5e Sorcadin optimization when your stats are ridiculously OP?

[Baphomet]

So I just joined up in a campaign, and we had our first meeting to roll stats and talk about our characters and motivations and stuff to give the DM something to build on before the first legit session. I wanted to run the old classic over-the-top angsty super-macho-to-mask-insecurities teenage half-demon tiefling who is rebelling against demon mom and evil overlord dad by being a Paladin. But, the demon stuff still feels good to him, so he's going to be using that with a sort of guilty conscience, represented by multiclassing Sorcerer. I said he'd probably slowly grow up and learn to be cool with himself and start leaning on the demon powers some more, but it's up in the air whether that means "actually start doing good for the right reasons" or "stop the goody-two-shoes BS and just be evil like he secretly wants." The rest of the group seems like a bunch of vaguely sociopathic neutral-leaning murderhobos, which works for me. We wound up running a little long, decided to roll all the stats out there and then finish up the sheets by next time. We did the standard "4d6 drop lowest six times, distribute as you like" approach.

That's where, using the DM's dice and in full view of everyone, I rolled 15 15 16 16 17 17. That's before racial bonus. DM said to keep it.

So, now I have sort of the opposite of the usual problem when building a character. A lot of posts I see about build advice are trying to work around the assumption that you're going to have SOME bad stats. I don't have any. And, even though that makes my job a lot easier, I still want to have a reasonable level of optimization in my build.

So, a few things are set in stone. I'm playing a Tiefling, but haven't picked a subrace and all non-UA variants are available. I'm either starting as a Paladin 3 (with plans to multiclass Sorcerer later) or Paladin 2 / Sorcerer 1; all non-UA Paladin oaths (including Oathbreaker) and Sorcerer bloodlines are fair game. Backgrounds are flexible, but nothing that would imply that he is well-mannered or particularly educated. Feats are allowed, though obviously I wouldn't have any yet. This game is supposed to go into high levels. I find myself sort of overflowing with options here. Anyone have any advice about what would be a particularly good choice, either from an optimization standpoint or from a roleplay one, given that I'm going to be at least passably good at everything?

[Ghost Nappa]

You can hit 20 CHA by level 4.

You can put one of those 15's into DEX and pick up Medium Armor Mastery to maximize the benefit from it.

Something like

16 STR / 15 DEX / 17 CON / 15+1 INT / 17 WIS / 16+2 CHA

Level 4: +2 CHA
Level 8: Medium Armor Mastery (DEX)
Level 12: Resilient (CON)
Level 16: Observant (WIS)?


Final:

16 STR / 16 DEX / 18 CON / 16 INT / 18 WIS / 20 CHA
Makes everything an even number, maximizes Charisma, and while the exact levels for when you pick up feats/ASI's may vary depending on what you level up when, a Paladin 6 / Sorcerer 14 build is the farthest you can go into Paladin without giving up 9th level *slots.*

Note: You can pick STR for Medium Armor Mastery too, and just switch the numbers for STR and DEX at allocation, but that is less efficient with a +3 Modifier only giving you +2 DEX to your AC with Medium Armor. It's an option, but I don't recommend it.

[Lord Vukodlak]

With stats like that I’d actually recommend standard human. When four of your stats are odd numbers +1 to all is actually pretty good.
But seeing as that ship has sailed. For RP reasons Are you going to a strength Paladin or a dex Paladin.
On the strength side.
Zeal would work well as a subrace. +1 strength and 2 to charisma plus some spells that work with sorcadins

Which fits your characters personality better sword and board or two handed?

You have the stats to excel as whatever. So just like you picked your race for RP reasons do the same for shield and sword or two-handed.

Knowing the class make up of the rest of the group could be helpful too.

[Baphomet]

-snip-


Since the variant Tieflings are available, I figured it'd probably make more sense to go with the Dispater, Zariel, or Levistus variants to swap that +1 Int for Str, Dex, or Con. Since we're on the subject, I'm not sure whether I should go for the Winged variant or not; I might wind up going with the Draconic bloodline (re-fluffed as demonic), which would give me wings anyway. I could see Shadow being good too, though. That being said, I don't really see this character being the type to fly around above combat; he's gonna want to get up in peoples' faces. The Charm stuff from Silver Tongued might be cool instead, too.

