How good is fighter2/paladinX duel wielded

[Whit]

Start fighter str con save important fir Pali concentration spells. Second wind, Action surge and two weapon fighting style = fighter lvl 2 1 attack with bonus action 1 attack =
2 attack’s.
Paladin lets say pre lvl 1-3 spells , divine smite , lay hands

Lvl 4 ability mod or Feat duel wield +1 ac and any non two handed weapons

Lvl 5. 2 attack’s plus 1 bonus action attack

Is this a good combo

[ImproperJustice]

I have a friend who is currently a Level 5 Battlemaster / Level 2 Paladin w/ inspiring leader and Great Weapon fighting.

He is rock solid on offense and defense. The Maneuvers combine well with Smites and/ or Bless for excellent performance.
Two fighting styles are a nice touch as well.

Action Surge is always awesome.

Pushing to Fighter 5 is really good for tge Extra Attack if tou can swing it.

[Eric Diaz]

Specifically about the dual wield stuff, I don't think its optimal, even with the "free" smite you get later on, but not so bad either. You get some extra chances of criting, which is nice, and potentially you can have a high AC with this feat, plus defense - might be better than TWF I think. Are you sing DEX or STR?

EDIT: shield or polearms with feats seem better IMO, but TWF is doable.

[Snowbluff]

Pushing to Fighter 5 is really good for tge Extra Attack if tou can swing it.

Paladin gives extra attack.

[GlenSmash!]

It's a fine combo. You'd want to go 1 fighter then 5 Paladin and then pick up the second level of fighter so you're not delaying Extra Attack any longer than you need to.

The weak part is Dual Wield. It's always just one bonus attack a turn since it's not effected by Action Surge.

It does have the benefit of being one more chance at getting a Crit which will help you in maximizing your smites, but Polearm Master does it a little better.

Still, if that's the flavor you want I say go for it.

[djreynolds]

IMO, I think a strength based dual wielder gets more

If you take the dual wielder feat it opens up every weapon to you, aside from heavy weapons to duel wield.

Defensive style and dual wielder gives you +2 to AC, not bad. And you can wear plate armor. AC 20

AFB, I'm not sure if one of your weapons can be your divine focus like a shield is, and you could be disarmed. So if your DM allowed your "long sword" as your divine focus... you could lose it

But I ran a fighter/ranger strength based TWF, and it was great. I think a paladin/fighter TWF could be very fun.

[CTurbo]

I've seen this exact idea played out and it is both really good at times and suboptimal at times.

As mentioned above, you can easily have a 20 AC still so that's great. At Paladin 11, you'd be doing 2d8+Str damage three times a round when attacking is all you need to do. The problem is, many of your best spells are Bonus Action spells so you'll find yourself NOT attacking with your offhand a lot. This is not a terrible thing though because if you were holding a shield in your offhand and the Dueling Fighting style, which is the "classic" Paladin look, you'd only be doing 4 more dpr. TWF at least gives you the option of dishing out more damage if needed. This guy frequently burned through his spell slots smiting since he could smite more often with the extra attack, but he would tear up the BBEG with his Vow of Emnity.

I say go for it. Take at least 2 levels of Fighter for Action Surge and you can solo a lot of BBEGs on your first or second turn. Basically 5 attacks, all with advantage + many smites = like 700d8 damage lol

[Citan]

Agreed with the point made by CTurbo. It can work nice but does have consequences on how you play.

If your usual way of fighting is to open with a buff while you close in then just smash heads with possible divine smite on top, it's good enough, although I'd say a tri-class in caster would be strongly suggested because your slots would deplete even faster than usual.

Also only 1 level in Fighter for concentration and FS is enough for starters. Anymore is a waste until you'd get spellcaster level 6 or 8 (either as a dual-class or tri-class). Why?
Action Surge is nice to nova, but what would make this impressive is being able to add divine smite on each attack: you won't want to do this if it means your spellcasting is now depleted for the day, meaning you want a high enough spellcaster level to unleash that and still get some fuel in case something else comes up. And taking it early means you delay further Extra Attack (bad), 2nd level spells and slots (very bad), and Auras (extremely bad). So as far as "benefit for the current level gained" goes, just getting another (Extra) Attack per short rest is extremely unimpressive compared to "permanent Extra Attack", "2nd level spells", "+CHA to all saves", "Oath improvement" and "ASI".

In fact, I'd say that to improve your gishiness, it'd be much much better to completely ditch the Fighter + potential caster and directly multiclass into Swords Bard 3 or 5: you get the Fighting Style, some nice spells, more slots for smite, and Bardic Inspiration which you can use on AC or damage. Only drawback is having to spend one ASI on Resilient: Constitution or Warcaster sometime later but it's very worth imo (unless you also happened to take a starting dip into Sorcerer ^^).

If you are instead rather playing in a conservative way, using slots on concentration effects and bonus action spells, Fighter will bring basically nothing to you: start Divine Soul Sorcerer instead: sure, you would lose one point of AC because of no heavy armor, but who cares really? You'll get weapon cantrips for single-target conservative goodies, Shield and whatever Cleric spell you'd like (Sanctuary, Healing Words), then you can grab Absorb Elements / Expeditious Retreat / Misty Step / Shadow Blade / Spiritual Weapon / etc depending on how high you go.

Also, technically, you could go as high as Sorcerer 5 and Haste yourself, although that is a dangerous tactic if you're not careful or some back luck strikes you. ^^

Also, as a note, dual-wielding does hamper you a bit as far as spellcasting goes: while many good Paladin spells are verbal only, so no problem, you should check beforehand how many spells would be troublesome to cast as such to see whether you'd need Warcaster anyways.

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In short, I'd say taking a level in Fighter is worth only if you take it as starting level and you want to play a dual-wielder and you plan on either getting Action Surge much later as a tri-class for high nova damage, or Battlemaster very early (although, confer my other point about Swords Bard, more interesting imo than Battlemaster, also confer point about delaying Paladin features which is hard too).

In all other cases, you have much better options, considering how good every Paladin level is and how worth spell slots are for you.

1-level only: Divine Soul Sorcerer, no questions asked: you won't get the FS for dual-wield, but you get so many other things (including great spells and metamagics and slots for better nova) that it's not a big deal at all.

2-levels only: Bard would be nice for Jack of all Trades, but it's far from your initial objective: so I'd say Sorcerer 1 (start) Bard 1 (later): good way to quickly expand your spellcasting options. Still, that's probably the worst option overall compared to the other cases.

3-levels only: Divine Soul Sorcerer or Swords Bard. Choose either concentration and cantrips or FS and martial improvements. For your character concept, I'd say Swords Bard is the best, giving you the FS and simili-Manoeuvers options: only Constitution proficiency is missing and can be grabbed with a feat. :)

4-levels+: any combination of the previous too. For example, you may start Sorcerer 1 then go straight Paladin 6-7 then take Bard levels. Possibly the best in theorycraft, in practice really depends on your taste about many things (spells vs smite and general resilience notably).