Oathbreaker Optomization

[Melphizard]

So I have made this thread to inquire as to how I properly optimize an Oathbreaker Paladin for a new game I'm about to go into. We are starting level 9 and the campaign shall be a combat-heavy dungeon crawl (with traps thrown in as well). One of my fellow players has also decided to go Necromancer, meaning that with them I have some synergy to work with.
Books Allowed: All WoTC books and Forgotten Realms material for the most part (That means no AI, Ravnica, Eberron, ect).

My current character idea goes as follows:
Race: Grung

Classes:2 Hexblade, 7 Oathbreaker Paladin

Weapon of choice: Rapier or Spear

Concept: By going Hexblade I can stack my charisma to optimize the Oathbreaker's features and increase my aura for the party as well.

This obviously isn't perfect so if you have any suggestions or comments to add to this I'd appreciate it greatly! Thank you.

[DarknessEternal]

Spear is the better choice because of Polearm Master. Use a shield and a spear in one hand. Now you have 3 attacks and a shield.

You want more attacks to add double Charisma to. This is more valuable than even +2 Cha would be.

[Hael]

Afaics there’s three options, and they are all good. Go hexblade the rest of the way. This gets you recharging slots for animate dead and stronger spell options (shadow of moil etc) and mystic arcanum. you won’t get the extra cha to melee until late game.

Go paladin the rest of the way (maybe with 1 more lvl in hexblade if you want two handed weapons). This gets IDS online pretty fast, which is a big boost to melee dpr. Will get the defensive perk of the lvl15 feature and 5th lvl paladin spells eventually

Or go the hybrid build paladin 11, hexblade 9. That’s also a fantastic build, you lose find greater steed or the mystic arcanum, but you get recharging spell slots for your undead army, will hit like a truck in melee (bc of SOM and spirit shroud) and get spells like danse macabre.

[ATHATH]

Or go the hybrid build paladin 11, hexblade 9. That’s also a fantastic build, you lose find greater steed or the mystic arcanum, but you get recharging spell slots for your undead army, will hit like a truck in melee (bc of SOM and spirit shroud) and get spells like danse macabre.
Do they really need the ability to cast Animate Dead with Warlock spell slots, though? They said they have a Necromancer in the party, and I'd assume that they aren't planning to field ludicrous numbers of undead minions.

[Hael]

Do they really need the ability to cast Animate Dead with Warlock spell slots, though? They said they have a Necromancer in the party, and I'd assume that they aren't planning to field ludicrous numbers of undead minions.

Right so as a character concept, you can lean in on the summoning mechanics or alternatively on the melee mechanics. From experience, the oathbreaker with a horde of undead is even more broken than the melee version. Which is saying something, b/c the melee version is amongst the highest dprs possible in the entire game, and is an examplar of a viable critfishing build.

The issue with the summoning of course is that you take an already edgy 'evil' character, and have to walk around with undead, which while great for a dungeon romp, isn't ideal if you have to navigate in civilization.

[stoutstien]

Right so as a character concept, you can lean in on the summoning mechanics or alternatively on the melee mechanics. From experience, the oathbreaker with a horde of undead is even more broken than the melee version. Which is saying something, b/c the melee version is amongst the highest dprs possible in the entire game, and is an examplar of a viable critfishing build.

The issue with the summoning of course is that you take an already edgy 'evil' character, and have to walk around with undead, which while great for a dungeon romp, isn't ideal if you have to navigate in civilization.

How does the OathBreaker interact with critical hits at all? The best thing it gets in turning undead NPCs into temporary allies and adding flat damage to attacks which works with any landed attacks.

[Sception]

Oathbreaker interacts with critical hits because it's still a paladin and divine smite is the strongest feature for buffing crit damage in the game.

[stoutstien]

Oathbreaker interacts with critical hits because it's still a paladin and divine smite is the strongest feature for buffing crit damage in the game.

But none of that is coming from the oath. Also it's close to the third best way to buff critical hit damage in the game. It's just a cheap dip so it has a high return as long as you have fuel for it.

[Hael]

But none of that is coming from the oath. Also it's close to the third best way to buff critical hit damage in the game. It's just a cheap dip so it has a high return as long as you have fuel for it.

I was referring to the Hexadin build and variants being discussed above. That is very much a prototypical crit fisher build. Eg, curse, eldritch smite to prone then attack with advantage with more divine smites. Hexadins have an array of ways to get advantage and they get expanded crit range with curse.

[stoutstien]

I was referring to the Hexadin build and variants being discussed above. That is very much a prototypical crit fisher build. Eg, curse, eldritch smite to prone then attack with advantage with more divine smites. Hexadins have an array of ways to get advantage and they get expanded crit range with curse.

Ah. Mia Copa. I read it in such a ways that the OB was somehow fueling the critfishing.

[Sception]

But none of that is coming from the oath.

It doesn't need to. Bladesinger optimization still takes wizard spells into account. Arcane Trickster optimization still incorporates sneak attack.

Yes, the most distinctive feature of oathbreakers is their aura, which adds damage to every hit, but they're still paladins so they still have divine smite, which can add damage to any hit, and in particular can add a /lot/ of damage to every critical hit. And optimizing for on-hit damage looks a lot like optimization for on-crit damage. There's a lot of overlap there. Paladin is a great choice for crit fishing due to divine smite, and Oathbreaker is a great subclass choice for that build because you'll already be making a lot of very accurate attacks due to polearm master and elven accuracy, and the synergy between hex warrior (which you likely dipped anyway for the expanded crit range from 'hexblade's curse') and oathbreaker's aure is obvious.

