[EN] The Eldritch Paladin - The scariest Paladin hybrid

Do you know what’s great? A Paladin with two attacks per action, smites, versatility and party face abilities. Do you know what’s even better? A Paladin with three attacks per action, smites, and even more versatility and party face abilities.

Introducing the Eldritch Paladin (usually known as Lockadin, but I’m sorry, I had to come up with a more classy - or pompous, depending on how you look at it - name), a fantastic alternative to my previous Paladin Hybrid. I kept mentioning it in the previous guide, so it had to come out at some point!

Disclaimer: In Honour mode, the Extra Attack effects from Paladin and Pact of the Blade Warlock do not stack.

The idea

A bit of context

First of all, let me address something about the build’s subtitle. Scariest isn’t so much an indicator of the build’s ranking among other Paladin builds as a pun on the build’s actual ability to frighten enemies, as will be demonstrated below. That being said, it’s high up there when it comes to Paladin builds.

The idea to make an Eldritch Paladin came to me when I did my first Dark Urge playthrough. Without spoiling anything, an Oath of Vengeance Paladin can be pretty fitting for a certain way to play Dark Urge, and I liked the idea of my Tav resorting to an Eldritch entity for help in their quest of vengeance.

It’s hard to go wrong when you’re multiclassing charisma based classes together. It always comes with a great mix of utility, control and damage, and you don’t have to worry about scaling. Sorcerer and Bard both have great multiclassings with either Paladin or Warlock. And as you’ve guessed, Warlock multiclasses really well with Paladin, and this is today’s subject.

Class contribution

We’re going to aim for 5 Paladin / 5 Great Old One Blade Warlock.

Note: this is only true for Tactician difficulty and below. In Honour Mode, things work differently. See Alternative Approaches below.

Hang on, where did my last 2 levels go?!

They’re not going anywhere. But they’re just the topping on the cake. There are two ways to spend these last two levels, and you will only decide after level 10. So let’s focus on our cake for now:

5 Paladin

• Access to Extra Attack.
  
• Access to a fighting style.
  
• Access to a feat.
  
• Access to smites and good spells.
  
• Great utility with Oath powers and healing.

5 Great Old One Blade Warlock

• Access to Deepened Pact, with will give us another extra attack that actually stacks with the first one.
  
• Frightening critical hits.
  
• Access to another feat.
  
• Access to two extra level 3 spells slots, which can be used for smites and are recharged on a short rest.
  
• Even more utility and spells.

Once you reach that, there are two ways to wrap up your build. Either pick 2 extra Paladin Levels for an extra spell slot, access to Aura of Devotion and your Oath Aura, which is always good; or pick 2 Fighter levels for another Fighting Style and access to Action Surge.

Overall, the first variant is the strongest. I would recommend the Fighter dip only if you have another Paladin with you, who can provide the Auras. You might be thinking that Action Surge is worth picking in Honour Mode (as it benefits from extra attack) - but in Honour Mode, you won’t get Warlock to level 5 anyway. See alternative approaches below.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths

• Super smooth leveling process, with the slight disadvantage of needing at least one respec.
  
• Ridiculous damage potential.
  
• Good defence, with ability to wear heavy armour.
  
• Decent utility.
  
• The best party face in probably the whole game, with high Charisma and excellent Paladin or Warlock special dialog choices
  
• Can specialize late game for either more utility or more burst damage.

Weaknesses

Honestly, I have trouble thinking of one. Reaching your peak power (level 10) is slow, but you’re extremely powerful until then, so how big of a deal is that?

Okay, fine. Respeccing is annoying if you’re an oathbreaker, as you need to pay 1000 gold to restore your oath first. There’s a weakness.

Character creation

Ability scores

Open Paladin. Take 16 STR, 17 CHA, 14 ♥♥♥. If you do not mind using STR Elixirs from start, dump STR to 8-12 (actually, you’d probably be best starting with high STR, then respec and dump STR once you get access to Auntie Ethel).

16 ♥♥♥ is a possibility if you dump STR.

You’ll be wearing heavy armor, so DEX above 10-12 will not do much for you.

Make sure you get Persuasion and/or Deception proficiencies, but if possible not with your background. More on why later.

Oath choice

This build can be played with basically any oath, including Oathbraker. The latter is probably the best, both in terms of roleplay and optimization. See, Oathbreaker has great abilities, including Aura of Hate at Paladin level 7, which will add your CHA modifier to all your damage. And one can easily consider binding oneself to an Eldritch Power to be an oathbreaking action, even if the game doesn’t. It’s worth noting that if you break your Oath at any point in the game, you will have to spend 1000 gold to restore it before respeccing.

But other oaths are great as well, so just pick whatever you like.

Species

Once again, Half-orc is far above the rest. The extra damage die for critical hits will apply to your weapon damage and your smites.

