D&D 5E Is it worth it to dip Hexblade as a Paladin? A level by level comparison

[Gavin O.]

One of the most popular one level dips is taking a single level of Warlock (Hexblade) on a Paladin build, which allows you to make weapon attacks with your Charisma, solving some of the class' usual issues with MAD, and giving them some strong Warlock abilities, and scaling ranged cantrip, and two important spells (Hex and Shield). The tradeoff, of course, is that all your Paladin features are delayed one level. So how much of a tradeoff is it? What follows is a comparison, level by level, of a straight Paladin of that level and a Paladin dipping one level in Warlock. We'll be using a Half-elf as the race for both builds.

Here is the stat array for the Paladin build:
16 Str, 10 Dex, 14 Con, 8 Int, 12 Wis, 16 Cha

And here is the stat array for the build that plans to multiclass into Hexblade
13 Str, 14 Dex, 14 Con, 8 Int, 13 Wis, 16 Cha


Level 1
At this level, the two builds are totally different, since the Hexblade build starts as a Warlock

Winner: Hexblade

Paladins are one of the weakest level 1 classes. Compared to the Warlock, you're getting +1 HP, 5 points of Lay on Hands, and 3 uses of Divine Sense, but you lose your short rest spell slot, and a short rest curse that grants +2 damage and 19-20 crits, as well as healing you 4 hit points when the target dies. The Jexblade build also has a +2 bonus to Initiative and to Dex saves, but has -2 to Strength saves compared to the Paladin build.

Note: If the hexblade build also wants to get heavy armor, they need to start as Paladin. In that case, the straight Paladin build, who has a 16 in their attacking stat compared to 14, will be better.

Level 2
Hexblade build is now Warlock(1)/Paladin(1), And the Paladin build is now Paladin(2)

Winner: Paladin (but not by a lot)

Hexblade gains Divine Sense and 5 points of Lay on Hands, Paladin gains +2 weapon damage from Fighting Style, and their spellcasting feature. I'll say that 1 spell per short rest is as good as two per long rest, but Paladin can spend those spell slots on 2d8 damage each. Overall, I'd say that Paladin comes out ahead in this comparison, but just barely.

Level 3
Both builds from now on are taking Paladin levels.

Winner: Hexblade

Hexblade build gets their Fighting Style and their Paladin spellcasting feature at this level, while Paladin gets their sacred oath, and associated channel divinity. Hexblade now has 2 long rest spell slots and 1 short rest spell slot compared to the Paladin's 3 long rest spell slots. While many of the Sacred Oath abilities are pretty good, I wouldn't say any of them are that much better than the Hexblade's Curse. Paladins also get Disease Immunity at this level, which is situationally very powerful but doesn't come up often in my experience.

Level 4

Winner: Hexblade

Hexblade build gets their Paladin Sacred Oath at this level, while Paladin build gets an ASI, I'll be taking +2 Strength. So the Paladin build gets +1 to hit and to damage, and the Hexblade gets their choice of Channel Divinity and an extra level 1 spell slot.

Level 5

Winner: Paladin

At this level, the Hexblade build gets their ASI (put into Cha, for +1 to hit, damage, and save DC), while the Paladin build gets Extra attack and level 2 spells. This isn't even a contest, the Paladin is significantly better.

Level 6

Winner: Paladin

At this level, the Hexblade build gets Extra Attack and level 2 spells, while the Paladin gets Aura of Protection. It's not as strong as the Hexblade's aura will be, but currently the hexblade doesn't have that aura at all, so the Paladin is stronger.

Level 7

Winner: Hexblade

At this level, the Hexblade build gets Aura of Protection, which will currently be 1 point higher than the Paladin's aura, and the Paladin gets a Sacred Oath feature. While the effectiveness of this feature varies depending on what oath you've taken, most of them are not better than the Hexblade's +1 to saves, extra level 1 slot, and short rest curse.

Level 8

Winner: Hexblade

At this level, the Hexblade gets their Sacred Oath feature, while the Paladin gets a second ASI (which I'm putting into Strength) So the Paladin now has +1 to hit and to damage compared to the Hexblade, but -1 to Saves and to spell DC, and they lose the Hexblade features.

Level 9

Winner: Paladin

At this level, the Hexblade gets an ASI, bringing their attacking and casting stat to 20, while the Paladin gets level 3 spell slots.

Level 10

Winner: Hexblade

Paladin gets Fear Immunity, Hexblade gets level 3 slots

Level 11

Winner: Paladin

Hexblade gets fear immunity, Paladin gets an extra level 3 slot and the amazing Improved Divine Smite, for +1d8 damage to all of their weapon attacks.

