D&D 5E [GUIDE] Paladin Multiclassing: An in Depth Analysis

[FrogReaver]

Paladin MutliClassing: An in Depth Analysis


I. Foreword

This is my first real attempt at a guide of any kind. It's a lot morework than it looks like. Kudos to anyone that has created a guide before. It's still a work in progress and not every section is complete but I wanted to go ahead and put out what I have so far so that I can start getting feedback on it.


II. Introduction

Paladins are agreat Class to remain in your entire career. They have many good abilities and they get them regularly. So there are definitely major trade-offs to multiclassing out of Paladin and into another class. This guide will offer a quantitative and qualitative analysis of thegeneral themes you want to be aware of when deciding what to multiclass your Paladin into.

I am writing this guide from holistic perspective that includes in combat and out of combat situations as well as organically leveling from level 1 to 20. I'm not solely concerned with damage here even though a lot of the discussion is going to revolve around damage as it's what's most easy to quantify and compare.

For example, I believe that on a single class Paladin that charisma is more important than strength (I'll give more detailed analysis later). There are a number of factors concerning this belief:

1. Charisma impacts all saves and social skills as well as spellcasting DC and spells prepared.
2. A large portion of your damage is influenced by smites and improved divine smite
3. You may find a belt of giant strength
4. There's always the option of multiclassing into hexblade to make your attack charisma based.

I won't be color coding every single ability and option imaginable. If you want that then there are plenty of other guides out there. This guide is primarily about analysis with a sprinkling of tactical and build advice. They'll be plenty of lists and numbers and charts though.


III. Important Concepts

Three Pillars – These are exploration, social and combat. Different ones matter more in different games. The best characters tend to offer abilities applicable to all 3.

Versatility– A measure of how well your character is at solving various problems in all 3 pillars. Generally more spell casting is the best way to increase versatility.

Combat Pillar

The purpose of this pillar is self explanatory. It's also the pillar weare most able to quantify. As such there are many concepts that needcovered here.

Nova Damage –Essentially the damage you can do on a single turn. I further subdivide this out into Prebuffed Nova Damage and Unbuffed NovaDamage. Nova Damage is the best measure of your ability to kill a particular enemy that needs to die fast. It's a very important combat statistic, though it shouldn't be considered solely inisolation. It coupled with the next statistic, Daily Damage gives agreat picture of just how effectively your character is at killing enemies.

Daily Damage –This is how much damage your character is estimated to be able to doin a set number of rounds and rests provided you use all your resource abilities on damage. This coupled with Nova Damage are the best 2 indicators of how well your character will perform at damage in combat IMO. For purposes of this guide I use 2 short rests perday and 20 rounds of combat. In many campaigns it could be morea ccurate to compute daily damage from 1 short rest and 10-15 roundsof combat. I think 20 is a nice happy middle ground that also is easy to base calculations around.

At-will damage –How effective your character is at dealing damage without using resource driven abilities. It's honestly a very poor indicator ofcharacter performance and for the purposes of this guide I'm ignoring it except as for a component of daily damage.

Control – Howeffective you are at disabling enemies or otherwise making theirlives misreable. Generally spell casting is how you become effective at this aspect. Control isn't only about the strength of the effect but how easy it is to maintain the effect and how many enemies that effect is capable of hitting.

Survivability –How effective you are at not dying. Your Hp, AC, saving throws and damage mitagation and self-healing abilites all apply here.

Exploration Pillar

Exploration isultimately about effeciently getting around various environmentswhile noticing what's important in them with the least resistance possible. Skills like stealh, athletics and perception all go here. Knowledge skills and spells also play an indirect role here. Forexample it may take a high stealth to safely navigate a dungeon butit may take an arcana check to recognize that symbol on the wall means there's a magical hidden pathway here. Various spells thathelp you navigate an environment safely or grant some useful piece of knowledge also impact this pillar. Movement capabilities are alsovery important and many of these are only granted by magic.

Exploration Movement Hierarchy
Tier 1 – Long Range Teleportation
Tier 2 - Flight
Tier 3 – Short Range Teleportation
Tier 4 – Wall Walking
Tier 5 – Water Walking
Tier 6 –Additional run, walk, swim, climb capabilities

Social Pillar

This pillar is allabout interacting with NPC's. How do you get them to do what youwant. How do you get them to help you. Knowledge skills can also play an indirect role here. Skills like persuasion, deception,insight and intimidation really matter. There are fewer spells that help the social pillar and I don't know that I would classify any paladin spells as impactful to this pillar. At least paladins get a good charisma and this helps with the social skills.

 

[FrogReaver]

IV. Paladin General Overview

To be able to analyze Paladin Multiclassing we first have to understand the Paldin Class itself. Paladins are primarily a strength and charisma class. They take 13 str and 13 cha to multiclass in or out of. However, it's also possible to make dexterity variations that still qualifyfor multiclassing. Typically those trade some con and off-stats toachieve a high starting dex and 13 str, as opposed to dumping dexterity and having a high str cha and con.

