Fighter 1/Lvl 8 OoA paly - what do I take??

[warsawwombats]

Playing in a homebrew city in the desert campaign. VHuman fighter 1/ancients paladin 8. Rolled stats: 16, 13, 12, 9, 12, 17. Defense and Duelist fighting styles. Polearm master and Sentinel. Plate mail, shield and +1 quarterstaff. The party also owns a Longsword of Wounding and Rod of Lordly Might (which the monk is using in its spear form).

I typically prepare Shield of Faith, Bless, Protection from Evil and Good, Magic Weapon and Zone of Truth, but I'm open to suggestions.

Just hit level 8 and can't decide where to go with this build.

Party is a lore bard, mage slayer shadow monk, and necromancer. I'm the front line tank. Bard and necro tend to stay away from my scrum and the monk skirts in and out.

We earn about 3,000-6,000 XP per session, so my next level up will be a long while.

SO many options!

Fighter 2 for Action Surge?

Warcaster? What spell would I even use with the reaction?

Mounted Combatant to use the Find Steed spell more frequently?

Shield Master for more defensive goodness?

ASI?

What to do? WHAT TO DO???

[djreynolds]

Well level 9 brings your domain spells, which sort of suck. But now you get elemental weapon, crusader's mantle and aura of vitality... very nice spells

But level 10 brings your aura of courage, can be helpful vs dragons and such

I would keep with paladin, level 11 is improved divine smite

As for feats, ASI for charisma. As it helps everyone's saves out

[Specter]

It depends on how much you want Action Surge. If you want it badly, take it bow. If not, then wait until after Pal11.

[Citan]

Playing in a homebrew city in the desert campaign. VHuman fighter 1/ancients paladin 8. Rolled stats: 16, 13, 12, 9, 12, 17. Defense and Duelist fighting styles. Polearm master and Sentinel. Plate mail, shield and +1 quarterstaff. The party also owns a Longsword of Wounding and Rod of Lordly Might (which the monk is using in its spear form).

I typically prepare Shield of Faith, Bless, Protection from Evil and Good, Magic Weapon and Zone of Truth, but I'm open to suggestions.

Just hit level 8 and can't decide where to go with this build.

Party is a lore bard, mage slayer shadow monk, and necromancer. I'm the front line tank. Bard and necro tend to stay away from my scrum and the monk skirts in and out.

We earn about 3,000-6,000 XP per session, so my next level up will be a long while.

SO many options!

Fighter 2 for Action Surge?

Warcaster? What spell would I even use with the reaction?

Mounted Combatant to use the Find Steed spell more frequently?

Shield Master for more defensive goodness?

ASI?

What to do? WHAT TO DO???
I'd stick with Paladin, no questions asked. Most of 3rd level spells are great to prepare.
As for what to take with ASI, I'd recommend either bumping CHA and DEX to 18 / 14 respectively, or take Warcaster, or Resilient: Constitution to plan on later CHA&CON bump.

Depends on how often you use concentration spells. And from what I read, seems it's most of the time. So i'd recommend Warcaster or Resilient in fact.

As for what spell to use with Warcaster should you choose it? Easy: Command with either "Halt" or "Drop" depending on whether the creature already took its action or not.
And after you get Paladin 9, you can easily pick one level in Warlock or Sorcerer to get Booming Blade...

However, note that from what I remember, WoTC authors said that PAM's reaction was not supposed to combine with Warcaster by RAI (although it's perfectly RAW). Not sure of myself, so let other people confirm it here.
If it's true and you tend to use PAM's reaction often, then Warcaster is not the best.

As for Shield Master, it's always a solid choice for Paladins, but would be a bit competitive with Polearm Master: you already get a bonus action for additional attack (so technically, when you want to Shove and still get two attacks, you can already even if the second is a bit weaker), and you want to get as many opportunity attacks as possible to get some return value on that Sentinel+PAM investment. So unless you are often subjected to DEX effects and being endangered by it, the "no-damage as reaction" probably won't be useful often enough to justify the feat.

[Willie the Duck]

Let me look at a few options and discuss why you might choose them.

Fighter2: Given that you have PAM and Sentinel, I'm going to assume you get your bonus action and reaction as attacks most rounds. That means you get 4(1d6+6) +1(1d4+6) = 46.5*hit chance avg damage per round. Action Surge only gives extra normal actions (so 3d6+18 =28.5). So that action surge gives you another decent combat spike of ~60% of a round's attack. Being able to suddenly boost your damage output by 60% is a nice trick... but you already have a way to do that: smiting. Now, that's long rest recharge while action surge is short rest. But it still doesn't allow you to do anything you can't already.

