Paladin Fighter Multiclass

[Grimward]

Thinking of trying out a multiclass paladin and two handed fighter, though I'm concerned that that will simply gimp both classes.

My idea was angelkin aasimar, 13 paladin 7 two handed fighter. That would get me backswing with the two handed fighter, plus a bunch of paladin goodies. I don't know the paladin spell progression, but that's a quick google search away.

Thoughts? Should I just dip two into paladin like everyone seems to recommend? I'm not really concerned about optimizing this guy, I'm just worried that going straight fighter wil get boring at later levels.

[Balkoth]

Your plan seems fine. I would go 2-3 Paladin/7 Fighter/11-10 Paladin.

You get your smites, your divine health and you qualify for some special armor that gives you even more smites and bonus stats.

End-game there's a greatsword specifically for a 2h paladin. Overall you're pretty safe going this route. You lose some spell progression, if you care about that.

[Laytenn]

Subbing for more info, I also want to try this build.

[Balkoth]

Paladins get really nice at level 11. You can effectively make your entire party have smite evil. It's something to consider if you want those Fighter levels.

Straight fighter isn't boring. You get a ton of neat feats to do weird things with. Valerie, for instance, is set up to be a dazzling display debuff fighter. But you could easily go greatsword bash-the-world type too. Early game you could get Cleave and go that route, while then focusing on Critical feats for when you're fighting a single big baddie.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by Balkoth:

Your plan seems fine. I would go 2-3 Paladin/7 Fighter/11-10 Paladin.

You get your smites, your divine health and you qualify for some special armor that gives you even more smites and bonus stats.

End-game there's a greatsword specifically for a 2h paladin. Overall you're pretty safe going this route. You lose some spell progression, if you care about that.

Not just spell progression. You lose progression on Divine Weapon Bond, which is probably more powerful than anything you get from fighter, as well as your lay on hands/channel energy use count and dice. Those are the two things worth going paladin for in the first place.

[Balkoth]

Divine weapon bond is nice, but if he's set on going Fighter levels, it's not the end of the world.

[atholk]

I'd just go 20 Paladin. I find Amiri switched to 2H fighter improves her, so not sure if the group needs a second 2H with no ultilty.

Paladin will do less dps than a 2H fighter on cruise mode, but come boss fights they can burst with Smile Evil and the Holy Weapon to much higher dps and support the group better.

Paladins will get some minor/moderate long term buffs from the cleric spell lines. I believe some are paladin only spells.

Something else to consider is Thug 4 as paladins have high Cha and persuade and you can make an interesting debuff approach.

1 level into fighter then the rest into Cleric as a "buff then close to melee" would be interesting. Ababar as diety and the Nobilty and Protection Domains gets a ton of extra group buffs and will feel somewhat Paladin like.

[EvilDonut]

I personally am doing a paladin sneak attacker. I don't care about smite evil, only about lay on hands, and i am doing 1 vivisectionist/ 5 rogue/ 8 paladin/ 6 fighter. AAll that with an eaarth breaker.

Pretty dps when flanking.

[Balkoth]

Originally posted by w0lv3n:

I personally am doing a paladin sneak attacker. I don't care about smite evil, only about lay on hands, and i am doing 1 vivisectionist/ 5 rogue/ 8 paladin/ 6 fighter. AAll that with an eaarth breaker.

Pretty dps when flanking.

Why would you do an earthbreaker versus having more attacks? Sneak Attack is the most useful when you have Rapid Shot or Two Weapon Fighting.

[EvilDonut]

Originally posted by Balkoth:

Originally posted by w0lv3n:

I personally am doing a paladin sneak attacker. I don't care about smite evil, only about lay on hands, and i am doing 1 vivisectionist/ 5 rogue/ 8 paladin/ 6 fighter. AAll that with an eaarth breaker.

Pretty dps when flanking.

Why would you do an earthbreaker versus having more attacks? Sneak Attack is the most useful when you have Rapid Shot or Two Weapon Fighting.

2D6 base damage + 1 D6 accomplish sneak attacker + 1 D6 vivisectionist + 3D6 rogue + 2D6 necklage of double crossing +1D6 fire damage + 14 = 9D6 +14 damages

[Grimward]

I'd been looking at the crusader archetype of the cleric, but I worried about the loss of a spell per level and only getting one domain along with only being a 3/4 bab class would result in it being rather lack luster. 1 fighter 19 cleric though, that could be fun.

I hadn't even thought of making Amiri anything but a barbarian. That opens up a lot of possibilities. Valerie and Amiri as fighters makes me feel like adding an additional fighter would be redundant.

[atholk]

Originally posted by Grimward:

I'd been looking at the crusader archetype of the cleric, but I worried about the loss of a spell per level and only getting one domain along with only being a 3/4 bab class would result in it being rather lack luster. 1 fighter 19 cleric though, that could be fun.

I hadn't even thought of making Amiri anything but a barbarian. That opens up a lot of possibilities. Valerie and Amiri as fighters makes me feel like adding an additional fighter would be redundant.

Yeah I don't feel Crusader either. It feels like a combination of below average fighter, paladin and cleric.