Single classed Paladins are great at the combat pillar. They have some of the best Nova Damage in the game and they have good daily damage output aswell. They also are one of the most survivable classes in the game due to their solid hp, High AC, Great saves and healing capabilites. They are moderate at the exploration and social pillars. Overall this makes Paladins one of the more versatile characters and possibly the most versatile primarily melee character in the game.

Paladin Key Features

Divine Smite –Allows you to turn spell slots into raw damage when you hit with an attack. This ability is the cornerstone of your NOVA capabilitiesand also increases your daily damage output considerably.

Spellcasting –This single feature is responsible for a large chunk of a paladins versatility. It allows him to enhance his Nova Damage, Control, Survivability and exploration abilities. It also provides the spell slot resource needed to power his divine smites

Extra Attack –Scales your daily damage and Nova capabilities considerably

Aura of Protection– Allows for a huge bonus to saves for you and those near you. This ability is the biggest reason your survivability is as good as it is.

Improved Divine Smite – A very nice ability for damage scaling. Some DM's alsorule that when you divine smite that you get to add 1d8 to your attack and to the smite as opposed to replacing the 1d8 added to thea ttack with 1d8 added to the smite. I'm in the first camp and this guide is written from that perspective. The general trends should more or less remain the same.

Important PaladinLevels

Thebelow table shows Paladin levels broken down by when they get important abilities. I've went from highest level to lowest so youcan easily see what abilities you would be missing by not achieving the level shown on the chart.

Paladin Level	Spell Level Learned	Spell Slots Gained Since Previous Level Shown on Chart	Other Benefits
Level 18			Increased distance of aura to 30ft
Level 17	5th	Two 4th One 5th	Very good spells here
Level 13	4th	4th
Level 12			ASI
Level 11		3rd	Improved Divine Smite
Level 9	3rd	Two 3rd
Level 8			ASI
Level 7		2nd	Subclass Aura
Level 6			Aura of Protection
Level 5	2nd	Two 2nd Two 1st	Extra Attack
Level 2	1st	Two 1st	Divine Smite

 

[FrogReaver]

V. Paladin Analysis

The goal of my analysis is primarily to provide insights, tools and strategies so that you will be equipped to make your own comparisons because so much is campaign dependent. This section I'm going to talk about Paladin Specific topics.

Methodology

I assume a starting strength/dexterity and charisma of 16 in all cases. If you start with a different values then the numbers will be off but the general trends you find here should still be reflective of your particular situation.

Unless otherwise noted I will be comparing with a great sword and the defensive style. Other weapon combinations shouldn't be that particularly different unless feats are involved. My comparisons all take into account the AC range of 11-20 and that's why you see two percentages in my analysis, the min and the max.

I've ignored criticals in my calculations as the weapon damage component is tiny and while you can maximize daily damage somewhat by waiting to use smites on critical hits, that's not a tactically expedient approach, because damage now is typically better than damage later. However, by all means when a crit comes up use a smite as long as it's not against a goblin or something you would have otherwise killed in a single hit.

Strength vs Charisma

As promised, here is the in depth analysis on Strength vs Charisma. The first question to tackle in this analysis the impact taking strength instead of charisma has on daily damage and Nova capabilities.

Paladin Level	Daily Damage	Nova Damage
Level 4 (+2 Strength)	+14% to +20%	+10% to +23%
Level 5 (+2 Strength)	+14% to +18%	+10% to +19%
Level 8 (+4 Strength)	+28% to +35%	+21% to +40%
Level 9 (+4 Strength)	+26% to +29%	+20% to +38%
Level 11 (+4 Strength)	+20% to +24%	+19% to +36%

The trend I'm seeing is that Daily Damage appears to stay within about+20% whether you attempt to max strength or whether you use those ASI's to max charisma. The only exception is for levels 8-10 where that increases to around +30% only to drop back down to around +20% at levels 11+. Your Nova capabilities remain in that same +20% ballpark until level 8 and then the strength maxing character's Nova capabilities increase by about +30% relative to the charisma maxing characters for the rest of the game.

Solely from the perspective of the combat pillar, if I instead max charisma I can have +1 to +2 saves and +1 to +2 spell DC. The saves make you and your allies a lot more survivable. The saves also help youmaintain concentration spells like bless or wrathful smite. Paladins have a number of strong debuff smite spells that can be used with their attacks. These spells are after overlooked and underrated. The increased spell save DC significantly improves these spells. For these combat reasons alone I lean toward increasing charisma on a paladin being more important than increasing strength.

However, combat isn't the only thing to consider when increasing an ASI. From an out of combat perspective the added charisma significantly helps you in the social pillar. The Charisma boost also allows you to keep2 more spells prepared which further increases your versatility.