[Wub]

Wizadin? You can play a dex paladin multiclass. It's weird as hell but the paladin gish gets most of its damage from smite so you're not losing too much power compared to great-weapon pallies. Since your main attribute is now dex, this gives you more noncombat options.
Stealth, sleight of hand, lockpicking, all fun options for the less scrupulous paladin. (And while I'm at it, don't pick Devotion. You won't get to have fun.) You'll also have a +3 int score that opens up a lot of skill options, like alchemy or poison-making.
Then a sneak-attack with a full-power smite and poison layered over it would kill most people, even if you only used a steak knife. The blinding radiance of your holy power wouldn't be very stealthy though.
And if you're willing to sacrifice your 9th level spells, you can dip rogue for skills/expertise and maybe even assassinate.

[Snowbluff]

I'd say start paladin2/Sorcerer1 so you're at least a sorcadin (meaning you have access to Shield, Booming Blade, and a ranged cantrip early on), rush Paladin6 for Cha to saves, then finish with sorcerer.

Half joking, but I'd suggest bard 2 for jack of all trades, so you can use all skills decently well thanks to your good spread.

[Corran]

Go dex-based, S&B, grab warcaster at the first opportunity (ideally before grabbing sorcerer levels; so I would aim for paladin 4 before anything else). Progression wise, I am a fan of paladin 4/sorcerer 1, and after that, and depending on other factors, either paladin 6/sorcerer 1 or paladin 4/sorcerer 3 (though I would have to know which oath I would be going with before being more certain of that decision). Edit: Though if I was looking to get paladin 3rd level spells, and I had some odd scores in some of my good stats, I might consider taking warcaster at paladin 8 and taking my 1st sorc level at either character level 9 or 10.

What stat boosts are you looking at? (besides the int & cha of the phb tiefling)

[MrWesson22]

With those stats, I would start level 1 as sorcerer for con save and go dex paladin. Vengeance or conquest for paladin. Rapier and shield.

[Wildarm]

So, a few things are set in stone. I'm playing a Tiefling, but haven't picked a subrace and all non-UA variants are available. I'm either starting as a Paladin 3 (with plans to multiclass Sorcerer later) or Paladin 2 / Sorcerer 1; all non-UA Paladin oaths (including Oathbreaker) and Sorcerer bloodlines are fair game. Backgrounds are flexible, but nothing that would imply that he is well-mannered or particularly educated. Feats are allowed, though obviously I wouldn't have any yet. This game is supposed to go into high levels. I find myself sort of overflowing with options here. Anyone have any advice about what would be a particularly good choice, either from an optimization standpoint or from a roleplay one, given that I'm going to be at least passably good at everything?

Crazy luck on those rolls. If you're going for Tiefling I would suggest Glasya Dex Conquest Paladin:

Glasya:

Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2, and your Dexterity score increases by 1.

Legacy of Malbolge: You know the Minor Illusion cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the Disguise Self spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the Invisibility spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

That gives you a really nice set of out of combat utility.

For stats I would do:

Str 15
Dex 18(17+1)
Con 16
Wis 16
Int 15
Cha 19(17+2)

Lv4 Actor Feat Max Charisma and give you advantage on Deception/Performance - great with your subrace abilities
Lv8 Infernal Constitution - You now resist the 3 most common damage types in the game - Fire/Cold/Poison
Lv12 Resiliant(CON) - Shore up those concentration checks and CON saves

Go either Conquest Oath(if you want to be mean) or Ancients Oath(if you want to protect others). I'd recommend Paladin Lv7 before multi-classing into sorcerer.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Since the variant Tieflings are available, I figured it'd probably make more sense to go with the Dispater, Zariel, or Levistus variants to swap that +1 Int for Str, Dex, or Con. Since we're on the subject, I'm not sure whether I should go for the Winged variant or not; I might wind up going with the Draconic bloodline (re-fluffed as demonic), which would give me wings anyway. I could see Shadow being good too, though. That being said, I don't really see this character being the type to fly around above combat; he's gonna want to get up in peoples' faces. The Charm stuff from Silver Tongued might be cool instead, too.

Zariel would certainly fit the get into people's faces.
Flight doesn't have to be used to avoid the enemy and attack from out of reach, it can be used to get around obstacles so the enemy can't escape. Aarakocra monks get into people's faces like any other.

Divine Soul might work better then draconic, no one says the divine soul has to be good now does it.

[CTurbo]

Interesting.....


I think a Winged Tiefling Oath of Conquest/Red Draconic Sorcerer would be a lot of fun.