It's not the only reasonable option for paladin crit fishers, but it is arguably the best. Likewise, if you're looking to optimize an oathbreaker's flat damage bonus then you want lots of accurate attacks, so you take polearm master for bonus action attacks and elven accuracy to help your attacks land, plus you want to stack your cha bonus to damage so you dip hexblade for hex warrior and hexblade's curse comes along for the ride, and, whoops, now you've got all the components of a crit fishing build and you weren't even aiming for that.

[Valorant]

Most broken build for oathbreaker is Death Knight build:

Using variant human grab PAM, then 2x +2 to Cha. Start as Hexblade 1 then go 12 levels Oathbreaker and finish with Hexblade. Take Blind Fighting Style to combo with your Darkness spell from Oathbreaker for advantage. At level 12 you will have 3 attacks dealing +10 +1d8 each and potentially 4th attack from PAM reaction. On bosses add Curse damage and if party gives you advantage add hex on top. On level 12 you can take many great feats like lucky, sentinel etc. Curse + advantage can lead to nice double crit smites.

The other build variant for death Knight is Oathbreaker 9/11 hexblade for more minion master build where you get animated dead and then push hexblade for short rest slots to make easier undeads. But I like first one more as it's more likely to get to 13 level and IDS + aura of hate + PAM is killer combo.

Anyway you want to rise either zombies for meat shields or Skeletons for slightly better hit bonus. Anyway you want to equip each of your 4 undeads with two light weapons so they can attack and bonus action attack using your aura +5 to damage. That's 2d6 + 13 per skeleton. They can die easy but they can also be made easy.

Apart from that you are super strong melee juggernaut and if your party members can summon some undeads or fiends... Boy.

[Hael]

It’s worth pointing out that bladelocks are great minionmancers bc they can summon magic weapons for the undead and hand them out.

[DarknessEternal]

It’s worth pointing out that bladelocks are great minionmancers bc they can summon magic weapons for the undead and hand them out.

How specifically.

[Hael]

How specifically.

Hex warrior gives you access to the ability to use two weapons if i'm not mistaken. So you can hand one to the CD minion, and keep the other for your features. Improved pact weapon invocation then makes them both magical.

The minion has to stay in range

[DarknessEternal]

Hex warrior gives you access to the ability to use two weapons if i'm not mistaken.

You are mistaken.

[Hael]

You are mistaken.

I reread the rules and you are correct RAW, but its a strange and problematic ruling actually. It means the Hexblade can't dual wield (or rather the second weapon gets the +cha but not the benefits of the pact weapon), which is likely unintentional. RAW you could still make the argument that if there is a magic weapon bonded during the ritual, that the initial pact weapon remains.

[Valmark]

You are mistaken.


I reread the rules and you are correct RAW, but its a strange and problematic ruling actually. It means the Hexblade can't dual wield (or rather the second weapon gets the +cha but not the benefits of the pact weapon), which is likely unintentional. RAW you could still make the argument that if there is a magic weapon bonded during the ritual, that the initial pact weapon remains.

Not exactly mistaken. Hex Warrior's benefit 'extends to all pact weapons conjured with that feature', which can be red as pact weapons automatically gaining that benefit while you can still bond to another weapon.

The use of extend honestly makes me think more like you can have two different Cha weapons, but that's subjective.

[Valorant]

Most broken build for oathbreaker is Death Knight build:

Using variant human grab PAM, then 2x +2 to Cha. Start as Hexblade 1 then go 12 levels Oathbreaker and finish with Hexblade. Take Blind Fighting Style to combo with your Darkness spell from Oathbreaker for advantage. At level 12 you will have 3 attacks dealing +10 +1d8 each and potentially 4th attack from PAM reaction. On bosses add Curse damage and if party gives you advantage add hex on top. On level 12 you can take many great feats like lucky, sentinel etc. Curse + advantage can lead to nice double crit smites.

The other build variant for death Knight is Oathbreaker 9/11 hexblade for more minion master build where you get animated dead and then push hexblade for short rest slots to make easier undeads. But I like first one more as it's more likely to get to 13 level and IDS + aura of hate + PAM is killer combo.

Anyway you want to rise either zombies for meat shields or Skeletons for slightly better hit bonus. Anyway you want to equip each of your 4 undeads with two light weapons so they can attack and bonus action attack using your aura +5 to damage. That's 2d6 + 13 per skeleton. They can die easy but they can also be made easy.

Apart from that you are super strong melee juggernaut and if your party members can summon some undeads or fiends... Boy.

Btw to add to my post: also once you have 4 skeletons with dual shortswords, cast crusader's mantle. It will give you and all your minions 1d4 DMG to each attack which synergizes everything: your PAM multiattack and skeletons multiattack. Use find steed and find greater steed to summon anything with multiattack as Fiend (this way they benefit from your aura). For Steed I recommend brown bear which usually gets green light from DMs since spell allows for other animas with approval and example Paladin from WOTC has brown bear as steed. For greater steed if you get there Griffon as Fiend.

Anyway at level 10 (1 hexblade/9 oathbreaker) assuming you have your 4 skeletons with dual shortswords ready and your fiend brown bear you will cast crusader's mantle and keep your minions in your aura. The damage is:

You 2x (1d6+1d4+10) + 2d4+10
Your skeletons are 4x (1d6+1d4+7) + 4x (1d6+1d4+5)
Fiend brown bear 1d8+1d4+9 and 2d6+1d4+9.

Total in one turn average DMG (not DPR since I didn't count accuracy): 47+96+34,5=177,5 dmg.

Skeletons are easy to kill so may replace them with zombies. You can also conc on bless to boost their acc or aura of vitality to heal them.

Anyway that's level 10 Death Knight build. For more minionmancy get more warlock levels to spam animate dead from short rest slots