PAM Support Fighter

[Brother12]

I'm thinking up a fighter who I want to be a support/tank type of warrior.

Daniel Bjornson is his name. He's a human captain of the guard in a northern city and lived with the dwarven army for a time so he knows how to fight as a team and has learned some of their religion and magic. Daniel uses a halberd and is used to protecting his men. He's more of a mentor and councilor than inspiring or charismatic leader. For that, I'm thinking fighter and not paladin. At first, I had him take PAM, Sentinel, and Magic Initiate Cleric for Guidance and Bless. Then I thought he might be better off taking one level in cleric for better spell versatility.

Starting at either 6th or 7th level, would you suggest MI or a level in cleric for the extra support? If cleric, what domain? Or should I switch direction and go pure paladin?

Any advice is welcome.

[Man_Over_Game]

I'd probably say that PAM isn't the best choice for someone who's planning around being supportive. PAM is mostly oriented around dealing as much damage as humanly possible, and it happens to prevent people from approaching your allies as a side effect.

Sentinel, for example, would be a bit closer of an example of something designed to help your allies. Or Shield Master.

It's difficult to gauge what kind of "support" you're planning on being just based on the description you've provided us, as PAM is more oriented around attacking, but you seem more interesting in helping, and those are pretty much mutually exclusive except in niche cases. When you take PAM, it's because you don't plan on using your Action, Bonus Action, or Reaction for anything other than murdering things, which doesn't leave a lot of room for helping people. (There is one exception, which is the Battlemaster, who can control things AS he attacks.)

There are still a few things that might fit in with what you're looking for, though. An Order Cleric works particularly well as a front-line support. A Vengeance Paladin works well with PAM, but it doesn't need it, and it'll work just fine with a polearm without the Polearm Master feat (relying on Sentinel instead).



So how about we get some information for what suits you best.

On a scale of 1-4, which best suits what you're looking for?

Do you:

Support your team (1) or prioritize on taking down the enemy (4)?
Survive against the toughest of foes (1) or manipulate enemies into bad situations (4)?

[Trickery]

For Support, you could try a Purple Dragon Knight with Inspiring Leader and Sentinel. That's pretty decent as far as supporting the party goes. If you pick Variant Human, you can have Inspiring Leader, Sentinel, and PAM by level 6, which is solid.

But PDK is not very good, and fighters don't make the best support in general.

[Brother12]

I think 3 for the damage department and 1 for being tough rather than controlling.

Overall, I'm thinking front liner who is focused on protecting his allies. Preferably casts Bless, SoF, etc. before combat, but does fightering in a fight. I hope that makes sense.

[Trickery]

I think 3 for the damage department and 1 for being tough rather than controlling.

Overall, I'm thinking front liner who is focused on protecting his allies. Preferably casts Bless, SoF, etc. before combat, but does fightering in a fight. I hope that makes sense.

That sounds more like a Paladin than a fighter. They basically act like fighters but with minor buffs, minor heals, smiting, and some better-scaling features.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think 3 for the damage department and 1 for being tough rather than controlling.

Overall, I'm thinking front liner who is focused on protecting his allies. Preferably casts Bless, SoF, etc. before combat, but does fightering in a fight. I hope that makes sense.

If you want to focus more on your martial prowess than casting magic, I'd instead recommend taking Battlemaster and just picking up the Sentinel/PAM/Tough feats. Otherwise, War or Tempest Cleric seems to fit really well. I'm not a fan of mixing Cleric with Fighter levels, as you end up with a lot of redundant proficiencies and abilities that don't always mesh well.

If you want to be particularly clever, be a Tempest Cleric and pick up Spell Sniper to grab Booming Blade, so you can deal thunder damage with your reach weapon.

From the numbers you gave, Fighter seems more apt than a Cleric (Clerics support/control more and damage/tank less), but you sound very interested in casting spells, so it seems very 50/50. Fighters are tankier and deal more damage than Clerics, and a Battlemaster has plenty of methods to help your team as a captain, but the Cleric offers more versatility and doesn't need to be on the front line to contribute.

Or just be the best of both worlds and be a Paladin like you originally thought. Maybe talk to your DM about using a different modifier than Charisma if you don't want to be charismatic. I've done a lot of work on balancing out alternate attribute modifiers for different classes in order to perfect one of my homebrews, and I can do some research to see if there are any concerns with something like a Wisdom/Intelligence-based Paladin of a particular subclass.

Ancients Paladin, using Wisdom, would be perfect for what you're describing.

[Brother12]

Trickery- I'm hesitant about paladin mostly for RP reasons. Picking up a few spells or learning to inspire comrades with magic isn't represented well by taking an oath to uphold various tenets.

MOG- I'd prefer fighter over cleric for the RP aspect too, however I'm more willing to take a level in cleric.

Is a dip in cleric more beneficial than a 7th or 8th level of fighter? If not, is MI worth taking or should I go straight BM?

[Brother12]

Ancients Paladin with wisdom definitely sounds interesting. I'll look into that.

[Trickery]

Ancients Paladin with wisdom definitely sounds interesting. I'll look into that.

For what you're talking about, it's probably your most straightforward option. I think you'll be happy with the character.

[Man_Over_Game]

Ancients Paladin with wisdom definitely sounds interesting. I'll look into that.

I whipped this up a long while back. The spoiler is for your DM, to provide justification as to why the Option is balanced:


Oath of the Old Ways
You can take the Paladin, using your Wisdom modifier in place of your Charisma modifier for your Paladin features.
Requirement: The only Paladin subclass available to you is the Oath of the Ancients. Additionally, you cannot have more Druid levels than your Paladin levels.
[Example: An orphan, raised by denizens of the forests, grows to be its solitary protector.]
Going through a checklist reveals that nothing is broken by this option:
Clerics already have access to armor and healing of a Paladin. Paladin provides some burst damage potential, but at the cost of a lot of redundant abilities (like inefficient healing via Lay on Hands vs. Healing Word, or redundant armor/weapon proficiencies).
Druids gain some armor, and have decent spellcasting, but their emphasis on Concentration doesn't do well with a primarily melee multiclass. Moon Druids get a minor buff, but that armor won't be usable in this combination. Similar to Clerics, but while the Druid has more close-ranged damage spells than Clerics, they rely on Concentration too much for a Paladin/Druid to rely on them too much. The restriction is put on Druids mostly to avoid overpowered combinations using Circle of the Land Natural Recovery or using Divine Smite as a Moon Druid, and to prevent powerful Concentration Saving Throws for the Shepherd Druid.
Rangers get heavy armor, I guess? Not much else to gain here.
Monks get Divine Smite, but not much else.

In all of these circumstances, a multiclass will generally cause the Paladin to lose Paladin levels and delay those powerful Paladin features, so it all seems fine to me. Especially when the Paladin+Sorcerer Twinned Booming Blade or Paladin+Warlock Smite Spam options are much more explosive than anything a Wisdom Paladin could get.


There's more in the signature, under Prestige Options, if you're interested, as well as some rules to follow for the sake of determining how multiclassing works or what happens when people ignore the restriction (which you can do).

[Brother12]

Thank you both very much, I like this and will talk to my DM about trying it out.