Help for Divine Soul Sorcadin (Paladin/Sorcerer)

[Immortem]

I am hoping to get a bit of advice on my spell, metamagic, and feat selection for my Paladin 6/Sorcerer 2 character. Before anyone asks I have read Gastronomie's excellent guide to Sorcadins (Unlimited Blade Works) several times over, as well as, many other posts, but most of the posts I have read are from a mainly optimization point of view or don't discuss Divine Soul at all.

We are in a custom campaign that has been ongoing for about a year and a half. The possibility exists that we will take these characters to 20 so I would like advice with that in mind. The rest of the group is a Human Swashbucker, Tabaxi Tranquility Monk/Ranger, Tabaxi Blood Hunter, and Aasimar Mystic. As you can see all source material (including UA and DND Beyond) is legal in this campaign. My role in the group is primarily Sword and Board Tank/Support with occasional Nova damage. We are a pretty heavy role play group (with a couple exceptions) so optimization is not necessarily the goal, fitting the theme and role of the character is.

A bit about my character:

Race: Tiefling (Zariel subrace)

Str: 16 (15+1)
Dex: 10
Con: 14 (13+1)
Int: 8
Wis: 12
Cha: 16 (14+2)

Feats: Resilient (Constitution)

Paladin Oath: Crown

Sorcerous Origin: Divine Soul

Alignment: Lawful Good

Fighting Style: Defense

Brief Background: He serves a deity of protection and hopes that through his service and deeds he may redeem his bloodline from the infernal taint upon it. He had untapped potential that the church tried to teach him to control through his paladin training, but recently it broke through (hence the Sorcerer multiclass) and now he is trying to come to grips with this resurgence of power.

Current Spell list:
Oath Spells: Command, Compelled Duel, Warding Bond, Zone of Truth
Paladin Spells Prepared: Aid, Bless, Cure Wounds, Find Steed, Lesser Restoration, Protection from Good & Evil
Sorcerer Cantrips: Booming Blade, Guidance, Sacred Flame, Word of Radiance
Sorcerer Spells: Absorb Elements, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word (traded Divine Soul's Cure Wounds for this), Shield

I plan on continuing in Sorcerer levels for the time being with a goal of Paladin 6/Sorcerer 14. I get metamagic next level, and I was thinking Twinned Spell and possibly Extended Spell for buffs like Aid and eventually Death Ward, but I am definitely open to suggestions. For my next ASI/feat I know +Str or +Cha would be optimal, but Inspiring Leader looks really good too (feats are fun!). As far as spells going forward I would like to keep them in line with the protector role and background already established, but my guy isn't afraid to scrap since the best protection is a good offense in many cases.

So how would you progress with this character? What spells, feats, and metamagic would you suggest?


TLDR: What spells, feats, and metamagic would you suggest for a Sword and Board Tank/Support Sorcadin?

[Vekon]

TLDR: What spells, feats, and metamagic would you suggest for a Sword and Board Tank/Support Sorcadin?


War Caster is a feat that comes to mind, just to guarantee you never lose concentration. Other than that I think Paladins need the ASIs.
Extended spell is great for using Death Ward, Aid, or similar long duration spells right before you finish a long rest. Twinned is great for Booming Blade and a number of other buffing/control spells. Compelled Duel and Hold Person come to mind. You should also get Hold Person at some point; your Blood Hunter will love you for it.

[CTurbo]

You seem like you have a fairly solid idea in mind. I don't particularly like the Crown Oath that much but if that fits what you're trying to do best then it will work.

I'm not sure I would take any feats. Pumping Str and Cha is awesome for Paladins. If you're snot so worried about getting 20 in those, Sentinel and Shield Master are both great for any tanky Paladin. Inspiring Leader is always great too.

[hwem]

You seem like you have a fairly solid idea in mind. I don't particularly like the Crown Oath that much but if that fits what you're trying to do best then it will work

sorry but why don’t you like crown in this case? For 6/14 tanky S&B sorcadin, isn’t crown considered the best oath there is (overall) due to champion challenge? What other oaths can actually compete for 6/14 tanky S&B sorcadin build?