Level 12

Winner: Hexblade

Paladin gets an ASI, which they're putting into Cha, but they're still behind the Hexblade, while the Hexblade gets Improved Divine Smite and an extra slot.

Level 13

Winner: Paladin

Paladin gets a level 4 spell slot, while Hexblade gets an ASI. Most likely they'd be taking a feat here, but for the sake of simplicity I'm not using feats, so they take +2 Con, bringing their HP inline with the Paladin's and giving them a net +1 to con saves and concentration checks.

Level 14

Winner: Hexblade

Paladin gets Cleansing Touch, which is pretty good, but I wouldn't say its better than +1 to saves for the party, an extra +1 to your Con saves, and the Hexblade features.

Level 15

Winner: Varies

At this level the Paladin gets their next Sacred Oath feature, and how good that feature is depends entirely on the chosen oath. I would say that Oathbreaker and Vengeance are the only ones which I would want more than the bonuses from Hexblade. The paladin also gets an extra level 4 slot.

Level 16

Winner: Hexblade

Another ASI for the Paladin, they bring their Cha to 20, putting their spellcasting ability and save DC on par with the Hexblade's. Meanwhile the Hexblade gets their level 15 oath feature.

Level 17

Winner: Hexblade

Hexblade gets their ASI, which they put into Con for the extra hit points and save bonus, Paladin gets level 5 spells, which means Destructive Wave, Holy Weapon, Banishing Smite, etc. However, the spell is only once per day, and at this points both builds have a proficency bonus of +6, which means Hexblade's Curse is a significant damage buff that works every short rest.

Level 18

Winner: Paladin

Paladin gets the aura range improvement, increasing the range of aura of protection and their oath aura to 30 feet, while Hexblade gets their level 5 spell. This is close, but I think Paladin gets the better end of this tradeoff.

Level 19

Winner: Hexblade

Hexblade gets the aura range improvement, Paladin gets their last feat, which they're putting into Con for some extra HP and saving throw bonus.

Level 20

Winner: Varies

For level 20, The Paladin build gets a 1/day transformation, many of which are pretty good, though they all require your action at activate and don't last very long. The Hexblade takes a second level of Warlock instead, which gives access to Agonizing Blast plus another Invocation, as well as one more level 1 slot. This isn't a straightforward comparison. I would say that if your party only has one more battle left when they hit 20 and then the campaign is set to conclude, then I'd prefer most of the Paladin level 20 transformations, but if you plan to do more adventuring at this point, I'd rather have the Hexblade Dip.



So what does this all mean?

First, if you don't see your campaign going to at least level 7, I would never dip into Hexblade. The paladin's level 5 and 6 abilities are too good to give up.
Second, even if you do plan to take your campaign all the way to level 20, there is an argument for not multiclassing, purely to get access to the strong Paladin features one level earlier.

Now one big benefit to using Hexblade is you free up two ASI to take feats with if you want, three if you start with 17 Cha and take a feat that increases it by 1. This allows you to run, say, Polearm Master, Sentinel, and Elven Accuracy without sacrificing your attacking stat or your spellcasting stat.

 

[FrogReaver]

There's one change I would have suggested. A paladin that plans to eventually multiclass to hexblade should either take feats or charisma instead of strength IMO.

I like the comparisons. They suggest good levels to multiclass or not to multiclass.

I think to really answer your question though, you need to make some kind of value judgement (say a scale of 1-5 or 1-10) about how much better 1 combination is than the other at each level. That will help give readers some idea of what they may want to do over the whole level range the expect to play at.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Seems pretty fair.

I think examination actually reveals that the Hexblade dip "feels" much more powerful than it is. I did it with my Half-Elf Bard, but it was mostly because he started life as a 4e Cunning Bard with a focus on melee abilities, and MC assassin and rogue, and the level of Hexblade filled out his abilities just right, down to letting him stab people with a longsword using Cha. If Hexblade didn't exist, Willem would have 3 levels of Fey Warlock, Tome, with Shillelagh reflavored to a sword.

For a Paladin, IMO I'm either going to plan on taking at least 3 levels of warlock, or I'm not going to multiclass. And I'd probably go full Avenger, and use Mage Armor and a good dex, grab Maddening Hex, make my Oath Vengeance, and be an inescapable reaper. My wife nearly went that way, but decided that she doesn't want to lose out on Paladin stuff.

