First level build help needed

[Z3ro]

My group is going to be starting Horde of the Dragon Queen in a few weeks, and I'm looking for a little help with my build. Specifically, which class to take at first level. The build is going to be Fighter (battlemaster) 3/ Warlock (fiend blade pact) 17, focused on TWF. We're going through Rise of Tiamet, so getting to high levels is a realistic goal if I my character doesn't die.

Here's the issue; everything I've heard is that the first level or two of HotDQ is a real meat grinder, and that if you're not smart, your character stands a good chance of dying. I can't figure out whether to take start with a level of fighter or warlock. In an ideal world, I'd take a level of fighter first, as the proficiency to con saves will be huge. However, it seems like a fiend warlock potentially gives a lot of temporary HP, something that will be very handy in the module.

Am I over-valuing the temp HP from warlock? Or will it make a big difference?

[Jlooney]

How many people are going to be in your group? Do you know what their endgame goal is? Are you rolling stats or point buy? Are you getting anything extra from your DM? I.E. an extra feat at first? Without a little more info it's really hard to give any advice other than look at what picking up the other class causes you to loose. If you are a Fighter first, you don't get your full spell casting. Any additional info you can give will greatly help people guide you in the right direction.

[Z3ro]

How many people are going to be in your group? Do you know what their endgame goal is? Are you rolling stats or point buy? Are you getting anything extra from your DM? I.E. an extra feat at first? Without a little more info it's really hard to give any advice other than look at what picking up the other class causes you to loose. If you are a Fighter first, you don't get your full spell casting. Any additional info you can give will greatly help people guide you in the right direction.

3 other people; druid, barbarian, and ranger. We're rolling stats, but the DM is lenient and we usually end up with higher stats. The only extra I'm getting is that the DM will allow my pact-blade to be a double weapon for TWF purposes.

[Shining Wrath]

With the druid wild shaping and the barbarian being barbarous, you've got good soak-up-damage people. If you ask me, you're more likely to die from the party not having any casters than you are from you not having the extra HP of the fighter.

[Valefor Rathan]

Curious as I have a thread going about my first character as well -

Why not go Paladin/Warlock? I've looked a little at the Fighter subclasses at lvl 3 and thought going Eldritch Knight/Warlock would be cool but if you're gonna go be bashy, why not pick up the Paladin with some low-level healing and have the same casting attribute (CHA) as the Warlock when you pick that up?

I'm interested in OP thoughts as ours initial builds seemed to be the same.

[Z3ro]

Curious as I have a thread going about my first character as well -

Why not go Paladin/Warlock? I've looked a little at the Fighter subclasses at lvl 3 and thought going Eldritch Knight/Warlock would be cool but if you're gonna go be bashy, why not pick up the Paladin with some low-level healing and have the same casting attribute (CHA) as the Warlock when you pick that up?

I'm interested in OP thoughts as ours initial builds seemed to be the same.

I'm planning fighter over paladin for two reasons: one, I'm going two weapon fighting, and paladin doesn't offer that style, and two, I don't have enough spell slots to really make effective use of smiting. I'd rather use those slots to get maneuvers, which are independent of spells and give me another resource to access. Also, fighter gets action surge, which is a really nice selling point.

[Valefor Rathan]

Solid points. The point brought up in my thread was the number of attributes needed to split Fighter/Warlock.

I like your thought process though.

[bloodshed343]

To split fighter effectively you only need one of strength or dex, charisma, and constitution. Dex is a little better than strength due to initiative.