Different paladin build

[Dankus Memakus]

So I really wanna play a paladin (for the first time) and I've come up with two ideas and id like some opinions. First though some details. He's gonna be a Half orc noble and his stats are:
STR 17
DEX 10
CON 14
INT 8
WIS 12
CHA 14

The two builds I was thinking were
Two weapon build (taking dual wielder feat at level 4)
Glaive build (taking polearm master at 4)

Now I've seen polearm builds before but not two weapon is there a reason for this? What build is more effective and is it so much more effective that the other build is a waste? Please give some opinions because i I cannot decide at all so I'd like some help. Thanks everyone!

[Foxhound438]

Pallys dont get the option to take the two weapon fighting style, so no modifier to your bonus action attack. There are ways to fix that, namely multiclass, but a lot of the time you really want to stay pure paladin. If you do decide to go for it, I would recommend taking defense as your pally fs and being sword and board until you either take one level of fighter or 3 of swords bard. Probably stick to paladin for the first 5 levels in either case, and honestly don't bother with the dual wielder feat. You only go from d6 to d8, which is actually just less good than taking an ability score up to increase attack and damage rolls. And after you max out strength, you will want to be boosting charisma as well, so you really dont have a place to slot in a feat.

[Foxhound438]

Oh, and on top of not needing an outsourced fighting style, the polearm does give you reach and with the feat a reaction attack. With your statline as you have it its still hard to justify taking a feat, but if you want you can probably get charisma to 15 in your point but so that at level 8 you can split an asi to even str and con.

[Crgaston]

The PHB Paladin doesn’t offer TWF as a Fighting Style choice for Paladins. You could still take Defense and use 2 weapons, but you wouldn’t be adding your Str bonus to your damage roll for the 2nd weapon. It would let you get in another divine Smite for super nova rounds. I think if I were doing this I’d definitely multi class into Sorcerer or Bard after Pal6 to fuel the smites.

Edit: double Ninjaed

[CTurbo]

Ask your DM if he will allow Two Weapon Fighting as your fighting style. I would allow it. I see no reason not to to be honest.

But having said that, you'll find a Polearm Master build to be better anyway.

Just keep in mind that many of your best and most used spells will use your bonus action so you're going to be competing with yourself with you action economy.

I would not be happy with just a 14 in Cha. Consider starting with 17 in Str and 15 in Cha so you can add +1 to both at level 4 or 8. If not, there is no reason to start with a 17 in Str. Knock that back to 16 and you can add a +2 to something else. You could start with 16 in Str and Con easily.

[suplee215]

Two Weapon Fighting in general is seen as an inferior option. The biggest reason is both heavy weapons and ranged weapons have a feat that can give +10 to attacks which TWF have no way to get.

[Dankus Memakus]

Ask your DM if he will allow Two Weapon Fighting as your fighting style. I would allow it. I see no reason not to to be honest.

But having said that, you'll find a Polearm Master build to be better anyway.

Just keep in mind that many of your best and most used spells will use your bonus action so you're going to be competing with yourself with you action economy.

I would not be happy with just a 14 in Cha. Consider starting with 17 in Str and 15 in Cha so you can add +1 to both at level 4 or 8. If not, there is no reason to start with a 17 in Str. Knock that back to 16 and you can add a +2 to something else. You could start with 16 in Str and Con easily.

We roll in order and what you roll you get. So i rolled these stats and I gotta keep them. House rules

[CTurbo]

We roll in order and what you roll you get. So i rolled these stats and I gotta keep them. House rules


Ah I see. It looked similar to what point buy would get you. I think I'd probably take +2 to Cha at level 4 then instead of feat but that's just me. Taking PoleArm Master would definitely up your offense if that's what you want to do. Heavy Armor mastery would bump your Str to 18 and make you even tankier with a flat -3 damage reduction to all melee attacks.


Which Oath do you see yourself taking?

[Eric Diaz]

So I really wanna play a paladin (for the first time) and I've come up with two ideas and id like some opinions. First though some details. He's gonna be a Half orc noble and his stats are:
STR 17
DEX 10
CON 14
INT 8
WIS 12
CHA 14

The two builds I was thinking were
Two weapon build (taking dual wielder feat at level 4)
Glaive build (taking polearm master at 4)

Now I've seen polearm builds before but not two weapon is there a reason for this? What build is more effective and is it so much more effective that the other build is a waste? Please give some opinions because i I cannot decide at all so I'd like some help. Thanks everyone!

From a purely charOP perspective, two weapon build is suboptimal and the dual wielder feat is really bad EVEN IF you're using one weapon in each hand (unless you're throwing weapons, I guess). As others have said, you dont get TWF, but that is not the worst part.

Fighting with two weapons doesn't work well with magic weapons (but might be better than PAM/GWM in that aspect...), the "Magic Weapon" spell, and even the wrathful smite feature isn't enough to compensate for the damage you lose.

OTOH, when compared to non-PAM fighting styles, it at least gives you another chance to hit a crit and smite away.

So, I'd say this is far from optimal, so you won't see in any guides, but is certainly DOABLE, IMO, and there is nothing stopping you from taking that.

In short, you character will lose some damage potential but gain a few advantages; it is a viable build if that is the type of character you want to build.