If Amiri is still built for pure dps, another fighter or Paladin can work well. Kinda partial to a 1H+shield TWF shield slapper next to Valerie. I think it's a question of how many melee vs ranged do you want in the party. Even with four melee they seem to get into a traffic jam at times.

[Grimward]

Think I'll end up going straight paladin. I'll switch Amiri to a two handed fighter, keep Valerie, then run with Linzi, Octavia, and someone else, probably Tristian. 3 front liners, 3 ranged/casters, seems like a decent little group.

Appreciate the help!

[Voitan Rex]

Paladins that dip into rogue are nearly impossible to damage with Ref saving throw spells, and the little bit of extra damage from sneak attack helps.

Also there is a legendary oversized bastard sword that is likely only usable by someone with Paladin saves for their Will.

If you want Amiri to use that sword, get used to having her solo ♥♥♥♥ away from the party, or start thinking of giving her feats to buff her will save.

[Matiati]

From my experience Two-Handed sub class of the fighter goes better with barbarians when multi-classed. Or it can be a solo build. I believe that It is not a good choice for a paladin.

A two-handed fighter really shines in late game when you have invested a lot to its feat tree. But a paladin would probably prefer to have most of its levels in the paladin tree.

A paladin-regular fighter combination can however shine with fighter lvl7 and paladin lvl13. Lvl7 fighter makes you run at normal speed with heavy armor and lets you take +2 AC with added dex bonus. Also the armor training lowers armor check penatly by one with each take (a total of 2 at lvl7) and this will let you get more mobility score without investing skill points. With +3 and above mobility you can effectively increase defense mode AC bonus.

The problem with Paladin-Two Handed Fighter combination is that you'll always have a slow paladin as there is no armor training in two handed fighter tree. And you will not be benefitting from the dex-AC bonus because of armor limitations. Also the extra damage you get from strength is neglectable at late game if you are using big hitter 2h weapons (i.e. at mid game you easily get 20-45 damage per hit and 1,3 points increase is neglectable).

Since paladins have high charisma bonus I believe the demoralizing attack related feats should be exploited. Power-Attack - Cornugon Smash - Dazzling Display - Intimidating Prowess - Shatter Defenses are good feats. Intimidating Prowess adds your already high charisma bonus to power attack intimidation checks. And this almost always guarantees a shaken status effect on your target further lowering their saves and attack rolls. Shatter Defenses causes your enemy to be flat-footed when they are shaken effectively losing all of their Dex-AC bonus. And if the enemies are shaken they become easier targets for your mages and you and your main tank become better tanks as the enemy also loses attack rolls. The 3 extra feats you get with Fighter lvl7 covers most of these extra feats.

I also suggest you to take vital strikes with this build. The feat is a waste for a two-handed fighter as all of the class tree revolves around multiple attacks in a full round. But it is good to go for a paladin.

One particular thing about vital strike is that since all the damage is put into one big hit the DR is computed only once. So effectively vital strike can bypass a big amount of damage resistance which comes handy in late game boss fights.

This is of course about my expectation of the paladin. From my view point the paladin should be a hard-hitting, party support off-tank. It should have enough AC to fight at frontline and should be able to challenge and kill evil bosses.

It is a wise idea to improve paladin's combat utility through demoralization feats because they inherently have high charisma bonusses.

As a trade-off my paladin gives up combat manevourers and cleave. But with Aasimar wings it is almost on-par with a shielded frontline tank while still wielding a two-hander and dealing good amount of damage.

I believe a two-hander cleave build would better go with a range weapon such as fouchard or glaive. And I personally wont waste points in cleave talents. (I have Amiri for that :D).

You may also go a for a full 20 level paladin build with a similar setup. But I believe two-handed fighter multiclass would be a waste.

[Autocthon]

Originally posted by Matiati:

The problem with Paladin-Two Handed Fighter combination is that you'll always have a slow paladin as there is no armor training in two handed fighter tree. And you will not be benefitting from the dex-AC bonus because of armor limitations. Also the extra damage you get from strength is neglectable at late game if you are using big hitter 2h weapons (i.e. at mid game you easily get 20-45 damage per hit and 1,3 points increase is neglectable).

1) Your paladin is only as slow as the armor you wear. There are a few higher speed heavy armors in the game you can wear. Or you can use speed enhancements from other sources. The speed penalty isn't nearly as bad as youi might think. And Effortless Armor = Armor Training

2) Your damage from Str is nowhere near "neglectable" with a 2H weapon. Base damage on an Earthbreaker (for instance) is 7. You start the game with up to +5 from strenth, and hitting 30+ Str fully buffed is trivial. Sure in the midgame you can get 20-45 damage per hit.... at which point +3 damage is just shy of 10% DPS. Oh and it means +3 to hit (which means more iteratives land). And then there's the crit multipliers.

For optimization 2H Fighter >>>>> Regular fighter when wielding an actual 2H weapon.

One particular thing about vital strike is that since all the damage is put into one big hit the DR is computed only once. So effectively vital strike can bypass a big amount of damage resistance which comes handy in late game boss fights.

It's not bad. But you give up your full iteratives, which means you give up 3x your strength, 3x your weapon enhancement, and only get one chance to crit. Vital Strike is a gimmick at best.