Also, Hexblade itself is cool enough to take more than a couple levels of.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

Yeah, I've never been a big fan of the one level hexblade dip - going warlock without getting any invocations or pact boon and only one spell slot is pretty 'meh' to me. Plus I don't like the lore of the hexblade pact, it just feels half-assed to me like "I made a pact with, uh, it's like a big sword spirit". Like doctorbadwolf, if I'm going to MC paladin and warlock I'm going to take 3 levels to get more cool stuff and I'll pick a patron that does something more interesting to me. I do think going 'ASI only' for the comparison makes it overlook that the hexblade dip does get to select feats at 12/13 and 16/17 when the paladin is stuck taking ASIs to get his CHA up. That is a pretty significant difference.

Also if I was going to dip hexblade, I'd almost certainly do it at second - you get heavy armor and 1 more hit point in exchange for being -1 on hit and damage at first level. Would also do a stat mix more like 15 10 15 8 12 16 so I would be wearing plate and planning to bump con with the resilient feat later on.

 

[Gavin O.]

There's one change I would have suggested. A paladin that plans to eventually multiclass to hexblade should either take feats or charisma instead of strength IMO.

I like the comparisons. They suggest good levels to multiclass or not to multiclass.

I think to really answer your question though, you need to make some kind of value judgement (say a scale of 1-5 or 1-10) about how much better 1 combination is than the other at each level. That will help give readers some idea of what they may want to do over the whole level range the expect to play at.

While I'd like to do a scale, I think grading the build's relative power on a scale is only useful if you know the situation you're playing in. How much better a scaling ranged cantrip is than an aura of fear immunity depends a lot on your campaign. I'd also have to give a separate grade to each of the oaths for every level in which the paladin gains a new oath feature.

 

[Gavin O.]

Yeah, I've never been a big fan of the one level hexblade dip - going warlock without getting any invocations or pact boon and only one spell slot is pretty 'meh' to me. Plus I don't like the lore of the hexblade pact, it just feels half-assed to me like "I made a pact with, uh, it's like a big sword spirit". Like doctorbadwolf, if I'm going to MC paladin and warlock I'm going to take 3 levels to get more cool stuff and I'll pick a patron that does something more interesting to me. I do think going 'ASI only' for the comparison makes it overlook that the hexblade dip does get to select feats at 12/13 and 16/17 when the paladin is stuck taking ASIs to get his CHA up. That is a pretty significant difference.

Also if I was going to dip hexblade, I'd almost certainly do it at second - you get heavy armor and 1 more hit point in exchange for being -1 on hit and damage at first level. Would also do a stat mix more like 15 10 15 8 12 16 so I would be wearing plate and planning to bump con with the resilient feat later on.

Alright, I definitely should have mentioned the potential for taking additional feats, I'll add that in.

 

[Volund]

Nice analysis. I see this build fairly often and have played it twice myself: once starting at level 1, and another time in a different group starting at level 9. From experience starting at level 1, getting EB, Hexblade Curse, a short rest recharging Shield spell, and unifying your attack and spellcasting stats are all worthwhile even if you never took another level of warlock. Also, that one level dip is very painful to experience when you play just 3 hours every other week and you need an extra 9000 xp to finally feel like a full-fledged paladin with Extra Attack and Aura. I took my HB dip after Paladin 2 in order to have smites, spells, and a fighting style.

Here is my cautionary tale about playing a high level Paladin/Hexblade/Sorcerer:
Paladins and Hexblades are already very potent classes by themselves and combining them for an even more powerful PC may not be a good fit your group. If you want to play a hexadin because you've done some white room analysis of the massive crit-smite damage you could do in a single turn when all of your buffs are active - Hexblade Curse, Hex, Haste, and Vow of Enmity supercharged by Elven Accuracy - I can say that it may not be as awesome as you think it will be. It will take a minimum of 4 turns to get all of that up and running. Your party members aren't going to wait around letting a monster have it's way while you power up. A lot of times the fight was over before I could get all of my buffs up (eventually I also had levels of sorcerer so I could cast a quickened Haste spell). And then the one time, at 12th level, everything worked perfectly and I had time to set up my buffs before the fight, I landed 3 Flame Tongue crit smites in one round doing over 250hp of damage, which sounds fun but it wasn't. In 2 rounds we obliterated a BBEG the group had spent multiple sessions tracking down and preparing to fight. I immediately felt bad for hogging the spotlight and making a major achievement feel anticlimactic. Maybe that would be OK in a lot of groups, but I and some of the others in this group have been playing since 1e and it just didn't feel right. I think the episode took the wind out of the sails for the DM and the campaign went on hiatus soon after that. We all still play as a group, but I'm more focused on RP and doing my part to ensure everyone is having fun instead of how to eke more power out of the already awesome paladin class.

