D&D 5E Two-weapon fighting paladin

Yunru · Nov 12, 2018

Don't. Just use a double-ended scimitar.

Nicholas Potter · Dec 12, 2018

So aside from the obvious optimization angle of "Just use Polearm Master" (which even lets you use a shield if you fight with a quarterstaff), TWF paladins can do just fine. You might want to dip fighter 1/2 for the fighting style/Action Surge while you're at it, but even without the fighting style you're trading defense for some half-decent extra damage.

Worth noting is that, in addition to Improved Divine Smite which has already been brought up, paladins also get Divine Favor, a 1st level spell that makes all of your weapon attacks deal +1d4 radiant damage for a minute. It does take a bonus action and require somatic components, making it somewhat incompatible with TWF, but on the other hand you can't draw two weapons at once without the Dual Wielder feat, which really isn't all that great so you probably won't want to pick it up. So, turn 1, you draw your first weapon, cast the spell, and attack. Turn 2, you draw your second weapon and attack again.

Divine Favor will fairly quickly outpace a Divine Smite if it has a chance to deal sustained damage, and getting an additional attack per round after the first lets you deal plenty of sustained damage with it.

Optimal? Not really. But I'd say it's perfectly viable, if it's something you want to do.

Gladius Legis · Dec 12, 2018

You have to hit 4 times with Divine Favor to surpass the damage from 1 first-level Divine Smite. That spell has its uses against a horde of CR 1/4 or 1/2 critters, or if you're forced into an entirely ranged combat, but it is in no way a substitute for Divine Smite in a fight where using Divine Smite is a real option.

FrogReaver · Dec 12, 2018

Tobold said:
As only the fighter and ranger get the two-weapon fighting style, I don’t see the option to wield two weapons discussed much for the paladin class. I would like to discuss this option.

Paladins get a series of “smite” spells, which they can cast as a bonus action. The problem with those is that the divine smite class feature is usually better, because it doesn’t use up a bonus action, and you can decide to use it after you know that you hit. The gap gets wider on a critical hit; being able to decide to add 4d8 (or more) after rolling a critical hit is just awesome.

Thus the idea to build a paladin who is wielding two weapons. At level 2 that (nearly) doubles the chance of landing a critical hit. Using spell slots exclusively for those critical hits wrings the maximum amount of damage out of them. Alternatively the two-weapon fighting can be used to use divine smite on *every* hit, there is no “once per turn” limit; that burns your spell slots very quickly, but can be useful for situations where a “nova strike” tactic is best.

Theorycrafters have shown that great weapon fighting deals more damage than two-weapon fighting for fighters after a certain level. I am not a theorycrafter, but I wonder if that is even still true for paladins, once you consider both divine smite criticals and improved divine smite. Of course it remains true that when you get a second attack at level 5, that doesn’t get you a second off-hand attack, so the impact of the second attack gets weaker. But it is still yet another chance to land a critical hit, and yet another attack on which to add the improved divine smite to.

You could theoretically push the concept of the critical hit divine smite over the top by multi-classing for example a fighter (champion) into the mix. But personally I’d be perfectly happy with a single-class paladin to try it out. As this is going to be an oath of vengeance paladin (the concept should work well with vow of enmity), I am wondering whether Hunter’s Mark would be a good idea. The pro would be that the 1d6 of Hunter’s Mark is added to every attack. The con is that it eats up one bonus action and thus one attack on the first round, and by the second round you might already have lost concentration on the spell, because concentration spells aren’t great in melee combat.

So, what do you think about the viability of a two-weapon fighting paladin? Have you ever tried it?

I can't believe I missed this thread.

On average from levels 1-4 you will crit about once per adventuring day. Some days you will crit none. Some days you will crit more. Presuming you are looking to maximize daily damage in a whiteroom context then every crit you do is essentially another one of your highest remaining spell slots. At level 1 that means you can do about 2d8 more daily damage than a Great Weapon Paladin. Level 5 actually stays about the same from crit damage but he does more than you because he does an extra d6 of weapon damage a turn. Basically you need expanded crit range and sources of advantage to make crits be a good way to make up damage with smites. It can be done, but not early and not without quite a bit of investment.

