Going forward with a sub-optimal conquest paladin

[Consensus]

So I'm now playing in a game that a play a Half-Orc conquest paladin. I rolled fairly bad stats:
STR 14
DEX 11
CON 15
INT 11
WIS 11
CHA 13
I saw this and thought the physical stats could use some half-orc, and with he passable CHA I decided to go conquest paladin to match with half-orc. So not very many save spells/ the fear channel divinity for me.
This is where it gets QUITE suboptimal. I'm dual wielding. I just picked the dual wielder feat as I am now 4th level, because I want to be able to use more magical one handed weapons, and not have to depend on magic weapons being light. I'm not sure where to go with my next ASI. Both STR and CHA would help a lot...
Any other advice would be helpful
EDIT: There is also a celestial warlock with 20 CHA in the three person party, I am under no obligation to be the party face, although I do like intimidating. For info's sake the other party member is a alchemist artificer

[Nidgit]

Conquest Paladins, even more so than other Paladins, really benefit from investing in CHA. I'd definitely put one +1 there. If there's a STR half-feat you're eyeing like Heavy Armor Master you can put the other +1 in STR. Otherwise I'd put in in CON to set up for Resilient (Con) or just round out your DEX or WIS.

If you don't expect to reach Level 18 or 20, you might want to consider dipping into Fighter for TWF. There are pretty nice abilities up through Level 3: Action Surge and your choice of expanded crit range or maneuvers (or something else with less synergy).

[Consensus]

Conquest Paladins, even more so than other Paladins, really benefit from investing in CHA. I'd definitely put one +1 there. If there's a STR half-feat you're eyeing like Heavy Armor Master you can put the other +1 in STR. Otherwise I'd put in in CON to set up for Resilient (Con) or just round out your DEX or WIS.

If you don't expect to reach Level 18 or 20, you might want to consider dipping into Fighter for TWF. There are pretty nice abilities up through Level 3: Action Surge and your choice of expanded crit range or maneuvers (or something else with less synergy).
Thanks for the advice, I think I'll go +1 CHA +1 STR at level 8. After that I'll do level 9 for level 3 spells. After that I'll either continue paladin for a sooner Orcish Fury or HAM, or maybe do champion 3, considering my TWF and half-orcedness. I forgot to mention my DM allowed me to take the TWF fighting style

[CTurbo]

I played a 13 Cha Paladin once and I just played him as spell less and just spammed Divine Smite with every slot. He literally never casted a spell at anytime. Didn't even pick any. TWF is not bad since he allowed you to take the Fighting Style. The problem there would be the bonus action attack competing with all of your good bonus action spells.

Your biggest problem is your save DC will be low, but after level 7, enemies will have disadvantage on saves against your fear checks so that will help out a lot.

I think I would take +2 Str at level 4, but yeah at some point I would probably bump that Cha to 14 at least if for no other reason than to boost your Aura of Protection.

If you see yourself wanting to really rely on spells like the class is meant to be played, then yeah, you're going to want at least a 16 in Cha eventually.

The skill feat Menacing gives you Expertise in Intimidate, +1 to Cha, and further boosts your fear capabilities so I would probably take that at 8. (or 4 if spells are important to you)

[Consensus]

I played a 13 Cha Paladin once and I just played him as spell less and just spammed Divine Smite with every slot. He literally never casted a spell at anytime. Didn't even pick any. TWF is not bad since he allowed you to take the Fighting Style. The problem there would be the bonus action attack competing with all of your good bonus action spells.

Your biggest problem is your save DC will be low, but after level 7, enemies will have disadvantage on saves against your fear checks so that will help out a lot.

I think I would take +2 Str at level 4, but yeah at some point I would probably bump that Cha to 14 at least if for no other reason than to boost your Aura of Protection.

If you see yourself wanting to really rely on spells like the class is meant to be played, then yeah, you're going to want at least a 16 in Cha eventually.