[CTurbo]

I guess for only 6 levels it's fine

[DarkKnightJin]

Sanctuary is always a fun spell to have as an option in case things turn out not as great as you were hoping.
Spiritual Weapon could be a useful spell for a 2nd level slot.
If you are going to be in melee with a lot of enemies, you just can't go wrong with picking up Spirit Guardians and Fireball at some point. The Fireball more so for the ranged AoE it provides.
If you can spare a slot for something like Sending, that could be a huge boon in communication. Of course, if someone else is getting that, you can skip it. BLTOC, basically.
Counterspell and Dispel Magic should be fairly obvious picks.
Misty Step and/or Dimension Door is also great for getting or out of trouble as the need arises.
Hold Person/Monster is definitely a recommendation from me, as well.
I haven't personally been able to take advantage of the Paralyzed condition yet.. but last time I managed to ping a monster with it, the rest managed to do 50+ damage to the beast in a single round, before it even got to make another save.
Dawn or Holy Weapon could be worth a spell pick, too. Though they are 5th level, and probably won't be used too terribly often.

If you are the kind of Paladin that is a Holy Knight for a deity.. You kinda have to take Temple of the Gods as a 7th level spell.

Beyond the 3rd, maybe 4th level Spells.. I'd try and let the narrative guide on which spells you pick.
You can map out your spell picks all you want, but each pick should make sense for your character to know those spells.

[Immortem]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. Next level I get access to 2nd level sorcerer/cleric spells and a new spell known. I am having a hard time deciding between Spiritual Weapon, Mirror Image and Hold Person. I only get one of the three unless I swap out one of my other Divine Soul spells (Absorb Elements, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Shield). Would I be better off dropping Shield and getting Mirror Image and choosing Hold Person as my new spell known, or is there a better suggestion?

[DarkKnightJin]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. Next level I get access to 2nd level sorcerer/cleric spells and a new spell known. I am having a hard time deciding between Spiritual Weapon, Mirror Image and Hold Person. I only get one of the three unless I swap out one of my other Divine Soul spells (Absorb Elements, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Shield). Would I be better off dropping Shield and getting Mirror Image and choosing Hold Person as my new spell known, or is there a better suggestion?

I don't know how much time you spend in melee with enemies. I would advise against dropping Shield.
If anything, I would drop either Absorb Elements or Guiding Bolt for Hold Person.
Mirror Image is nice, but it'll probably not be up for more than 3 turns. Possibly less, since you are supposed to be targeted instead of the backliners.

Shield could be dropped if your AC is decent enough to avoid being hit too often already.
Hold Person is just too much fun if you're up against humanoid enemies, and you can manage to stick the spell. Your Rogue and other martials will love you if you can find a way to reliably paralyze people.

[Remover of Obst]

Here is what I am looking, pretty much I am in the same boat except I went Vengeance Paladin.

P1
Bless
Command
Cure Wounds
Heroism
(Vengeance - Bane and Hunter's Mark)

P2
Aid
Branding Smite
Lesser Restoration
Locate Object
(Vengeance - Hold Person and Misty Step)

S1
Absorb Elements
Shield
Thunderwave

S2
Scorching Ray
Spiritual Weapon
(Alternate Mirror Image - personally, I have found Shield to be more useful so far)

S3
Counterspell
Haste
Fireball (actually going to take Erupting Earth as it fits character more)
Revivify (can you get by with scrolls?)
Spiritual Guardians

S4
Freedom of Movement
Death Ward

S5
Hold Monster
Greater Restoration

S6
Heal
True Seeing

S7
Not sure... really interested in what others suggest.
(or maybe dip two levels of Warlock...)

I am trying to tank and buff. I have a rogue sharpshooter and an eldritch knight great weapon master in the party that I am looking forward to Twinning Haste on.

Only up to level 8 (P6/S2), but I have found Shield very useful. Kept me up for two critical rounds when very low in a boss fight and I believe it probably helped to avoid a nasty on hit effect or two.

[Immortem]

I don't know how much time you spend in melee with enemies. I would advise against dropping Shield.
If anything, I would drop either Absorb Elements or Guiding Bolt for Hold Person.
Mirror Image is nice, but it'll probably not be up for more than 3 turns. Possibly less, since you are supposed to be targeted instead of the backliners.

Shield could be dropped if your AC is decent enough to avoid being hit too often already.
Hold Person is just too much fun if you're up against humanoid enemies, and you can manage to stick the spell. Your Rogue and other martials will love you if you can find a way to reliably paralyze people.
I do find that I am often drawing the attention of the enemies in melee which is definitely one of my main roles in the group. I didn't think about how fleeting Mirror Image would be especially if multiple baddies are swinging at me.

I think I'll go Hold Person at S3 and Spiritual Weapon at S4.


Thanks, Remover of Obst! That is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for!