Otherwise, pick anything you like.

Leveling plan

Leveling as a Paladin

You’re going to be leveling Paladin until level 10. Make sure you grab Friends early, it’s good for party faces.

At level 2, take Great Weapon Fighting for your fighting style.

At level 4, take Savage Attacker for your feat.

Level 5 will give you your Extra Attack.

Despite your odd Charisma score, you should not grab Hag’s Hair.

Keep leveling Paladin until level 10. You’ll want to grab Great Weapon Master for your level 8 feat. By that time, you’ll have picked up Risky Ring and do not need to worry about the penalty.

Level 10 respec

At level 10, respec. Level Paladin up to 5 with the same choices, save for Deception and Persuasion Proficiencies. Drop them. You’ll get them back in just a second.

At level 6, open Warlock. Choose The Great Old One subclass. Make sure you get Eldritch Blast (you won’t really be using it for damage that much, but it’s good utility for breaking walls, objets, or tossing enemies in chasms).

At level 2, make sure you get Beguiling Influence. This will get you Deception and Persuasion proficiencies back. Other Eldritch Invocations are up to you. Do not take Agonizing Blast, but feel free to grab Repelling Blast or utility like Speak with Animals.

At level 3, take the Pact of the Blade. From now on, make sure you use Bind Pact Weapon on your equipped weapon every day, to give it CHA scaling and magical damage. At this point, we basically do not need STR anymore.

At level 4, take Great Weapon Master. You now have Risky Ring and can basically forget about the penalty.

Level 5 will give you your double Extra Attack.

You should end your respec at 5 Paladin / 5 GOO Warlock.

Last levels

As mentioned before, your 2 levels can either be invested in Paladin or Fighter. Paladin will give you more utility and defence (possibly damage, if you’re an Oathbreaker) with the Auras, while Fighter will give you better burst damage potential with Action Surge.

Both approaches are fine, and require no respec. It’s up to you to choose what you like better. Again, going Paladin is probably the strongest variant overall, but Action Surge is going to be stupidly strong - you’ll get six attacks in one turn, just from your regular and surge actions. In Honour Mode where other sources of new actions do not benefit from Extra Attack, it’s worth considering. At the end of the day however, I’d always go with Paladin 7, unless I already have another Aura of Protection in my party.

If you choose Paladin, go ahead and take the levels. There are no choices to make.

If you choose Fighter… You need to respec. See, our Diadem will scale with the spellcasting ability of the last class we opened. Just like the other Paladin hybrid, we don’t want Fighter to be that class. So, respec, open Paladin, level it up to 5, open Fighter and grab your 2 levels, then wrap up with GOO Warlock. As for Fighter levels, the only required choice is your second Fighting Style, which should be Defence (or Archery if you really feel like it).

You should always get Patriar’s Memory and another +2 CHA from Mirror of Loss. If everything goes well, you’ll end up at 20 CHA.

Spells selection

Paladin

Grab your special Smites. Thunderous Smite and Branding Smite will be especially great, both for their higher damage and special effects. Wrathful Smite is situationally interesting if you want to debuff an enemy. Compelled Duel can be OK. Command is worth grabbing.

Other than that, Paladin spells are mostly forgettable. Your spell slots should mostly feed your Smites anyway, so I’d select only what I need.

Note: for a brief period of time (or not so brief, if you're playing the Honour Mode variant of the build), you’ll get access to level 3 Paladin spells. Grab blinding smite and call it a day.

Warlock

Same deal as Paladin Spells: you get more spells than you actually need.

Grab Hex, which will be useful especially in Tactician and lower difficulties if you’re duplicating damage riders. The added damage is still OK in Honour mode.

Misty Step can see some use. It’s usually not a very good use of a level 2 spell, but it’s a good option to have for situations where you really need to get to someone fast and still be able to attack or help them.

Counterspell is usually a great spell to have, but you only have 2 level 3 spell slots and they will usually be used for Smites. Your Spell Save DC is also not that high. Same as Misty Step, I’d grab it to have the option but usually will not use it.

Loot to use

Act 1

The Everburn Blade[bg3.wiki] will be your best weapon for the majority of Act 1 and can be looted within 20 minutes of playtime.

Somewhat early, you can get the Gloves of the Growling Underdog[bg3.wiki]. They’re a good early source of advantage for you, as you want to be in melee range and soaking enemy attacks.

At the goblin camp (inside the temple), you can grab the Bow of Awareness[bg3.wiki] for a cheap boost to initiative.

In the Underdark, make sure you grab Caustic Band[bg3.wiki]. Once you move on to the forge, you can grab Disintegrating Night Walkers[bg3.wiki]. These will be your best boots for a while and should go to you in priority. Bow of the Banshee[bg3.wiki] is a good bow if you didn’t grab Bow of Awareness. Jorgoral’s Greatsword[bg3.wiki] is a good replacement for Everburn.