The skill feat Menacing gives you Expertise in Intimidate, +1 to Cha, and further boosts your fear capabilities so I would probably take that at 8. (or 4 if spells are important to you)

I'll probably be playing him as more or less spell-less, or at least only armor of agathys/bless/shield of faith. Although I have been thinking of just stopping paladin at 5 and getting some levels in champion fighter, since the aura might not even be worth it with my CHA. The idea of the menacing feat does interest me, I havent thought about the skill feats in a while.

[CTurbo]

Well even a +2 Cha mod would be huge for Aura of Protection. It's such a great feature. Multiclassing Fighter will give you some goodies, but really hurt your Smiting as you will lose out of your precious slots as well as your Lay On Hands.

[Amdy_vill]

you do not need to be optimal. the game is based around you being only ok with you skills just look at point buy. if you are worst than that you have a problem but not much

[Sception]

If your GM allows oathbreaker, it might be a better fit. Vengeance in particular might do better for you. Conqueror will be alright, don't get me wrong, you'll still do well enough as a paladin with heavy armor and smiting with weapon attacks. It's just that conqueror itself won't be adding much to what you're already getting from the parent class, because pretty much everything about the oath of conquest hinges on causing the frightened condition, which in turn means casting spells, not smiting with them, and requires your opponents to actually fail some saves.

The one thing that might somewhat save this for you is the Menacing feat from Unearthed Arcana, which lets you burn an attack (similar to shove), to cause a single round of frighten to one target. It sounds limited, but because it's resisted with checks not saves it's hard to resist, and much much harder to resist in subsequent rounds. And it's based on your intimidate check, not spell save, AND grants expertise in intimidate if you're already proficient, so even with a low cha you should still be able to pull it off on most targets.

It does eat an attack, but once you have extra attack you'll still get a second attack from dual wielding.

The main problem is most DMs won't allow it, as it's not only UA material, but seems to be abandoned UA material at that, since the skill feats didn't make it into Xanathars and haven't been mentioned since.


Otherwise, consider multiclassing out into fighter or barbarian. Both mix well with a few levels of paladin. Remember that divine smite is not a spell so you can still use your spell slots to smite while raging. Alternatively, consider multiclassing out into sorcerer after paladin 6, and just focus on smiting, grabbing a few utility spells which don't depend on your spellcasting stat (Shield, Misty Step, Haste, etc). Sorcerer will advance your smiting slots faster and open up metamagic abilities, which are good even without a strong charisma.


Or just stick with paladin. Again, paladins are good, you'll still functional on the base class alone. Improved Divine Smite at level 11 is particularly nice for a dual wielder. It's just such a shame to get aura of conquest and not really be able to take advantage of it.

[Specter]

Smites don't care about CHA. Also, Action Surge and Improved Critical for crit-fishing could be nice.

[Legimus]

I think others have already made fine points, so I'll just add this: The central mechanic and theme of the Oath of Conquest is fear. Because Charisma is your spellcasting stat, it is your single most important stat. If you can't frighten your enemies, your aura (which is what makes the subclass really shine) is totally useless. Conquest paladins play a little differently than the other oaths in that you need to prioritize Charisma above everything else for them to be effective. Even rolling sub-optimal stats, you really should be pushing that Charisma up at every opportunity. If not maxing it out, at least get it to 18.

If you don't really want to sink those points into Charisma, then you're just not going to get to use the tools of your oath. Remember, this is a subclass oriented towards tanking and battlefield control. If you want something other than that, I really recommend you pick a different oath. This isn't even about min/maxing and whatnot. If you can't frighten guys, you can't use your subclass tools, and if you can't use those tools I just don't think you'll have much fun playing as a Conquest paladin.

[Sception]

You know what, my first post was excessively negative. Legimus is right, you can make conquest work as conquest, you just need to put everything you can into cha as quickly as possible. Aura of Conquest doesn't even kick in to level 7, if you can get a decent cha by level 8 you'll be alright.