Prioritize Dex over Str, go unarmored, but use a shield. Your AC would be 13+2+Dex. Starting stats would be-

15 Str, 17 Dex, 16 Con, 16 Int, 16 Wis, 19 Cha and bump Dex and Cha at level 4.

I would probably use a whip primarily. Grab Spell Sniper at some point for 10ft Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade.

You could fly around and use fear to control enemies. You'd want at least 7 Paladin levels if not 11. Go Paladin 11 if you want to be more melee oriented. Stop at Paladin 7 if you want to be more spell focused.

Potential great feats for you-

Menacing for more fear effects. Extra awesome for a Whip user.
Inspiring Leader would be great mechanically and almost ironic for your concept
Mobile increases your fly speed 33%
Warcaster if you think you'll be relying on concentration spells
Res(Con) if you like the Menacing feat and still want to boost concentration. Menacing would max Cha so instead of +1 Dex and Cha at level 4, you'd go +1 Dex and Con making your Con score odd which Res would then bump to 18.
Elemental Adept if you REALLY want to push Fire damage.


You would basically be a terrifying flying dragon devil that rules by fear. Sounds awesome to me.

[CTurbo]

If you want a more traditional in your face Str Sorcadin, I'd probably go Hellfire Tiefling Vengeance Paladin/Phoenix Sorcerer. Oathbreaker could work here too

Wear Plate + Shield and start 17 Str, 16 Dex, 16 Con, 16 Int, 15 Wis, 19 Cha

For this I would stop at Paladin 6 and go Sorc 14 for sure.

Fun feats would be-

Flames of Phlegethos - Maxes Cha, ups your Fire damage, and combines with the Phoenix Sorcerer trait so you would actually deal 1d4+5 Fire damage anytime you are hit with a melee attack.
Warcaster - You'll be in the thick of melee so if you're gonna use concentration spells, you'll need it
Elemental Adept - You're even more fire based than ever
Sentinel - control and more DPR

[Spiritchaser]

I’d go Dex sorcadin with shadow blade. If you weren’t a tiefling I’d say go half Elven for Elven accuracy, since even without extended critical range you’d crit LOTS with this, and shadow blade crits hard.... but you don’t need it, and tieflings are hilarious for RP.

Go light armor, take stealth and subtle spell.

If you want happy go lucky go ancients, though I think vengeance works well mechanically here... your oath of enmity can fill in the spaces where you need advantage but actually are not in the shadows...

[Baphomet]

snip-
Which fits your characters personality better sword and board or two handed?

Knowing the class make up of the rest of the group could be helpful too.

I'd probably prefer sword and board purely because it likely gives me more opportunities to sass my enemies when they miss. The rest of the team is a goliath barbarian, human ranger, goblin (I think mostly reflavored halfling?) warlock, and, uh, a legit gold dragon. I don't really know how that's going to work. So I suppose secondary consideration there is that I'm going to be the primary healer. Maybe that Bard 2 dip Snowbluff was suggesting might not be a bad idea, since it would at least let me pick up Healing Word. This character strikes me as a drummer.

EDIT: I was slowly making my way through these, but this one I think deserves special note:

Interesting.....


I think a Winged Tiefling Oath of Conquest/Red Draconic Sorcerer would be a lot of fun.

Prioritize Dex over Str, go unarmored, but use a shield. Your AC would be 13+2+Dex. Starting stats would be-

15 Str, 17 Dex, 16 Con, 16 Int, 16 Wis, 19 Cha and bump Dex and Cha at level 4.

I would probably use a whip primarily. Grab Spell Sniper at some point for 10ft Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade.

You could fly around and use fear to control enemies. You'd want at least 7 Paladin levels if not 11. Go Paladin 11 if you want to be more melee oriented. Stop at Paladin 7 if you want to be more spell focused.

Potential great feats for you-

Menacing for more fear effects. Extra awesome for a Whip user.
Inspiring Leader would be great mechanically and almost ironic for your concept
Mobile increases your fly speed 33%
Warcaster if you think you'll be relying on concentration spells
Res(Con) if you like the Menacing feat and still want to boost concentration. Menacing would max Cha so instead of +1 Dex and Cha at level 4, you'd go +1 Dex and Con making your Con score odd which Res would then bump to 18.
Elemental Adept if you REALLY want to push Fire damage.


You would basically be a terrifying flying dragon devil that rules by fear. Sounds awesome to me.

This is a pretty awesome concept. I honestly wish the fear aura didn't freeze them; it denies me the opportunity to menace someone and booming whip smite them when they try to run.

