I will do anything to further my gods cause even making deals with nefarious beings to get an edge!   I am looking for suggestions please feel free to critique, it's my first char so I am in the learning phase. Thanks for your time.
#2 Be3Al2 Aug 01, 2015 16:39:41	First of all this might get more replies at the 5e forums.   Second: If you go warlock with a bit of paladin I guess you won't get much use out of the paladin features. So paladin with a bit of warlock would probably best. This gives that you mostly use Str for attack, Con for hit points and Cha for spells. Thus, your highest stat should be Str (as a variant human either use one of the racial bumps, a feat with a bump, or both to get 16 Str). Charisma should probably be at 14 or 16 at level 1 to take advantage of the Warlock spells.   For the feat I would suggest Heavy Armor Master for +1 Str and reducing incoming damage or Sentinel to become a 4e style defender (probably better than protection fighting style). For the second spell I would suggest War Caster.   For fighting style both Dueling and Defense can be good. Dueling does work with either shield or empty hand (and an empty hand allows for casting).   Oath of Vengence and The Fiend are what I would use too. Beware of Warlock spells that need material components (hard to combine with paladin weapons). Depending on the DM it could be hard using other Oaths with the Warlock (altough Oath of the Ancients could go well with Fey pact, but not for the Sith style). So start with Paladin and then multiclass Warlock at some point. I would probably go 1st level paladin, then 2 levels Warlock (for the Eldritch blast, invocations and looking good) and the rest paladin (or picking up warlock level 3 after Extra attack for the spell level increase and pact of the blade). I think that taking a Warlock level at level 2 should make sense, but the fighting style and smite might be worth taking 2 levels of Paladin first. If you can wait 3 levels before going warlock without being tempted by ability score increase and extra attack then 3+3 levels could work.   An alternative is taking 5 levels of paladin before going Warlock to get the extra attack. An interesting version if you won't fight a lot of undead or fiends and your DM allows it is to choose the Oathbreaker version of paladin from the DMG. That could work really well with the Sith theme, in particular if you go for a few levels of Oath of Devotion before turning Evil. It requires the PC to be evil (check) and DM permission to be an oathbreaker, and the level 7 feature as written probably gives a boost to undead and fiends even if they are your enemies.   For invocations at Warlock level 2 I would suggest Agonizing blast (to have a great ranged option) and Devil's sight (to really compensate for Humans not getting darkvision). Also remember that you can use warlock spell slots for divine smite and paladin spells as well as paladin spell slots for warlock spells.
#3 BRJN Aug 03, 2015 16:43:17	"Be a Sith Lord" Do you mean Bane, or Sidious, or Vader?  Each of them would be built differently.   I have a (retired) Ancient Paladin9, dual-stat DEX/CHR, Protection Style since I was the group's tank and wanted all the AC I could get.  He was very hard to hit and therefore hard to kill.  He was usually able to aid his allies when in extremeis.  Getting Resist (Spells) patched up his biggest weakness.  His favorite spell was Moonbeam, because he could block / punish enemy movement with it. The character was also effective: the DM would audibly groan when I found a bottleneck and stood in it with the rest of the group behind me.  (I had to retire him because I became the DM !)