If you can pick where your stats go, then you should absolutely swap that pre-racial 14 from con and the 13 from cha. Then you're at least starting with a +2 bonus to charisma. +1 con mod is pretty low for a paladin, but should still be workable with heavy armor. +2 cha at levels 4 and 8, resiliant con at 12, +2 cha again at 16 is what I'd aim for. Your attack stat lags way way behind, but your save DCs are reaching respectability at around the same time as your character picks up aura of conquest, which is what makes the subclass.

If you can't swap the stats, then beg your DM for menacing from unearthed arcana as a level 4 feat, follow it up with +2 cha at 8 and 12. Resilient con at 16 and +2 cha again (or +2 strength, if your DM hasn't graced you with a strength item) at 19.

If menacing is a no-go, then +1 cha & con at level 4, +2 cha again at 8, 12, and 16. +2 strength at 19.

Even though your attack stat suffers, you can shore it up a bit with advantage. Open fights with your channel divinity to cause frighten, or a fear spell at levels 9+. Second round, move in and use your first attack to shove one of the targets that failed their save. Even with a lowish strength you should still be able to topple opponents thanks to proficiency on athletics and the target having disadvantage due to frighten. Once the target's on the ground, you'll have advantage with your second regular attack and bonus action off hand attack. And you'll still have advantage in subsequent rounds, since the target can't get up as long as they're frightened in your aura (speed 0 creatures can't stand from prone).

You'll still miss a fair bit, but when you do hit against a tougher target you can burn a smite to make sure it stings. Fish for crits - multiple attacks with advantage will land crits sometimes, then you can pop a smite for double damage.


Consider a one level dip into hexblade at some point after level 8. Hex warrior will let you swing with cha on your primary weapon, plus get you a decent cha based ranged fallback for when you can't hit melee, plus get you 19-20 crits on one enemy per short rest so you can really fish those crits (unlike cha-to-attack this still works on off hand attacks), plus the shield spell & booming blade (though to take full advantage of those you'd have to take warcaster instead of resilient con), plus an extra spell slot per short rest so that you're less likely to run out of smites (or shields, once/if you take warcaster).

And if you survive past level 10, see if you can convince your DM to drop one of those strength boosting magic items, the ones that just set your strength to a given score while you wear them. After playing a 14 strength paladin from level 1, I'd say you'd deserve it.


....

Do consider dropping that off hand weapon for a shield, though. The weapon damage builds of paladin, particularly for two weapon fighting, are vengeance and oathbreaker (devotion's also good for weapon damage, but imo greatly prefers two-handed weapons). Conquest is the tanking subclass out of the various paladin oaths, the extra armor will go further for you than the extra attack. Especially since conquest still gets bonus action attacks out of its oath spells via sacred weapon. AND a lot of the time you'll want to cast wrathful smite instead of making an attack with your bonus action at all. AND that hexblade dip you'll probably want to take around level 10 only fixes attacks for your main hand weapon anyway, unless you plan on taking it all the way to level 3 or more. Which is certainly a viable option if you like hexblade, but it really starts to offset immediate and long term conquest advancement if you take more than a single level.

....

If you must do two weapon fighting for aesthetic reasons, but aren't married to particular weapons, consider an off hand whip instead of the short sword, scimitar, or hand axe you would have taken otherwise. Conquest gets enough value out of reach to be worth the sacrifice to damage, especially with your off hand attacks, and sword-plus-whip is a cool and rather unique fighting style.

[Consensus]

Sorry about the confusion with the stats, I have a 16 STR and 16 CON due to half orc, so I'm not as low in STR as assumed by some posters. Also, I began playing this character at level three and leveled up to four and have already selected dual wielder, for better or for worse, so my choices are set in stone, pretty much.

I might ask about in character switching from Conquest to Oathbreaker, which maybe could be my character recognizing that power ISN'T everything, but that would require some character development.