There is also the consideration I mentioned earlier that there are other ways to obtain a high attack stat with a paladin that maxes Charisma. Either a Hexblade multiclass or Belt of Giant Strength can accomplish this.

So from a holistic level 1-20 and all 3 pillar perspective I absolutely prioritize Charisma over Strength. I even recommend increasing charisma before you get aura of protection at level 6 because the charisma increase still helps everything else mentioned above, including wrathful smite which is a very potent ability in a low level paladins arsenal. Besides, the charisma bonus will be applied to aura of protection in just 2 levels. However, I acknowledge the decision on whether to increase strength or charisma at level 4 isn't as clear cut as it is after getting Aura of Protection and more spell slots.

Dexterity vs Charisma

The comparison between dexterity and charisma for finesse weapon Paladin's is essentially the same except stealth and initiative and Constitution and AC differences also must be included. I still lean toward Maxing Charisma here but the case for it isn't nearly as strong. I find there's a better case for increasing dexterity at level 4 than I do for increasing strength at level 4. I still think that increasing charisma after obtaining Aura of Protection is the best way to go.

 

[FrogReaver]

V. Paladin Analysis (pt2)

Skills (Evaluation)

I could rank skills here based on class strengths, expected rate of use and impact in game. Such a rating would be near useless IMO. It's simply too campaign and party dependent. Ultimately skills are all about resolving a task and so when it comes to evaluating skills think about them in terms of resolving a random task and consider the following:

Consequences of Failure – 1) Is there a consequence for failure? 2) Do you consider that consequence to be major or minor? 3) Does failure harm the group or just your PC?

Benefits of success – 4) Is there a benefit for success? 5) Do you consider that benefit to be major or minor? 6) Does success benefit the group or just to your PC?

Repeated Attempts – 7) Can multiple players attempt to resolve the task with the same skill? 8) What about with different skills? 9) Can you attempt to resolve the task with different skills?

Tasks where the group works together – 10) Does the group fail if even one PC fails? 11) Does the group succeed if even one PC succeeds? 12) Are the group check rules or some variation of them used such that if enough PC's succeed then it's a success or if enough fail then it's a failure?

Player Driven – All skills checks are called for by the DM, however players can have their PC's attempt certain actions that tend to result in a skill check being called for by the DM. Skill checks like this are player driven. These skills you have some control over how often you use them. Other skill checks are DM driven. For example when the players have been walking through the forest for hours and the DM calls for a perception check. 13) Is the skill to resolve the task player or DM Driven?

Miscellaneous–14) Does this task come up often? 15) Are there other skills you could use to solve this task? 16) Does anyone else have a good modifier to this skill? 17) Are you already extremely bad at the skill?

I think a good hypothetical example of using the above questions to help a Paladin player evaluate whether he should choose stealth or history.

In his game stealth has major consequences for failure and major benefits for success both of which impact the group. There are no repeated attempts and when the group is being stealthy they fail if even 1 PC fails. Opportunities to use the skill come up quite and there are no other skills that get used in place of stealth for the tasks it's resolving. However, the skill is player driven, the rogue is already great at stealth for the stealth related tasks that don't require the whole group and your Paladin being in plate armor makes him extremely bad at the skill.

History related tasks come up fairly often and you are not terrible at the skill. However, History has virtually no consequences for failure and only minor benefits for success. Typically each person in the party can attempt the history check. Many times another skill can result in the same effect but not always. If even one person succeeds at the History related task then the whole group does. The wizard is already fairly good at the skill.

So in this hypothetical game where the answers to the questions above were as given then I'd recommend stealth over history simply because it had many more pros and far fewer cons than the history skill. It's important to note again that these evaluations may not apply to your game. Also, if History is essential to your character concept then by all means take it because as you'll soon see, relying on skill checks for almost any given task is a terrible idea (unless you have a massive bonus to the skill needed for that task).

Typical skill bonuses a level 1 PC can acquire.

DC	Bonus -2	Bonus -1	Bonus 0	Bonus +1	Bonus +2	Bonus +3	Bonus +4	Bonus +5
5	70.00%	75.00%	80.00%	85.00%	90.00%	95.00%	100.00%	100.00%
10	45.00%	50.00%	55.00%	60.00%	65.00%	70.00%	75.00%	80.00%
15	20.00%	25.00%	30.00%	35.00%	40.00%	45.00%	50.00%	55.00%
20	0.00%	0.00%	5.00%	10.00%	15.00%	20.00%	25.00%	30.00%
25	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	5.00%

The most important thing we learn from this chart is that we don't want to make skill checks unless we absolutely have to. Our individual chance of success on any given task is fairly low. That means if there's a meaningful consequence for failure that we should be doing everything in our power to avoid having to make a skill check unless absolutely necessary. Even the most specialized Paladin achieves nowhere near guaranteed success on whatever skills he has specialized in.

