Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
It looks like most people are answering this for a "I'm creating a 20th level character". But since level 20 will be a small percentage of my total play, I want the split to give me the most benefit for the most time.
So...paladin start for heavy armor. With hexblade for CHR attacking we can tank DEX.
Since we don't want to invest in STR more than needed for multiclassing and aren't pushing DEX, we need hexblade 1 ASAP, even though it will delay the 5th level power bump. okay, now CHR to a one handed weapon.
Now a choice. If we want to stay one handed weapon, go up paladin. Dueling style at 2nd (character level 3), extra attack at 5th (character level 6). And maybe continue from there - aura at 6th, oath ability at 7th, ASI at 8th.
If we want two-handed weapon eventually, we need to go up warlock. Blade pact will allow us to use CHR with out pact weapon, which can be two handed (or ranged, but that loses a lot of synergy). At that point it's probably better to continue up warlock and pick up Thirsting Blade at 5th (character level 6) for Extra attack then delay paladin for too long. That does give us two 3rd level slots a short rest and some other invocations, so it's pretty worth it as well. And if we do get Paladin 5 at a later point for Extra Attack, the next Warlock level after that we can retrain to another invocation.
So right now just to have a strong character for the first 1/3 of play we're looking at options that would impact what we wanted at 20th. If we went up the two-weapon path we're looking at warlock 5 at a minimum, disallowing any 19/1, 18/2, 17/3 or 18/4 paladin-heavy options.
On the other hand, if we were starting our characters at, say, 10th, none of that would be a big deal. 3 levels of warlock to use a two handed weapon with CHR and 5 levels of paladin for extra attack can easily fit with more levels possible and no downside of having to live through levels where you are seriously behind the power curve in your contributions. That's why it's important to know if we're just building for 20th, looking for a viable split over the whole time, or something in-between like starting in tier 2 or 3.
So...paladin start for heavy armor. With hexblade for CHR attacking we can tank DEX.
Since we don't want to invest in STR more than needed for multiclassing and aren't pushing DEX, we need hexblade 1 ASAP, even though it will delay the 5th level power bump. okay, now CHR to a one handed weapon.
Now a choice. If we want to stay one handed weapon, go up paladin. Dueling style at 2nd (character level 3), extra attack at 5th (character level 6). And maybe continue from there - aura at 6th, oath ability at 7th, ASI at 8th.
If we want two-handed weapon eventually, we need to go up warlock. Blade pact will allow us to use CHR with out pact weapon, which can be two handed (or ranged, but that loses a lot of synergy). At that point it's probably better to continue up warlock and pick up Thirsting Blade at 5th (character level 6) for Extra attack then delay paladin for too long. That does give us two 3rd level slots a short rest and some other invocations, so it's pretty worth it as well. And if we do get Paladin 5 at a later point for Extra Attack, the next Warlock level after that we can retrain to another invocation.
So right now just to have a strong character for the first 1/3 of play we're looking at options that would impact what we wanted at 20th. If we went up the two-weapon path we're looking at warlock 5 at a minimum, disallowing any 19/1, 18/2, 17/3 or 18/4 paladin-heavy options.
On the other hand, if we were starting our characters at, say, 10th, none of that would be a big deal. 3 levels of warlock to use a two handed weapon with CHR and 5 levels of paladin for extra attack can easily fit with more levels possible and no downside of having to live through levels where you are seriously behind the power curve in your contributions. That's why it's important to know if we're just building for 20th, looking for a viable split over the whole time, or something in-between like starting in tier 2 or 3.