[Corran]

First thing I would say is that you absolutely need warcaster. That is first of all so that you can cast spells with S components while S&B'ing. Such as the spell shield. Even if your DM does not pay attention to such details, you still need warcaster so that you can use BB as an OA (lots of damage since the secondary effect is bound to trigger), so that adds some very necessary soft control, that will work even better with one of the tactics I will suggest later. So, take warcaster. Now, having all of warcaster, resilient con and aura of protection, is a bit of an overkill regarding concentration, so the best thing to do would be to retrain resilient con to warcaster (and pay no mind to the resulting odd con score), and another reason for that is that you need warcater asap! (literally, warcaster is the most mandatory thing for a S&B sorcadin; fact that Gastronomie does mention several times in his guide).

Now, your channel divinity is champion's challenge, which essentially restricts enemy movement somewhat. Do you know what concentration spell pairs incredibly well with champion's challenge? Spirit guardians! Speed penalty, 30' unpassable barrier (for those who failed against champions challenge) and AoE damage is a fantastic combination. And spirit guardians tends to draw a lot of aggro as you will see when you try it, so another good point for you as drawing attention is a thing you kinda have to do. Additionally, it can even play well with the BB OA's. Afterall, it is not accident that singleclass crown paladins get access to this spell. A very very good spell, that combines very well with your CD, is one of the selling points of this oath. And since you are a divine soul, you can even take it as one of your sorcerer spells, if you really want to avoid going up to paladin 9. So you pick spirit guardians as soon as you can, and from then on, champion's challenge + spirit guardians will be your main strategy when up against mobs.
ps: Spirit guardians is a decen candidate for upcasting it too.

So, since with champion's challenge + spirit guardians, you have your main anti-mob tactics down, the next step is to find a backup tactic against a mob (for when champion's challenge will be on cooldown, or alternatively for when you are up against enemies with very good wis saves, or when you used champion's challenge but all or most of the enemies rolled very very well). Here you are presented with several choices. For example:
1) You can still rely on spirit guardians for friendly AoE damage and for some additional soft control through movement speed reduction and by drawing aggro (on top of BB, which you can use both with your action and as an OA provided you take the mandatory warcaster, essentially letting you lock in a soft way 2 enemies you move adjacent to; one of them you hit with BB during your round, the other one you threaten with a BB OA if he decides to move away). But now you are lacking the hard-ish control that you have with champion's challenge. If that is a problem, then your backup tactic for when champion's challenge is on cooldown should focus on controlling the battlefield, which is described below.
or 2) Pick the careful spell metamagic (obviously quicken is a given) and the web spell and later on hypnotic pattern and reverse gravity (maybe stinking cloud too if you find room in your spell list, though with divine soul in play I assume you wont). Alternatively, if an ally can control the battlefield sufficiently when your champion's challenge is on cooldown (and that means that the majority of the enemies will focus on you even if both champion's challenge and spirit guardians are not being used by you, then you clearly need to boost your tanking capabilities, as described below.
or 3) You already have shield of faith as a paladin spell, but if an ally can control the battlefield so most of the enemy attacks come at you, then you need to step up your game. Besides, all those first slots can be used just fine with shield, absorb elemens, healing word, smites, etc. So in that case, you pick blur and you don't look back. A fantastic spell, even during the mid levels, which simply does not get enough credit because eventually it always ends up being retrained. Don't let that discourage you, pick it up with and don't even look back and you will see for yourself how truly good this spell is (it works extremelly well on top of an exceptional AC of 21, and it even helps you economize spell slots by minimizing the need to cast the shield spell, which also opens your reaction open for a lot more BB OA's. This is a truly amzing spell for a mid level sorcadin, assuming of course, as I said above, that an ally can control the battlefield well enough for when you don't use champion's challenge and spirit guardians.
or 4) And if you want to support (always talking about a fight against a mob), you've got bless. You could take the twinned metamagic and spells like hate and polymorph, but personally I think it is a stretch, due to how limited your sorcery points are at this point (plus your slots are barely enough for casting the necessary concentration spells along with healing word and smiting, so turning spells into sp might be a bad idea). In short, I think twinned is a bit out of your budget, and since you have bless which is a very very good support spell anyway, you could do without twinned and spells like hatse, at least until you hit sorcerer 10. Besides, using buff spells truly shines when up against big bads (who usually are too strong to be debuffed and control spells are also wasted on them as they fare better when against numbers). So yeah, save bless and buffing in general for later levels and when up against big bads. Cause until right now, I we'vebeen only discussing about tactics against mobs. One last thing...