Maybe there's a cool build in there without that, but with Sentinel? I don't really need Resilient (Con), right? Concentration saves at +9 with advantage (war caster and aura) is already pretty good.

[Wub]

Might I tempt you with a bard 3 dip? Lore would get you more skills in addition to the expertise, and you'd get cutting words to magically sass your enemies.

I wouldn't worry too hard about healing between your ranger and being a paladin. I've seen parties get by with much less. Just supplement yourselves with herbalism and potions, while replacing in-combat healing with enthusiasm and hitting things really hard. :smallbiggrin:

I'd recommend collecting some sorcerer levels early, though, based on party comp.

[Citan]

So I just joined up in a campaign, and we had our first meeting to roll stats and talk about our characters and motivations and stuff to give the DM something to build on before the first legit session. I wanted to run the old classic over-the-top angsty super-macho-to-mask-insecurities teenage half-demon tiefling who is rebelling against demon mom and evil overlord dad by being a Paladin. But, the demon stuff still feels good to him, so he's going to be using that with a sort of guilty conscience, represented by multiclassing Sorcerer. I said he'd probably slowly grow up and learn to be cool with himself and start leaning on the demon powers some more, but it's up in the air whether that means "actually start doing good for the right reasons" or "stop the goody-two-shoes BS and just be evil like he secretly wants." The rest of the group seems like a bunch of vaguely sociopathic neutral-leaning murderhobos, which works for me. We wound up running a little long, decided to roll all the stats out there and then finish up the sheets by next time. We did the standard "4d6 drop lowest six times, distribute as you like" approach.

That's where, using the DM's dice and in full view of everyone, I rolled 15 15 16 16 17 17. That's before racial bonus. DM said to keep it.

So, now I have sort of the opposite of the usual problem when building a character. A lot of posts I see about build advice are trying to work around the assumption that you're going to have SOME bad stats. I don't have any. And, even though that makes my job a lot easier, I still want to have a reasonable level of optimization in my build.

So, a few things are set in stone. I'm playing a Tiefling, but haven't picked a subrace and all non-UA variants are available. I'm either starting as a Paladin 3 (with plans to multiclass Sorcerer later) or Paladin 2 / Sorcerer 1; all non-UA Paladin oaths (including Oathbreaker) and Sorcerer bloodlines are fair game. Backgrounds are flexible, but nothing that would imply that he is well-mannered or particularly educated. Feats are allowed, though obviously I wouldn't have any yet. This game is supposed to go into high levels. I find myself sort of overflowing with options here. Anyone have any advice about what would be a particularly good choice, either from an optimization standpoint or from a roleplay one, given that I'm going to be at least passably good at everything?

Hi!
Those are impressive rolls indeed.

Honestly? I'd take the shot at a crazy multiclass, building up on class features instead of high-level spells.
Depending on what kind of optimization you are...

Sheer resilience against everything: this means mixing Sorcerer with Ancients Paladin for Aura of Warding. This is easy enough, great dual-class, with or without a dip into Hexblade Warlock.

Stupidly great martial gish: this one will take time to lift off though.
Sorcerer 3 / Hexblade 1 / Bladesinger 2 / then pick whatever you want among Warlock, Paladin, Fighter or even Barbarian (prebuff with non-concentration).

Or you could be more reasonable and just dip any of the usually no-go casters because of attribute cost (Druid, Wizard, Cleric). Evoker Wizard is "perma Careful" for blast spells, Moon Druid would make you a hell of an ambusher/thief, Grave Cleric would make you nasty with Disintegrate, etc...

Or you could basically build my "ultimate dice build" described as an answer to someone's thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?572016-the-most-dice-buid) which sums up as stacking Whisper Bards's "BI as extra damage", Paladin's Divine Smite, Warlock's Eldricht Smite and whatever weapon buff you want, all being more or less compressed in one turn thanks to Fighter's Action Surge.
Although I'd definitely eat into one class to crank up place for Grave Cleric.
What's better than 30% chance to double ~20 die? A 100% chance to deal double damage. :)
(Ok, I admit this is a fairly stupid build, but provided you get as far as level 10-11 without Cleric you'd start seeing impressive damage ^^)

Or you could take the chance at becoming the wet dream of many players: a Sorcerer with more spells known than a Wizard and more spells prepped than a Cleric himself.
One dip in Bard, Cleric, Wizard and Druid would give you basically 50% of all basic buff/utility/heal/support any group may need. Plus you don't have to take all of them in a row, you can just from time to time get a sudden boost in spells. This would net you 4+5+5+5 spells immediately. And possibly all 1st level spells of Wizard with loot.


