Paladin / Warlock Faith conflict query

While in game terms, there is nothing stopping this from happening, in story terms, it probably shouldn't be allowed. The reason for this is because divine magic is only granted to the most devoted and the most faithful. When your faith waivers, so does the magic. Any god has the right to restrict spells and even remove spell casting abilities all together from their followers or worse, place some sort of curse on them.
Warlocks make pacts with entities that are not gods, and because of this, the magic is not divine. The creature may be as powerful as a god, (demonlord, dead god, primordial) or a lesser power (archfey, devil, angel, aberration, lich), bit whatever the case, when the contract has been made and the pact has been set, the entity binds a piece of it to the soul of the individual. This pact can never be broken and the bind can never be undone (except maybe by a wish). And while selling your soul may not have to be part of the bargain in the pact, your soul will forever be stained, and your god may never want you. While there are exceptions to this rule, the player and the DM should hash those exceptions out. Like maybe an Oath of Ancients paladin makes a pact with an Archfey and is granted powers because the Archfey's motives are in line with the nature god he serves and was granted permission (perhaps even a minion of the god, that the paladin saves).

The problem is, most of the entities that create Warlocks are either selfish or evil in nature, and the gods will want nothing to do with them.

neogod22 said:

The problem is, most of the entities that create Warlocks are either selfish or evil in nature, and the gods will want nothing to do with them.

Click to expand...

That is entirely campaign-dependent.

I'd say it really depends on the particulars, especially which combination of Oath and Patron the PC has.

Does a Paladin with an Oath of the Ancients swear to champion a noble Archfey of the Summer Court? Does a Paladin committed to the Oath of Vengeance bargain with the devils of the Nine Hells for greater power, reasoning that they're the lesser evil because they have to keep their word? Does a Warlock with a Celestial pact find their mentor's ideals so inspiring that they swear an Oath of Devotion? All of those are very complimentary combinations and require little justification.

But what about the less obvious combinations? What if you cross the streams, and mix Devotion with Fiend? What if you bring in a more alien Pact like Great Old One or Hexblade? Well, sometimes you can justify the combination with some clever flavor, especially if you go for an atypical pact relationship. Or maybe you'll get some story fodder out of a PC serving two conflicting directives and trying to keep them from fatally colliding.

Really, this comes down to one of the core issues of multiclassing. If you're doing it for story reasons, the pairing should make sense from the start. If you're doing it for a minmaxing build with no regard for story... well, IMO you deserve every bit of trouble the DM drops on your head for that.

jaelis said:

However you (the player) think is best!

Click to expand...

You should not forget to include your DM in this resolution.

ccs said:

You should not forget to include your DM in this resolution.

Click to expand...

Only if you have a dm that likes to tell you how to play your character

jaelis said:

Only if you have a dm that likes to tell you how to play your character

Click to expand...

Well while the game does not limit options for multiclassing, the DM might, so it's up to the DM ultimately.

Saelorn said:

Easy. Any paladin who disrespects their god directly, by trying to make a personal deal with an outside power, is reduced to a scorch mark on the ground where the bolt of retribution struck.

If you want to play a paladin who multiclasses into warlock, then you first need to re-define what it means to be a paladin in the first place.

Click to expand...

These discussions bring so forth so many house rules masquerading as 'one true faith' gaming!

It looks like the absolutism of AD&D paladins will still take another generation to die out. Oh well.

There doesn't have to be any conflict at all. While each of the classes have flavour and RP concepts built right in, it is all COMPLETELY optional. If someone wishes to play a Warlock, but decides that their magic is innate, rather than granted from a patron, that's totally fine. If someone wishes to play a paladin and wants to call that magic innate, that's also fine. If someone multiclasses Paladin/Warlock and says that the class features all come from one source, whether oath, deity, patron, innate, or other: fine.

Obviously there can be agreed upon limitations to this kind of thing depending on setting/lore, but the point is that the mechanics and classes exist to serve the vision of the people playing the game, not pigeon-hole them into playing a character as dictated by the book.

neogod22 said:

Well while the game does not limit options for multiclassing, the DM might, so it's up to the DM ultimately.

Click to expand...

Certainly you should check with the DM to see if multiclassing is ok. But if they say yes I’d say it is up to you to explain how your character thinks about it.