Make sure to forge the Adamantine Splint Armour[bg3.wiki]. This will be your armor of choice for the majority of the game. You can also wear Grymskyull Helm[bg3.wiki] for a short while; this will give you access to Hunter’s Mark, which will be used for extra damage (like Hex later).

At the Crèche, grab Diadem of Arcane Synergy[bg3.wiki] and never take it off. Inflicting a condition is super easy and you’ll basically always be adding CHA to your weapon damage. Grab Strange Conduit Ring[bg3.wiki] as well. Don’t wear it now, just hold on to it. Finally, you can also get Soulbreaker Greatsword[bg3.wiki], but you won’t be using it for long.

Act 2

Within minutes, you can grab and wear Cloak of Protection[bg3.wiki]. This is by far your best cloak.

At Dammon’s, you can buy the Charge-Bound Warhammer[bg3.wiki]. This is a fantastic weapon for Blade Warlocks and Eldritch Knights. Unfortunately… you’re not a Warlock yet, and will only become one in early Act 3. Still, if you want to use it, buy it now and hold on to it - you never know what can happen.

In the meantime, there is another fantastic weapon waiting for you at Moonrise. That is of course the wonderful Halberd of Vigilance[bg3.wiki], your absolute best weapon for Act 2 and one of my favourite weapons in the game, should you care. Then, go grab Risky Ring[bg3.wiki]. This is one of the most contested items of the build, if not the most. If other party members have Great Weapon Master (or Sharpshooter), you will have to decide who gets it. For now, your gloves provide a less consistent source of advantage, so you could give Risky Ring to someone else for a time. Once you swap your gloves out, you will need to get it back, though.

Act 3

Hellrider Longbow[bg3.wiki] is your best bow and can be acquired within minutes of Act 3. If you can’t get it, you can just keep Bow of Awareness.

The rest of your key items are in the Lower City or beyond. Make a stop at Dammon’s to buy Armour[bg3.wiki] and Boots of Persistence[bg3.wiki]. Note that these boots provide similar bonuses than Night Walkers, save for slipping on ice.

Once you get Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength[bg3.wiki], wear them and let go of STR elixirs. If you can’t, use Legacy of the Masters[bg3.wiki] instead.

Balduran’s Giantslayer[bg3.wiki] is your best greatsword by far. You get to double the bonus from your STR modifier, a +3 Enchantment, and then some.

Amulet of Greater Health[bg3.wiki] is an excellent Amulet for you. It counters the disadvantage on ♥♥♥ saving throws given by Risky Ring, and also allows you to dump ♥♥♥ (at the price of yet another respec). However, it’s very contested, and you don’t need it that much. Spell Savant Amulet[bg3.wiki] is a great replacement.

How to play the build

Elixirs

Our best stat is going to be Charisma, and it’s the only one we will invest in. Because of this, it is tempting to dump STR right from the start, use STR elixirs, and invest in other stats. However, as you don’t really need more than 10 DEX, this would result in 16 ♥♥♥ (vs 14) and 14 WIS or INT. It’s good on the defensive side, but it’s not really game changing either.

Once we get Deepened pact, our weapon will scale with CHA and STR will never matter again, until we get Balduran’s Giantslayer. By that point, STR elixirs are not always the best option, and Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength are available.

If you can’t be bothered, just level with 16 STR and dump Strength once you get your gauntlets. But honestly, elixirs are much better.

Once you have your gauntlets, you can start using other elixirs. Bloodlust is absurdly good as you’ll get another 3 attacks if you kill something (or only 1 attack in Honour mode). Vigilance is really good for encounters where you want better Initiative. Coupled with Hellrider Longbow, you get to +8 Initiative without even investing in DEX.

General gameplay

If you’re going into a dialogue with lots of Saving Throws, swap out Risky Ring beforehand.

Remember to Bind your weapon each day. Otherwise, you won’t get your third attack per action.

Most of your spell slots, if not all, should feed your smites. Remember that you can stack a special smite with a regular smite. Just cast the special smite, then use a smite as a reaction.

Command isn’t the best use of your spell slots (your spell save DC isn’t that high), but can be useful for tough early enemies (True Souls, Kagha, Anders, etc.).

Hex is a good damage addition, especially in difficulties where damage riders duplication[bg3.wiki] is a thing. It costs a bonus action too, so you can (re)cast it and attack in the same turn.

Do not use Eldritch Blast in combat. It’s generally a poor use of an action. Yes, it sounds and looks awesome, but it does at best a measly 3d10 Force damage. For the same price, you can attack thrice. Even if just one out of three attacks hit with Great Weapon Master activated, you’ll hit harder than an average Eldritch Blast roll. The only good use of Eldritch Blast would be using it with Repelling Blast to push someone off a cliff, in which case, yes.