----------
TL;DR
You're really auto-optimized.
Either you want to be a full-caster, in which case stop right where you are and stick to Sorcerer from now on.
Or mix and match whatever you want between any CHA-based classes for easy optimization.
Or try more original things. (<----- this would be my recommendation, you don't get those stats any day)

[CTurbo]

I'd probably prefer sword and board purely because it likely gives me more opportunities to sass my enemies when they miss. The rest of the team is a goliath barbarian, human ranger, goblin (I think mostly reflavored halfling?) warlock, and, uh, a legit gold dragon. I don't really know how that's going to work. So I suppose secondary consideration there is that I'm going to be the primary healer. Maybe that Bard 2 dip Snowbluff was suggesting might not be a bad idea, since it would at least let me pick up Healing Word. This character strikes me as a drummer.

EDIT: I was slowly making my way through these, but this one I think deserves special note:


This is a pretty awesome concept. I honestly wish the fear aura didn't freeze them; it denies me the opportunity to menace someone and booming whip smite them when they try to run.

Maybe there's a cool build in there without that, but with Sentinel? I don't really need Resilient (Con), right? Concentration saves at +9 with advantage (war caster and aura) is already pretty good.


Well you could go with the same build except use Oathbreaker or Vengeance instead of Conquest.

No you don't NEED Res(Con), but I would take it OR Warcaster. Warcaster is a better fit for you for sure.



Another idea if you think you're going to need to do some healing-

Divine Soul Sorcerer and Oathbreaker or Vengeance Paladin.

For one thing, you'd never fail a save again. For two, getting to choose ANY Cleric spell while being able to use Cha for it is just ridiculous for a Paladin. Third, having divine healing powers fits your concept idea perfectly. You can still be as blasty as you want to be too.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

So I just joined up in a campaign, and we had our first meeting to roll stats and talk about our characters and motivations and stuff to give the DM something to build on before the first legit session. I wanted to run the old classic over-the-top angsty super-macho-to-mask-insecurities teenage half-demon tiefling who is rebelling against demon mom and evil overlord dad by being a Paladin. But, the demon stuff still feels good to him, so he's going to be using that with a sort of guilty conscience, represented by multiclassing Sorcerer. I said he'd probably slowly grow up and learn to be cool with himself and start leaning on the demon powers some more, but it's up in the air whether that means "actually start doing good for the right reasons" or "stop the goody-two-shoes BS and just be evil like he secretly wants." The rest of the group seems like a bunch of vaguely sociopathic neutral-leaning murderhobos, which works for me. We wound up running a little long, decided to roll all the stats out there and then finish up the sheets by next time. We did the standard "4d6 drop lowest six times, distribute as you like" approach.

That's where, using the DM's dice and in full view of everyone, I rolled 15 15 16 16 17 17. That's before racial bonus. DM said to keep it.

So, now I have sort of the opposite of the usual problem when building a character. A lot of posts I see about build advice are trying to work around the assumption that you're going to have SOME bad stats. I don't have any. And, even though that makes my job a lot easier, I still want to have a reasonable level of optimization in my build.

So, a few things are set in stone. I'm playing a Tiefling, but haven't picked a subrace and all non-UA variants are available. I'm either starting as a Paladin 3 (with plans to multiclass Sorcerer later) or Paladin 2 / Sorcerer 1; all non-UA Paladin oaths (including Oathbreaker) and Sorcerer bloodlines are fair game. Backgrounds are flexible, but nothing that would imply that he is well-mannered or particularly educated. Feats are allowed, though obviously I wouldn't have any yet. This game is supposed to go into high levels. I find myself sort of overflowing with options here. Anyone have any advice about what would be a particularly good choice, either from an optimization standpoint or from a roleplay one, given that I'm going to be at least passably good at everything?

Dude, I like Tieflings for Hellish Rebuke glory. Go with what seems fun though. Maybe a Paladin who got angry and his inner Draconic Sorcerer bloodline sprouted out so to say!

Otherwise we're going to type on here for hours about getting +1's here and there to have a 5% better chance at doing 10% more damage with this or that spell.

[MrWesson22]

Once again, if you are going dex paladin, just start sorcerer for con save proficiency. You will save yourself a feat at the cost of 3 hp and heavy armor proficiency which you won't be using anyway.