needing a little help with a paladin grey knight

[samuraijaques]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to make a character that is similar in style to a grey knight from WH40K. I have always loved the grey knights and when I decided to roll up my next character as a paladin I thought it would be a good opportunity to play one.

He's going to be a variant human paladin with two levels in warlock for the awesome synergy that that gives and for some great ranged attacks with agonizing blast. Not to mention the fact that it fits the grey knight lore perfectly. The rest will be paladin. He's going to be using a glaive so I will be picking up polearm master for sure.

My question is this. If I want to get 20s in both cha and str I will only have space for one feat which would have to be polearm master. Is it worth sacrificing my 20 in either str or cha for the feat resilient (constitution) to help keep my buffs up? Or should I just go with the full 20s and hope that the paladin aura is enough to pad my con saves.

Cheers

[D.U.P.A.]

Suffer not the witch to live! (yes that is the actual quote from DoW and witch is just female warlock)

Maybe using Magic initiate, but Eldritch blast still looks too heretical.

[1Forge]

yeah I suggest not taking warlock BUT instead take magic initiate and take the warlock spells you want. That uses 1 feat then get polearm master for the other. This leaves you some more ability score improvements seeing as you are not using two levels in warlock.

[samuraijaques]

Grey kights (and in fact all psykers in WH40K) draw their powers from the warp. The exact same place that daemons originate. That's why it's so dangerous. Grey knights are supposed to fight fire with fire, so to speak. Going warlock for all the eldritch goodies is exactly on theme.

The two level dip of warlock gives me:
- 2 cantrips including the best damage dealing cantrip in the game (eldritch blast)
- 5 spells known (including the two from archfey) and 2 spell slots that refresh on a short rest meaning I can smite significantly more often
- An awesome ability from the patron. I chose the archfey for the fear or charm
- 2 invocations, agonizing blast for that awesome cha synergy and eldritch sight for detect magic at will to more effectively spot those using demonic magics

If I just went straight paladin I would get their capstone (who ever plays to 20 anyway) and another ABI which wouldn't actually net me anything because I would have to use it on magic initiate to get eldritch blast anyway leaving me exactly where I started in having to decide between 20s and resilient (Constitution) with the addition of not having any of the really amazing stuff I would have gotten from warlock.

Warlock is definitely the way to go here. That's not really what I am asking. Thank you for the responses though.

Cheers

[PotatoGolem]

Warlock definitely seems more like a Chaos Sorcerer- bargaining with greater entities of the warp for power. Regular psykers are more of sorcerers, ironically- they have innate power, but they're not beholden to a chaos god or anything. But that's neither here nor there.

To answer your question, resilient (con) isn't that big of a deal. Paladins tend to be good at saves in general- just make sure you have 14+ con and you'll be ok. On that note, I'd strongly discourage taking your warlock dip before Paladin 6- the Aura is how you pass all your saves, and Extra Attack is pretty vital if you're planning on actually going for melee combat (as opposed to a less-fragile blastlock).

I'd probably also go for Warlock 4- the extra ASI is absolutely necessary for paladins, second-level slots give you better smites, and Tome gives awesome out-of-combat versatility. For ASIs, don't just look at your build at level 20- you want to get your strength (and maybe cha) to 20 ASAP.

[D.U.P.A.]

However warlock explicitely make a pact, which is basically an agreement with fiends or whoever the patron is. However now the questions are at which level you start, until which level the game will last. A rule in DnD is make a character which will be fun at current (starting) level. Because most of the time, players get bored of the campaign, some may disappear because other things, DM doesn't feel to continue, etc. Planning a character from 1-20 level is not a good idea.

[KorvinStarmast]

A rule in DnD is make a character which will be fun at current (starting) level. Because most of the time, players get bored of the campaign, some may disappear because other things, DM doesn't feel to continue, etc. Planning a character from 1-20 level is not a good idea.
For the reasons you correctly identify, expecting to play to level 20 may be unrealistic, and planning to MC before going deep into levels is valid.
Planning up to 20 isn't a bad idea.

You may get there, you may not, so why not have a plan?

What you point out, a point which I applaud, is to map out your MC path with a realistic chance of actually getting to use the MC features earlier rather than later.

[PhantomRenegade]

From what you've said i imagine what you're after is stuff from the warlock spell list but sorcerer would fit the fluff a lot better methinks, a sorcerer innately has access to magic but he doesnt make a pact and he doesnt study magic like a wizard, he just knows how to do it, and uses it. (for the emperor)

[HoarsHalberd]

You could refluff the GOO to be about a psychically empowered human. All it's class features work when renamed - Awakened Mind - Faithful Knowledge. Etc etc. On topic, your aura should soak up most of them. The combination isn't very optimal anyway but you should be fine.