[Citan]

So I really wanna play a paladin (for the first time) and I've come up with two ideas and id like some opinions. First though some details. He's gonna be a Half orc noble and his stats are:
STR 17
DEX 10
CON 14
INT 8
WIS 12
CHA 14

The two builds I was thinking were
Two weapon build (taking dual wielder feat at level 4)
Glaive build (taking polearm master at 4)

Now I've seen polearm builds before but not two weapon is there a reason for this? What build is more effective and is it so much more effective that the other build is a waste? Please give some opinions because i I cannot decide at all so I'd like some help. Thanks everyone!
Hi!

Two-weapon fighting certainly has some benefit but, as Foxhound stressed...

Pallys dont get the option to take the two weapon fighting style, so no modifier to your bonus action attack. There are ways to fix that, namely multiclass, but a lot of the time you really want to stay pure paladin. If you do decide to go for it, I would recommend taking defense as your pally fs and being sword and board until you either take one level of fighter or 3 of swords bard. Probably stick to paladin for the first 5 levels in either case, and honestly don't bother with the dual wielder feat. You only go from d6 to d8, which is actually just less good than taking an ability score up to increase attack and damage rolls. And after you max out strength, you will want to be boosting charisma as well, so you really dont have a place to slot in a feat.
There is, first of all, the lack of support Fighting-Style wise that makes this option lesser, considering a STR-based character can use feats to get bonus action weapon attack another way.

Second, one of the main benefits of two-weapon fighting, without added feats, would be for a Paladin to get another chance to burn slots on Divine Smite in the same turn. Except that Paladin has little slots for a good chunk of his life, so it wouldn't make a difference that often.

Third, although Paladin doesn't have many options to use bonus action, he has at least several (good) spells and sometimes archetype features. So it's not like two-weapon fighting would be his only way to get a use of bonus action.

Fourth, another good benefit of dual-wielding is to be able to make occasional ranged attacks with thrown weapons and yet still wield a weapon for melee attack or off-turn OA. But if as a Paladin you really wanted a good ranged attack, there are better ways to go (the easiest being grabbing Eldricht Blast some way).
And in Paladin case, you will usually want to get into melee range because most of your awesomeness only works at close range.

For all these reasons, although going for TWF+Dual Wielder as a Paladin is fine, it won't be optimal unless you evolve around it (taking a Fighter dip for added damage, a Hexblade dip for even better damage, some caster levels for more fuel to burn on smites...).

If you want to optimize while staying simple, like a plain pure Paladin, go Polearm Mastery. Easy and efficient, and when you find yourself in situations in which you really need to switch to ranged, you can just drop glaive and instead use Javelins, or maybe dual-wield quarterstaff (so you still get Polearm Mastery's OA on reach enter feature) and javelin (so you can at least make one weapon attack).

In shorter version, for a Paladin, unless going for specific build (or planning on getting many magic weapons), Dual Wielder is too much a hassle for what it's worth if you want to min-max without long-term planning and added complexity. If you were just asking whether it would be a "bad" build or not, no worries, it's not bad, so go for it if you want to play it. It's not like you would be gimping your class features, it's just that when feats and multiclass are available it's not the choice that brings the most synergy. :)

Note that this (TWF / PAM comparison) would have been a very different story for a Ranger. :=)

[Vorpalchicken]

One good practical reason for a dual wielding paladin could be if your party has more quality magical long swords than they know what to do with.

Some DMS tailor the found items to the party, but if the DM randomly determines what comes up or sticks to what is written in a published module there could well be a glut of magical long swords.

Really, who uses them these days? Probably just you.

It's entirely possible that you will be rocking a pair of legendarys while the barbarian and the tempest Cleric are still squabbling over the plus one glaive.

This Holy Avenger? Oh I just use it in my off-hand.

[sophontteks]

I think paladins may lack the two weapon fighting style because they are casters and two weapons would interfere with their ability to cast while fighting, but the exact rules on a focus and casting is beyond me. I know a focus can be put on a shield and I know a two-handed weapon can be held in one hand, but I don't know how foci and components work with two weapons.

[Foxhound438]

I think paladins may lack the two weapon fighting style because they are casters and two weapons would interfere with their ability to cast while fighting, but the exact rules on a focus and casting is beyond me. I know a focus can be put on a shield and I know a two-handed weapon can be held in one hand, but I don't know how foci and components work with two weapons.

for the most part paladin spells are verbal only anyways, so more often than not that isn't an issue.

[sophontteks]

for the most part paladin spells are verbal only anyways, so more often than not that isn't an issue.

Hey man, its hard to talk while holding two things. I've seen pallys choke on their tongues trying that.

[Crgaston]

I think paladins may lack the two weapon fighting style because they are casters and two weapons would interfere with their ability to cast while fighting, but the exact rules on a focus and casting is beyond me. I know a focus can be put on a shield and I know a two-handed weapon can be held in one hand, but I don't know how foci and components work with two weapons.

Rangers get TWF, though.

My suspicion is that it was a perceived Nova/Smite/Improved Divine Smite balance issue.

[sophontteks]

Rangers get TWF, though.

My suspicion is that it was a perceived Nova/Smite/Improved Divine Smite balance issue.

Ah, but rangers don't use a focus.

[Nidgit]

It's mostly just thematic. Rangers get Archery and TWF, Paladins get GWF and Protection.

Rangers do typically get more usage out of TWF though, since stuff like Hunter's Mark and Colossus Slayer can key off of it.

Can I just say I love the idea of a half-orc duelwielding battleaxes? It would make for a pretty awesome Barbarian.