The real benefit of using two weapon fighting over the other options for most of the game is that you can burn more smites a turn than you could by not dual wielding. The only option that is objectively better would be polearm mastery. However, I actually believe there are better feats a paladin could take. Heavy armor master or inspiring leader both come to mind.

Alternatively you can go dex if dual wielding with a Paladin which gives you a good ranged option when needed and improves stealth and initiative.

In short, as long as the drawback of not being able to draw two weapons on the same turn can be mitigated then two weapon fighting is probably one of the absolute best ways to make a paladin even though he will do significantly less daily damage from levels 5-10. The ability to do better nova damage really can't be understated.

Nicholas Potter · Dec 13, 2018

Gladius Legis said:
You have to hit 4 times with Divine Favor to surpass the damage from 1 first-level Divine Smite. That spell has its uses against a horde of CR 1/4 or 1/2 critters, or if you're forced into an entirely ranged combat, but it is in no way a substitute for Divine Smite in a fight where using Divine Smite is a real option.

4 hits isn't too terribly hard to get in any case if you're in melee, and it's even easier to get when you're getting a reliable bonus weapon attack. Assuming roughly 60% accuracy, you're gonna get those 4 hits in about 2 rounds, and you can continue to add Divine Smites on top of whatever hits you normally get.

And in response to your italicized-for-emphasis point about 1st level divine smites, yes, it would take longer for the spell to outpace higher level smites.

But we don't need to compare it to higher level smites, because it's a 1st level spell. Unless you run out of slots and cast it with a 2nd level slot, you don't need to compare it to a 2nd level smite because it doesn't compete with it.

Now yes, you do have to take concentration into account, but even without proficiency a paladin is going to have decent Con and, before too long, +Charisma to saves as well, so it's not as bad as it might seem. You certainly would benefit from some improvement to your Con saves, but it's not the end of the world if you just have Con+Cha and call it a day.

Once again, optimal? No. Viable? Yes.

Gladius Legis · Dec 13, 2018

Nicholas Potter said:
Assuming roughly 60% accuracy, you're gonna get those 4 hits in about 2 rounds,

Past Lv. 5, maybe. Lv. 1-4 those 4 hits will likely take 3 rounds or more to get, and that's if you dual-wield.

and you can continue to add Divine Smites on top of whatever hits you normally get.

Or you can just use Divine Smite twice and deal damage much more efficiently to one strong enemy.

And in response to your italicized-for-emphasis point about 1st level divine smites, yes, it would take longer for the spell to outpace higher level smites.

The point of italicizing it was to emphasize that Divine Favor, aside from the corner cases I mentioned, compares poorly to even a 1st-level Smite. I didn't even mention the higher-level ones.

But we don't need to compare it to higher level smites,

Yup. Good thing I didn't.

Now yes, you do have to take concentration into account, but even without proficiency a paladin is going to have decent Con and, before too long, +Charisma to saves as well, so it's not as bad as it might seem.

Odds are even with that you're still more likely than not to fail a concentration save before you get your spell slot's worth of damage vs. simply smiting.

doctorbadwolf · Dec 13, 2018

Tobold said:
As only the fighter and ranger get the two-weapon fighting style, I don’t see the option to wield two weapons discussed much for the paladin class. I would like to discuss this option.

Paladins get a series of “smite” spells, which they can cast as a bonus action. The problem with those is that the divine smite class feature is usually better, because it doesn’t use up a bonus action, and you can decide to use it after you know that you hit. The gap gets wider on a critical hit; being able to decide to add 4d8 (or more) after rolling a critical hit is just awesome.

Thus the idea to build a paladin who is wielding two weapons. At level 2 that (nearly) doubles the chance of landing a critical hit. Using spell slots exclusively for those critical hits wrings the maximum amount of damage out of them. Alternatively the two-weapon fighting can be used to use divine smite on *every* hit, there is no “once per turn” limit; that burns your spell slots very quickly, but can be useful for situations where a “nova strike” tactic is best.