 

[Gavin O.]

Nice analysis. I see this build fairly often and have played it twice myself: once starting at level 1, and another time in a different group starting at level 9. From experience starting at level 1, getting EB, Hexblade Curse, a short rest recharging Shield spell, and unifying your attack and spellcasting stats are all worthwhile even if you never took another level of warlock. Also, that one level dip is very painful to experience when you play just 3 hours every other week and you need an extra 9000 xp to finally feel like a full-fledged paladin with Extra Attack and Aura. I took my HB dip after Paladin 2 in order to have smites, spells, and a fighting style.

Here is my cautionary tale about playing a high level Paladin/Hexblade/Sorcerer:
Paladins and Hexblades are already very potent classes by themselves and combining them for an even more powerful PC may not be a good fit your group. If you want to play a hexadin because you've done some white room analysis of the massive crit-smite damage you could do in a single turn when all of your buffs are active - Hexblade Curse, Hex, Haste, and Vow of Enmity supercharged by Elven Accuracy - I can say that it may not be as awesome as you think it will be. It will take a minimum of 4 turns to get all of that up and running. Your party members aren't going to wait around letting a monster have it's way while you power up. A lot of times the fight was over before I could get all of my buffs up (eventually I also had levels of sorcerer so I could cast a quickened Haste spell). And then the one time, at 12th level, everything worked perfectly and I had time to set up my buffs before the fight, I landed 3 Flame Tongue crit smites in one round doing over 250hp of damage, which sounds fun but it wasn't. In 2 rounds we obliterated a BBEG the group had spent multiple sessions tracking down and preparing to fight. I immediately felt bad for hogging the spotlight and making a major achievement feel anticlimactic. Maybe that would be OK in a lot of groups, but I and some of the others in this group have been playing since 1e and it just didn't feel right. I think the episode took the wind out of the sails for the DM and the campaign went on hiatus soon after that. We all still play as a group, but I'm more focused on RP and doing my part to ensure everyone is having fun instead of how to eke more power out of the already awesome paladin class.

I feel like the power of eldritch blast is overvalued a bit if you don't have Agonizing Blast: At level 1, throwing a Javelin for 1d6+3 damage is better, at level 5 you get Extra Attack (two javelins is stronger than two blasts), at level 11 you get improved Divine Smite (which works on ranged attacks with melee weapons, unlike regular divine smite), and 2d6+2d8+10 is more than eldritch blast will deal even at level 17 when you get four beams.

 

[Gladius Legis]

The problem with javelin throwing is that it often gets subjected to the one free item interaction rule, which means there will be many rounds where you can't do Extra Attack with two thrown javelins.

Even in the best case scenario:
- Round 1: Start with a javelin in each hand, throw both of them (Action), draw a third after you threw them (object interaction).
- Round 2: Throw the javelin you drew at the end of Round 1, draw another (object interaction), throw the javelin you just drew.
- Round 3: Draw a javelin (object interaction), throw ... can't draw another because you used up your object interaction.
- Round 4+: Repeat Round 3 scenario.

So basically from Round 3 on, you're stuck throwing only 1 javelin per round. And if you didn't have a javelin in each hand for Round 1, you're stuck with only one attack even sooner than that.

 

[Blue]

The problem with javelin throwing is that it often gets subjected to the one free item interaction rule, which means there will be many rounds where you can't do Extra Attack with two thrown javelins.

Even in the best case scenario:
- Round 1: Start with a javelin in each hand, throw both of them (Action), draw a third after you threw them (object interaction).
- Round 2: Throw the javelin you drew at the end of Round 1, draw another (object interaction), throw the javelin you just drew.
- Round 3: Draw a javelin (object interaction), throw ... can't draw another because you used up your object interaction.
- Round 4+: Repeat Round 3 scenario.

So basically from Round 3 on, you're stuck throwing only 1 javelin per round. And if you didn't have a javelin in each hand for Round 1, you're stuck with only one attack even sooner than that.

This is entirely by RAW.

But just as this should also hold true for shooting arrows, many DMs handwave drawing multiple things from the same quiver/bandoleer at once. So ask your DM if they have problems with drawing and tossing multiple javelins. A house rule, but one so common that no one even thinks about it in my neck of the woods.