D&D 5E Are Paladins Merely Mediocre Multiclass Fighter/Clerics?

[CreamCloud0]

ah, it appears we've reached the damage calcs portion of the thread, much sooner than when is typically encountered, everyone's favourite section

 

[FallenRX]

Ok here is the math for 8th level characters,

This analysis includes critical hits for both classes and assumes the Paladin could always get into melee and the Rogue could always get advantage.

Paladin:

At level 8 the Paladin has 4 1st level spell slots, 3 second level spells and 6 attacks over 3 rounds.

If you assume a 20 strength and a 16 Charisma going against a foe with a 16AC and a +3 constitution save your chance to hit is 65% and his chance to save against searing smite is 50%. As an aside, I think searing smite is weak compared to wrathful smite because it is a con save.

I assumed he cast Searing Smite at 1st level before attacking every round unless it was still active from a previous cast, and I assumed he used the highest level slot still available on a hit. I did not consider attacks on the Paladin for concentration, but had the spell end when the enemy saved successfully (and then recast next round if he still had slots).

Using a Greatsword - Average (median) damage over 3 rounds is 86

On average you end the fight with a median average of two first level slots remaining and zero 2nd level slots remaining.

Rogue:

For the Rogue using a light crossbow, with a 20 dex and advantage - Average damage over 3 rounds is 67.25

So the Paladin is doing on average less than 7 damage per round difference over the first 3 round of combat.

After the 1st combat the Rogue is doing more than the Paladin in Nova for the rest of the day.

Again this is not good, you barely getting near 20 more damage(which isnt even enough for a meaningful difference in most encounters even in novas most of this is dead damage), on one of the lower end classes in terms of damage and you are having to actually piss away all your slots in the day to do this, you get more value by casting bless and dodging then actually doing this, and get more damage by buffing the party instead of doing this in a fraction of the spell budget.

The saddest part here is you have to actually be in melee to do this, which is awful, even in a nova situation(which tends to be cranked up to account for this), the rogue is better here because you can actually stay 20 miles away and do more then good enough damage, while not risking your DPR completely being shut off in melee(dont get me started if your actually playing a good damage dealing class, hell if the rogue optimizes, i dont think this is good at all comparison), this is aggressively bad, in a nova, and outside a nova is terrible.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Again this is not good, you barely getting near 20 more damage(which isnt even enough for a meaningful difference in most encounters even in novas most of this is dead damage)

Give the paladin has control over when they do their burst damage this assumes the paladin is a bad player.

The saddest part here is you have to actually be in melee to do this, which is awful,

Unless you are going for a full-kite composition someone is going to end up in melee. Melee isn't "awful", it's doing a job that needs to be done unless you want the wizard or other squishies beaten down. Being a tough melee character is being a team player, being ranged is taking from the team bank.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Yeah but you can generate advantage by simply not moving and using a bonus action, and with advantage you are more likely to hit, making that 1d6 worth more than it would be on a straight-up attack.

I think it is a big assumption that everyone is using that optional rule from Tasha’s.

 

[FallenRX]

Give the paladin has control over when they do their burst damage this assumes the paladin is a bad player.

Unless you are going for a full-kite composition someone is going to end up in melee. Melee isn't "awful", it's doing a job that needs to be done unless you want the wizard or other squishies beaten down. Being a tough melee character is being a team player, being ranged is taking from the team bank.

my point is to do this amount of damage you have to be bad because it is bad, its actively not good, nor worth it to do in almost every scenario

Melee is kinda not good, its just a lot of risk for not that much of a dpr gain, keeping your distance is kinda always better, especially easy on rogue which just actively has a feature to do this, the best part of the class.

Also note, Wizards arent really squishy like at all, health low but the actual gain in terms of defensive mechanics means they probably can take and negate the most attacks, not even going into control spells.

 

[ECMO3]

I think it is a big assumption that everyone is using that optional rule from Tasha’s.

Perhaps, but there are other options like Cunning action, a familiar, Mage Hand, Assassin first round etc.

If you are not playing with Tasha's optional rules it is clearly not as easy for a Rogue to get advantage and prrobably not as easy to get advantage as it is for a Paladin to get into melee. We would need some kind of metric to evaluate those situational possibilities though to really account for them in the numbers though.

 

[le Redoutable]

here an idea :
make the Paladin a Warrior/Priest, and then add special abilities from his Alignment ( traditionally LG )

 

[Neonchameleon]

here an idea :
make the Paladin a Warrior/Priest, and then add special abilities from his Alignment ( traditionally LG )

Why? That would just make them more boring than 5e ones - and are you going to turn clerics into pure priests?

 

[le Redoutable]

euh Clerics can be reshaped as Warrior/Priests

 

[le Redoutable]

that is to say, you could add special abilities for each Alignment Level