Theorycrafters have shown that great weapon fighting deals more damage than two-weapon fighting for fighters after a certain level. I am not a theorycrafter, but I wonder if that is even still true for paladins, once you consider both divine smite criticals and improved divine smite. Of course it remains true that when you get a second attack at level 5, that doesn’t get you a second off-hand attack, so the impact of the second attack gets weaker. But it is still yet another chance to land a critical hit, and yet another attack on which to add the improved divine smite to.

You could theoretically push the concept of the critical hit divine smite over the top by multi-classing for example a fighter (champion) into the mix. But personally I’d be perfectly happy with a single-class paladin to try it out. As this is going to be an oath of vengeance paladin (the concept should work well with vow of enmity), I am wondering whether Hunter’s Mark would be a good idea. The pro would be that the 1d6 of Hunter’s Mark is added to every attack. The con is that it eats up one bonus action and thus one attack on the first round, and by the second round you might already have lost concentration on the spell, because concentration spells aren’t great in melee combat.

So, what do you think about the viability of a two-weapon fighting paladin? Have you ever tried it?

Or MC Hexblade Warlock with Chain or tome pact for attacks with charisma, leave str at mid range, crit on 19 against hexed target, and use familiar to give you frequent advantage, and all the other goodies of the Warlock.

smbakeresq · Dec 13, 2018

doctorbadwolf said:
Or MC Hexblade Warlock with Chain or tome pact for attacks with charisma, leave str at mid range, crit on 19 against hexed target, and use familiar to give you frequent advantage, and all the other goodies of the Warlock.

Oh God not another Hexblade dip!! Does it ever end?

In all honesty as a DM if you have a good reason (background, RP, missing a hand and the stump is covered in iron, etc) for your Paladin to be a dual-wielder I would just let you take it.

doctorbadwolf · Dec 14, 2018

smbakeresq said:
Oh God not another Hexblade dip!! Does it ever end?

In all honesty as a DM if you have a good reason (background, RP, missing a hand and the stump is covered in iron, etc) for your Paladin to be a dual-wielder I would just let you take it.

Yeah, my wife was thinking of MC Warlock on her Vengeance Paladin after a certain level, before Hexblade came out, but during play she felt more and more that high level vengeance Paladin was exactly right as it was.

Also I let her take the TWF fighting style, bc I allow all classes that get fighting styles to take any fighting style.

FrogReaver · Dec 14, 2018

Nicholas Potter said:
4 hits isn't too terribly hard to get in any case if you're in melee, and it's even easier to get when you're getting a reliable bonus weapon attack. Assuming roughly 60% accuracy, you're gonna get those 4 hits in about 2 rounds, and you can continue to add Divine Smites on top of whatever hits you normally get.

And in response to your italicized-for-emphasis point about 1st level divine smites, yes, it would take longer for the spell to outpace higher level smites.

But we don't need to compare it to higher level smites, because it's a 1st level spell. Unless you run out of slots and cast it with a 2nd level slot, you don't need to compare it to a 2nd level smite because it doesn't compete with it.

Now yes, you do have to take concentration into account, but even without proficiency a paladin is going to have decent Con and, before too long, +Charisma to saves as well, so it's not as bad as it might seem. You certainly would benefit from some improvement to your Con saves, but it's not the end of the world if you just have Con+Cha and call it a day.

Once again, optimal? No. Viable? Yes.

Damage Now >>> Damage Later

Besides you are not just looking at making up for 2d8 damage but also for that bonus action attack you gave up. It's more like you have to make up for 2d8+1d6 and which will take 5 hits to break even. Best case scenario is that you make 5 regular attacks and 1 bonus action attack by the end of round 2 if you use it. You won't hit all 5 attacks in a row. Nearly impossible to do. So it will be at lest round 3 if not round 4 before you get 5 attacks to actually land.

That's a big difference.