5) So, with that, your tactics against mobs are pretty much set. The only thing I should add, is that you should pick a direct non-concentration AoE spell when you hit sorcerer 5 (sth like fireball or lightning bolt; later on chain lghtning as well). And that takes care of blasting too. So we are all set up against mobs.



Now, what's left to do? To set up tactics for when fighting against a BBEG. Single target debuffing and buffing are the two realistic options. Let me expand:

1) If the BBEG does not have legendary resistances and can be frightened, then you use wrathful smite (the 1st level paladin spell). It is not as an encounter-ending spell as polymporph (the offensive use)or the hold spells, but it's much much much much better value for money.

2) If the enemy does not have legendary resistances but cannot be frightened (or alternatively it has a very good saving throw; unlikely though, few such enemies), one thing you could do is to forgo casting a concentration spell, and open up with spiritual weapon and smite enhanced attacks from the first round, so your goal is to inflict hp damage and take it down hard and fast. Alternatively, you could use a bless or even a blur, though in both cases I would quicken just so that I don't miss attacking, since attacking and smiting is always in the menu when up against a BBEG. Hold person/monster is a good solution as well, but only under the premise that the BBEG does NOT have legendary resistances and also that he is immune to being frightened (and in the case of hold person that he is a humanoid).

3) If the BBEG has legendary resistances, then you use your concentration with buffing. And the best buffing spells in most such cases will be bless. For one simple reason. BBEG's of that sort, more often than not they have a special attack that inflicts lots of damage. And this is very dangerous for losing concentration. So your buffing spell must be one that is not very expensive and preferably one that also buffs saving throws to reduce the incoming damage (cause such special attacks usually target saves; classic example a dragon's breath). So quicken a bless and enter combat with smite enhanced attacks from the first round.


So now your basic tactics are covered (ie tactics against a mob when CD is on, tactics against a mob when CD is o n cooldown, and tactics against different types of BBEG's). After that, you can fill up your spell list with the necessary important spells (with emphasis on non-concentration cleric buffs and at least one more healing spell aside from healing word, like mass cure wounds, or a spell like counterspell especially if no one else has it, as BBEG can be casters sometimes, etc).

ps: (some additional suggestions) Don't know what a mystic or a bloodhunter can do, so my suggestions ignore any potential synergy your sorcadin might have with these two allies of yours. On the other hand, if the monk/ranger and the swashbuckler are playing like skirmishers (which they really should be doing), then another reason as to why spirit guardians is one of the best spells to use when up against mobs, as reducing the ememies' speed plays well with their skirmishing tacics. Something similar cold be said about blur, but in tis case you also need an outside incentive (aside from BB OA's) for the enemies to focus on you and not go chase after your skirmishers (that could be a lenient DM or an ally that can control reliably the field). Hold monster is a good pick at later levels, but hold person is mostly a gimmick (I said before that wrathful smite is the better spell), which means that it is more impressive than beneficial, and that becomes clear once one analyzes the resource spending - reward ratio. Anyway though, if you end up using any of the hold spells, keep in mind that you almost always want to quicken them (and in the case of hold person you also have to upcast it by at least one level, and that is extremelly important; you don't want to spend spell slots and most importantly sp without the spell sticking to anyone, so you upcast it to include more targets, to drastically improve you the chances of the spell landing on at least one enemy). If you end up taking extend spell as your second metamagic, then I would advice taking your paladin levels up to 9, after you take 3rd levels spells in sorcerer that is. The reason is that extend aura of vitality is one of the best, if not the best way to heal yourself and the group in between encounters, when there is no time or enough HD left for a short rest. 9th paladin level also gives you access to some of the best paladin spells, some of which will lessen the need to invest on them through the divine soul sorcerer's limited selection (such as revivify and perhaps even dispel magic) or they will straightaway allow you to retrain them (like spirit guardians, which you will have picked at sorcerer 5). Magic weapon is a good spell to have prepared if your character does not already possess a magical weapon.
pps: Not very familiar with the divine soul origin, or with the cleric, so there might be a lot of optimization there that I am missing.

[Remover of Obst]

I didn't think about how fleeting Mirror Image would be especially if multiple baddies are swinging at me.


Also remember that many of the big bads may just ignore Mirror Image all together.

"A creature is unaffected by this spell if it can't see, if it relies on Senses other than sight, such as Blindsight, or if it can perceive illusions as false, as with Truesight."