If you do not wear Risky Ring, disable Great Weapon Master whenever your chances to hit drop below 70%.

Other than that… Get in melee range, and swing your sword.

Alternative approaches

What do I do in Honour Mode?

As stated above, in Honour Mode, Deepened Pact and Extra Attack do not stack, which means you will not get three attacks per action. That does not make the build worthless by any means, however. Level 3 GOO Warlock will still give you access to:

• Two extra level 2 spell slots
  
• Frightening critical hits
  
• Beguiling Influence for free proficiencies
  
• Repelling Eldritch Blast
  
• Most importantly, Bind Pact Weapon, which gives your weapon CHA scaling and magical damage and prevents you from being disarmed. It is huge.

However, leveling Warlock past 3 is pointless in Honour Mode. So what do we do?

The leveling plan stays the same - level up as a pure Paladin until level 10. Keep going until level 11. There, respec and go 8 Paladin / 3 GOO Warlock. Same stats, same feats, same Pact of the Blade. Wrap up with Paladin 9 at level 12 and you’re good to go. You even get Level 3 spell slots back, with Blinding Smite!

You could also go 8 Paladin / 4 GOO Warlock. That gives you an extra feat, which can be used to get +2 CHA. In my opinion, it’s not worth losing the level 3 spell slots and Blinding Smite.

Forget about Action Surge. You’d either need to go Paladin 7 / GOO Warlock 3 / Fighter 2 and you’d lose on a feat, or Paladin 5 / Champion 4 / GOO Warlock 3 and you’d lose too many spell slots for my liking, not to mention Auras. If you want Action Surge, just go with my other Paladin build.

You’ll still get two big swings a turn, a third with Great Weapon Master if you get a critical hit or a kill, another if someone Hastens you, and another again if you trigger Bloodlust Elixir with a kill. You’ll be fine.

Open Warlock as early as level 6?

It saves you the respec, but that’s really about it. Your leveling will be much weaker with Warlock levels in the middle. The real power surge granted by Warlock is the level 5 Deepened Pact. You’re better off leveling Paladin to 10 and respeccing after that.

Great Weapon Master before Savage Attacker?

It would be worth it on about every class but Paladin.

The thing is, Paladin has smites. That is a minimum of +2d6 weapon damage. With a greatsword, that’s 4d6 total. That’s not counting other possible die (critical hits, Thunderous Smite).

Let’s consider 4d6 damage. With GWM and no advantage, your average roll is 10 + 4 * 3.5 = 24.

With advantage, your average roll is 2 (2 3.5 + 1.944) = ~18 (see the wiki[bg3.wiki] for the numbers).

Okay, that’s six points less… that have roughly 25% more chance to hit, because you don’t have to worry about the -5 penalty. In the early game, your attack rolls aren’t that high, and the sources of advantage to mitigate a -5 penalty are few, especially close range.

Savage Attacker gets better and better the more you add damage die, and that’s exactly what this is going to happen with Smites.

+2 CHA instead of Great Weapon Master?

Since your weapon scales with CHA (or will do at level 10), more CHA means more chances to hit and more damage with your weapon.

Thing is, by that point, you already have Risky Ring. +1 to your attack roll while you already have advantage is meaningless.

On the damage side, +2 CHA will also give you +1 damage. Guess what: GWM gives you +10. And that’s not counting the extra attack on a bonus action.

Getting your full charisma will require to get to the late game and use Mirror of Loss to get from 17 to 20. It’s fine.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

If something isn't clear to you, or if you feel like I missed something, let me know in the comments below. I read every single comment I get, and will do my best to answer yours.

Thanks for reading the guide and I hope you have fun with the build!

[K̶A̶SS̶A̶D̶I̶N R̶A̶V̶E]

Ye pretty flex multiclass. Even for sorc for meta, you can try:
7 / 3 / 2 - 1 feat / [2 lvl warlock spellslots ~ 3 lvl pala slots] + META + AURA
7 / 4 / 1 - 2 feat / [2 lvl warlock spellslots ~ 2 lvl pala slots] mirror + misty step + AURA
5 / 5 / 2 - 2 feat / [3 lvl warlock spellslots] ~ lvl3 warlock spell [cold of hadar ] + misty - mirror + META

For metamagic u can twin \ distant spell for "Dissonant Whispers" or "Wounds" that crits for insane dmg if u dont install Uncholy Smite. Plays especially well if you actually get a dark paladin set in act 3

[edwmtz118]

Extra synergy with party: If you make Gale/whatever wizard a necromancer, you can bring out whole armies of undead who are now boosted by the oathbreaker aura of hate.