The other things to be aware of in regards to the above chart are:

1. DC 25 checks are nearly impossible for any level 1 PC to make
2. DC 10 and 15 checks are the most common at level 1.
3. DC 20 checks at level 1 are more uncommon but not rare.
4. DC 5 checks are virtually non existent.

Skills (Specializations Diversification)

Another important consideration about skills is whether you should specialize(which I consider to be when your skill proficiencies and higher stats align) or diversify (placing your skill proficiencies into skills where your stat bonus isn't very high). There's also a third option where you hybrid and get 1-2 specializations and diversify with the rest of your skills.

As a Paladin and if you are following the recommendations already made in this guide then you also have a good Charisma bonus and so I'll be evaluation the question of specialization vs diversification specifically in relation to specializing in charisma skills. You get a total of 4 skill proficiencies, 2 from your class and 2 from your background. That means you can specialize in up to 4 skills or be moderate in about 8. To keep that in perspective there are 18 skills total.

The benefits of specialization

As an example let's say we have 2 skills which are all equally valued and equally likely to come up. Let's say we have a bonus of +1 inSkill#1. Let's say you have a bonus of +3 in Skill#2. What skill should you place your +2 proficiency in?

Proficiency Chart for making a single skill check with both Skill#1 and Skill#2.
	Chance for making both checks	Chance for making at least 1 check
DC Check​	Proficiency in Skill#1 ​ (Diversification)​	Proficiency in Skill#2 ​ (Specialization)​	Proficiency in Skill#1 (Diversification)​	Proficiency in Skill#2 (Specialization)​
DC 10	49.00%	48.00%	91.00%	92.00%
DC 15	20.25%	19.25%	69.75%	70.75%
DC 20	4.00%	3.00%	36.00%	37.00%

As you can see above, whether you diversify or specialize it makes little difference overall and not just because the % difference is so small. It's also because the 2 tests I used to determine “better” yielded different results. So we can't rely on objective values to show either diversification or specialization is better.

Instead I'll be looking at the question subjectively. Specialization tends to let you carve out a niche that you are the best at. It's usually fun being the best at something. It gives you a chance of making higher DC 25 checks which come up more often later and helps make DC20 checks become more 50-50, like DC 15 checks are in the beginning. The downside to specialization is that it's easy for 2 specialists to have exactly the same skills which totally takes away the biggest draw of specialization. To make matters worse, this is a distinct possibility for a charisma Paladin as there are so many classes that rely on having a high charisma.

The benefits of diversification

Diversification allows 2 major benefits over specialization. It opens up all the skills to you and not just the ones aligned with your class attributes. This allows you to pick skills that you may evaluate as more important overall than the skills you could specialize in. It also helps you avoid the issue with Charisma class specialization and that's the issue where it's fairly likely someone else will specialize in all the social skills. If you know your other party members in advance then this is less of an issue as you can at least plan around it, but that's not always a luxury we have.

That said, there's also one other drawback to specialization that's specific to charisma classes. The charisma skills are typically all simply different ways of succeeding at the same task. For example, you can attempt t persuade the guard, intimidate the guard or deceive the guard. All could potentially be valid options for bypassing a guard. This doesn't happen very often with other skills.

My recommendations

Given all the above, I recommend picking 1-2 skills to specialize in which will leave you 2-3 class stated skills that you are good at but not specialized in. Then I recommend you take proficiencies in 2-3 other skills you evaluate as being important to your specific campaign given the criteria I laid out earlier. This hybrid option to me is the best of both worlds. I personally would choose persuasion and athletics as my skills for my games. I find my DM's tend to give slightly less negative consequences for attempting persuasion and failing than intimidation or deception and failing. I would also choose athletics (assuming I'm a strength Paladin) as quite a few PC's dump strength and so you have a decent chance of being the only person in your party with good athletics.

I would avoid perception as I find it over valued. It helps protect the party from a major consequence but it's been recommended for every class in every guide I've ever seen and it's also one of the abilities that typically allow the party multiple chances at success. So as long as a few party members are proficient with it or have a high wisdom then I'm confident that my lack of the perception skill isn't going to be a significant detriment.

Instead I would choose something like stealth over perception. For the last skill I would lean toward survival. Those help a lot in the exploration pillar. I would try to keep my int at 10 if possible so I would have a chance of rolling a 20 on any knowledge skill and liberally try to recall information since it's very rare there's a detriment for doing so.

Again, all this is for how my games tend to go. It's up to you to evaluate skills for your own games.

 

[FrogReaver]

reserved 5

 

[FrogReaver]

reserved 6

 

[FrogReaver]

reserved 7

 

[FrogReaver]

reserved 8

 

[FrogReaver]

reserved 9

 

[FrogReaver]

reserved 10