D&D 5E Best level split for Paladin/Hexblade?

I am thinking best are:

19/1 - CHA SAD, shield, curse etc. Full Paladin progression and slots. 5th level Paladin spells.
18/2 - Agonizing Blast + Devil Sight. But you lose one 5th level slot. 5th level Paladin spells.
17/3 - Darkness and 2x 2nd level slots (3k8 smites). No more slots lost vs 18/2. 5th level Paladin spells.

But I wonder if you think the following could be more potent:

11/9 - You get Improved Smites, 3rd level spells and 2x 5th level short rest slots by level 18. We could also go 13/7 but in order of 1-6 Pal/1 Hex/7-11 Pala/12-18 Hex/18-20 Pala.

What do you think is most potent split. I don't like 6/14 as you get so few slots to use and Lifedrinker comes so much later than Improved Divine Smites.

13/7. Warlock/Paladin.
Lifedrinker is better than Improved Divine Smites, Improved Pact Weapon is always good. If you're crazy you could double up on smites with the smite invocation. Things like Relentless Hex allow you to keep up with your target, so you don't lose damage to not being able to reach someone.
You get, assuming a regular adventuring day of 2 short rests and 1 long, 1 7th level spell, 1 6th level spell, 9 5th level spells, 3 2nd level spells, and 4 1st level spells.

Yunru said:

13/7. Warlock/Paladin.
Lifedrinker is better than Improved Divine Smites, Improved Pact Weapon is always good. If you're crazy you could double up on smites with the smite invocation. Things like Relentless Hex allow you to keep up with your target, so you don't lose damage to not being able to reach someone.
You get, assuming a regular adventuring day of 2 short rests and 1 long, 1 7th level spell, 1 6th level spell, 9 5th level spells, 3 2nd level spells, and 4 1st level spells.

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Lifedrinker is not really "better". It's 5 dmg vs av. 4.5 dmg. But IDS comes for Paladin at level 11, while LD at level 12 for locks. Meaning since you always want 6 levels of Paladin you will get LD at 18 level fastest, while you can get IDS at 12 (with 1 level dip first in Hex). That is having extra 1d8 dmg for 12-18 level vs having +5 dmg on 18-20 level. Not only that but you have far better chances playing 11-18 level than playing 18-20 levels, which most players never see.

Also I don't think 13 levels if Warlock are worth, you still get max 3 slots. Yes, they are per short rest but in a one serious fight a 13 Lock/7 Paladin have:

3 x 5th level slots, 3 x 2nd level slots and 4x 1st level slots. Meaning in one serious fight you can Nova for maximum of... 32k8 Smites. Let's say we will use at least 1 x 1 level slot for some bless or something or even 1x 5th level slots for something like Moil, Agathys etc. So it's about 27k8 possible nova. Which is 121, 5.

On the other hand Paladin 13/7 Warlock will have: 4/3/3/1 + 2 x 4th level slots. 44k8 Nova. Let's say we burn one slot for probably Haste if Vengeance or one for Bless or Agathys. So 40k8. Potential of 180 extra Nova damage. And we were rocking IDS since level 12 instead of level 18. We have 2x 4th level slots instead of 3x 5th level slots but overall we have same 5k8 smites but we also have extra 3 x 3rd level slots , extra 2nd level slot and faster IDS bonus damage.

Both have access to E-Smite too. Both can use Shadow of Moil.

So Lock 13/7 Paladin will Smite one more time between short rests, but Lock 7/13 Paladin will smite 4 more times in one fight, have more slots, more Paladin spells and have extra 1d8 damage 6 levels faster than 13/7 have +5 damage.

Benny89 said:

Also I don't think 13 levels if Warlock are worth, you still get max 3 slots. Yes, they are per short rest but in a one serious fight a 13 Lock/7 Paladin have:

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And now it turns out the fight wasn't as hard as you anticipated, you've blown a lot of resources, and need to get to and fight the true boss. The Warlock 13/Paladin 7 just short rests and gets 15d8 Divine Smite back, whereas the other way around you get... 10d8.

Additionally, 1d8 may average 4.5, but that doesn't help when the boss is killing you after 6 to 9 attacks of rolling 1s and 2s. However, +5 will give you +5 every time.

I guess a 20/0 or 0/20 split makes most sense.

If you really want to multiclass, my advice would be just play and look which part of your character needs improvement. There is no clear winner between 20/0 to 0/20 though you should avoid 10/10.

If you search this forum a bit there was a nice thread comparing a hexblade/paladin with a pure paladin level by level which also did not have a clear winner.

If i had to chose, i'd most probably take only a singe level of warlock. The second one would boost your ranged attack so much that it makes your charisma to weapon attack rolls quite redundand. It also slows down paladin progression too much. Improved divine smite is nicer than lifedrinker. 1d8 can be multiplied by crits which are more common due to increaded chance from hexblade curse. It also comes when it is still needed.

Yunru said:

And now it turns out the fight wasn't as hard as you anticipated, you've blown a lot of resources, and need to get to and fight the true boss. The Warlock 13/Paladin 7 just short rests and gets 15d8 Divine Smite back, whereas the other way around you get... 10d8.

Additionally, 1d8 may average 4.5, but that doesn't help when the boss is killing you after 6 to 9 attacks of rolling 1s and 2s. However, +5 will give you +5 every time.

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And it turns out your resources weren't enough to blow in Boss encounter, while extra smites from Paladin made it possible. And yes you are correct you will have 3x 5th level, which is still only 5k8, while I will have 2 x 5k8. But I have option to have more resources to blow or not.

Also 1d8 may also roll 7s, 8s. And IDS can crit, lifedrinker can't. That is why there is average. If you have 4-5 attack per turn - your average will probably be around 4.5. +5 will give you +5 but only on level 18-20, which you may not see, or you will finish playing before 20 comes. I will have +1d8 since level 12 to 20, while you will have +0 from level 1 to 18. Worth to consider.

And 5th level Warlock spells are lets be honest- very underwhelming. At lest compare to level 5 Paladin spells (which both splits don't get anyway). 4th slots already give max smites, so chasing that 5th level slots seems dimishing return to me a lot.

That's just my opinion.

11/9 if you really insist on Improved Divine Smite. Spam as many Destructive Wraths as you want.

UngeheuerLich said:

If you search this forum a bit there was a nice thread comparing a hexblade/paladin with a pure paladin level by level which also did not have a clear winner.

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I will try to find that thread, but if you happen to have a link to it, I'd be grateful!

Benny89 said:

I will try to find that thread, but if you happen to have a link to it, I'd be grateful!

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See post above.