War Caster: you don't have any cantrips to use for reaction. So this would be about keeping concentration spells up. Bless is normally a great spell for paladins to use with this, but with only 1.5 main combatants, probably wasted a lot.

ASI: Slow and steady wins the race. If you're going to go for boring better output, go boring. Your Strength, Con, and Cha are good-for-low-level, but not great for high.

[sithlordnergal]

Sooo...first off, I would go for an ASI increase, and I would put one point in that 17 Charisma, and one in that 13 Dex. That will bump up the power of your spells tremendously, and the higher Dex will give you a +2 to initiative. I would start preparing your Smite Spells, especially Wrathful Smite. It has a great rider on top of the extra d6 psychic damage. Frightened is a pretty strong condition in 5e. Also, prepare Command, Compelled Duel, and Lesser Restoration. Command and Compelled Duel both give you some good battlefield control, and can help the baddies remain focused on you. And increasing your Charisma will make it all the harder for them to pass your spell save DC.

Also, I would eventually get Fighter 2 in order to get action surge. It's a very flexible ability, but I'd take it after you reach 9th level paladin. Third level Paladin spells are amazing, and you get one of the strongest, and most broken, battlefield control spells in the game...Plant Growth. I'm not even kidding here. 150ft range, 100ft radius, no concentration, and you put down this: "A creature moving through the area must spend 4 feet of Movement for every 1 foot it moves". From what I have read, most people feel that is not difficult terrain...meaning if one of your other spell casters can cast something to create difficult terrain within Plant Growth, and your DM says the effects stack, then anyone with anything less then 40 feet of movement has to dash in order to move a single square. Those with 40 feet can move two squares while dashing.

Finally, I really do suggest getting Fighter level 2 after getting Paladin 9. Why? More attacks in a round mean more smites in a round. If you can dish out for attacks in a row, you can smite on all 4 attacks.

Next...why on earth is the monk using the Rod of Lordly Might? O_O Unless it has a Short Sword Flame Tongue, the monk can only use two of it's weapon forms. And the two forms are it's worst possible forms. Seriously, that thing belongs in your hands. You can use all of it, you can get the most benefit from the extra dice damage, and you can get the most benefit from it's paralyzing effect thanks to Crits and Smites.

[warsawwombats]

Next...why on earth is the monk using the Rod of Lordly Might? O_O Unless it has a Short Sword Flame Tongue, the monk can only use two of it's weapon forms. And the two forms are it's worst possible forms. Seriously, that thing belongs in your hands. You can use all of it, you can get the most benefit from the extra dice damage, and you can get the most benefit from it's paralyzing effect thanks to Crits and Smites.

He was the only member without a magic item yet. He couldn't use any of the other weapons we've found. It's suboptimal, but everyone's having fun. We're a pretty equitable party.

[warsawwombats]

So, what I'm hearing is MOAR PALADIN?!

No fans of Mounted Combatant feat and Find Steed spell, huh?

[PeteNutButter]

So, what I'm hearing is MOAR PALADIN?!

No fans of Mounted Combatant feat and Find Steed spell, huh?

Depending on the game, Mounted Combatant is extremely powerful. People seem to overlook that it is permanent advantage on medium and smaller foes. That's really good, and bumps your crit chance to 9.5%, meaning more smite crits. I'm a huge fan of it. So if you fight a lot of normal sized foes, especially outside, you are in good shape with mounted combatant.

Your odd stats are a big draw for an ASI in cha and dex.

[Kane0]

If you expect to go to level 12+ then yes MOAR PALLY. Otherwise a second level in fighter for that sweet, sweet action surge is fantastic in the short term. Then maybe, maybe a third for Champion (more crits, more efficient smites) or battlemaster (superiority die to get or improve your smites).

[djreynolds]

So, what I'm hearing is MOAR PALADIN?!

No fans of Mounted Combatant feat and Find Steed spell, huh?

I level of sorcerer, and you could grab some spells. Like firebolt and the shield spell.

But yes more paladin

[Zanthy1]

More paladin for sure. If your campaign has a lot of combats outside, then Mounted Combatant is great. The cool thing about Find Steed is that you dont actually have to ride it all the time, it can be treated as a familiar/animal companion for when you're inside (depending on what you get of course). And the other cool thing is if you cast it before a long rest, you get the spell slot back and the mount stays, and you can prepare something different. I would be using this spell all the time, even if you dont have mounted combatant, but if your campaign goes the outdoorsy path where you're fighting lots of medium or smaller creatures, then absolutely go for it.