I have thought about the Menacing feat, if I stay with my subclass I'll probably take that.
I've also thought about multiclassing to barbarian or fighter (If my DM would let me rage in heavy armor) The main thing holding me back from fighter would be missing more spell slots to smite with, ALLLLTHOUGHHH I could just do Paladin 5 or 6, Fighter 3 or 4, then go sorcerer or warlock for more smites. Then really beg my dm for a STR raising magic item.

[Sception]

Dual Wielder? Yeesh. Ok, well, jump to oathbreaker if the GM lets you. Given Conquest's tenets, it shouldn't be to hard to find narrative cause to break your oath.

Otherwise?

If you're sticking with Conquest, then From now until the end of time, you raise nothing but cha. You take menacing if you can, or +1cha/+1con otherwise, at level 8. At level 12, you take +2 cha, and fear will finally become a viable spell against enemies with garbage wisdom saves. That's a long time to wait for your oath to finally be somewhat useful, but so be it. Even then though it'll be a bit iffy. Take +2 cha again at levels 16 and 19, and at least in the late game things will start looking up, though at those levels fear immunity starts undermining the gimmick.

Some DM's allow retraining of things like feats when you gain a level. Try asking about that. You character can dual wield perfectly fine without the feat, nothing overtly changes about your character or fighting style if you drop it, and getting your charisma up as fast as possible is critical if you want to make conquest work /as/ conquest for this character. It's definitely worth asking about, even if the DM makes you pay some in game cost (money for a trainer, or makes you play for a level without the feat you're trading out before you're allowed to replace it with something new), etc.

Otherwise, for a lot of middle levels you'll again effectively be a paladin with no oath, which is kind of a waste, but again the parent class is strong so it's not like you'll be terrible or anything, and eventually your cha will catch up, it'll just take a lot longer than would be ideal.

And if the campaign isn't going to make it at least to the mid teens, then literally any other oath would be better for you mechanically, so even if your DM doesn't like oathbreaker, if they'd be willing to allow a transition to vengeance or ancients, both might fit your fluff well enough while being a better fit for your stats and play style, with vengeance leaning more towards offence with a channel divinity that provides advantage, helping you fish for crits to smite on (three levels of champion fighter might be a good multiclass option to consider in that case). Alternatively, ancients leans more towards buffing & utility with the useful positioning spell misty step and the fantastic defensive aura of warding, neither of which are cha-based.


And, again, consider multiclassing out into fighter, barbarian, hexblade, or sorcerer after level paladin six and just not looking back. Yes, oddly enough, a paladin/sorcerer multiclass has considerably less need for a high charisma than a pure conquest paladin does. You'll still probably want to get to cha 16 at some point, but there's less of a rush, and an ending 14 is still usable.


but if no changes or multiclassing, then... yeah, raise your charisma as high as possible with every remaining stat boost you get, and ask the party's knowledge monkey to point out any particularly low will save enemies to you. Learn to identify the thick skinned but also thick headed brutes who are particularly vulnerable to wisdom saves, and hit them up with a Wrathful Smite. If they fail then they'll have a hard time breaking free afterwards due to disadvantage on the follow up checks (not saves), and even with a relatively poor DC, the Fear spell can still be worthwhile if you can hit at least 3 or 4 targets with it, since you'll be able to use your aura to lock down any that fail their save and they won't be able to save again at all as long as you're still in their line of sight.

And if your DM allows menacing, then your standard attack routine nearly every round from level 8 on should be menace, main hand attack, off hand attack, pretty much every round, with the exceptions being when you drop the main hand attack for a shove. With proficiency and expertise, targets will fail, and after they fail they'll have disadvantage when you menace them on subsequent rounds. It eats an attack every round, and only targets one opponent, but solidly locking down even one tough dude at a time will still make for some pretty effective tanking.

.....

On a side note, much as I love the conquest paladin, it's a bit of a shame that the oath's description in Xanathar's guide doesn't make it more explicit how important charisma is to them. If fact, the description can really give the wrong idea. The 'strength above all' tenet in particular is actively misleading, because from level 7 onward, a conquest pally has a much easier time dominating the battlefield with a strong charisma but sup standard strength than the other way around.