Toll the dead optimization ponderings

[Spacehamster]

So paladins can get the cantrip as CHA cantrip through fighting style, 1 level warlock hexblade gives CHA to weapon hit and damage, 1 level death cleric gives you basically twinned toll the dead, build would most likely for smoothness be Paladin right to 5 then the two dips. Then just Paladin for the rest of the career, makes you SAD with the exception of needing 13 WIS. With half elf and point buy would start with 16/8/12/8/14/17 after racial bonuses and wear heavy armor and shield. Probably Oathbreaker as Paladin subclass to fully go into the dark gloomy edgy knight feel and get even more use of going full CHA.

So now you are a doomy and gloomy edge lord that have a strong ranged option and strong in melee as well with double CHA to damage, good saves, access to shield spell.

Thoughts?

[RogueJK]

Honestly, I wouldn't bother with the Death Cleric dip just for Twinned Toll the Dead.

First, the necessary bump to WIS is hurting your Constitution. As a Paladin, you're going to be in melee so will want higher HP, and you're going to want to keep Concentration on spells too. Both rely on Constitution. 12 CON is pretty low for those purposes.

Second, it's delaying your sweet, sweet Paladin abilities, which are already delayed due to the Hexblade dip. You really do want to get to Paladin 6's Aura ASAP.

Third, you already have access to a great CHA-based ranged cantrip option through Eldritch Blast thanks to your Hexblade dip. And at level 5, this is now "twinnable" since you can split your two blasts between two enemies, although focusing fire to down one enemy at a time is generally the better option. (And unlike Death Cleric's Reaper, these two enemies don't have be adjacent to one another.)


Put it together, and it's not worth the extra dip and 12 CON just to potentially do an extra few points of TtD damage on the rare occasions that you're engaged in ranged combat vs. the more common melee.

And unless you're starting at Level 6+, I wouldn't wait until after Paladin 5 to dip into Hexblade. It's best taken early on, either right at Level 1 if you don't need Heavy Armor, or at Level 2 or 3 if you do want Heavy Armor. This gets your CHA-based attacks online ASAP, and allows you to focus on just CHA instead of investing in STR. (This also gets your ranged EB cantrip online at Level 1/2/3 as well.) Then after Paladin 6/7/8/9, you might consider a 2nd level into Hexblade for another short rest slot and a couple Invocations.

Therefore, I'd recommend something more like:
Half Elf
STR 14+1
DEX 8
CON 15+1
INT 8
WIS 10
CHA 15+2
Going Paladin 1 -> Hexblade 1 -> Oathbreaker Paladin 6/7/8/9 -> Hexblade 2, and then deciding from there if you want more Paladin levels or more Warlock levels.
ASIs would be a +1 CHA half-feat like Fey Touched at Paladin 4, then Warcaster at Paladin 8, followed by +2 CHA next.

You can still do Blessed Warrior fighting style if you want some additional cantrips, grabbing stuff like Guidance and Toll the Dead (for use as an alternative to EB against high AC but low WIS ranged enemies). Hexblade cantrips would be Eldritch Blast and then Booming Blade, to combo with Warcaster to punish enemies from moving away from you and also to use as your temporary primary attack at Paladin 4/Hexblade 1 until your Extra Attack comes online at the next level. You should even consider going with the Variant High Half Elf to grab racial Booming Blade and free up a Warlock cantrip slot for a utility cantrip like Mage Hand or Minor Illusion.

For level progression, your Oathbreaker 7 Aura of Hate boosts Undead, which actually combos quite nicely with the Warlock 3rd level spell Summon Undead. It's a better combat option than Animate Dead, since your Aura only extends out 10 feet, so even if your DM is the type to allow you to roll around with a crowd of undead minions all the time, you can't buff them all at once, and you'd have to be spending all your higher level Paladin slots on maintaining your horde rather than Smiting. Your Oathbreaker 7 aura also works with Hexblade 6's Accursed Spectre, since that's Undead too. And the Warlock 5 Invocation Undying Servitude gets you two additional "free" Undead minions to benefit from your Aura boost. That gets you 4 undead minions (Summon Undead, Accused Specter, and 2x zombies/skeletons), two of which are much stronger than the usual Animate Dead skeletons/zombies, and all 4 of which will fit within 10' of you while attacking. Therefore, I'd recommend shooting for Oathbreaker Paladin 7/Hexblade 6.

[Spacehamster]

Honestly, I wouldn't bother with the Death Cleric dip just for Twinned Toll the Dead.

First, the necessary bump to WIS is hurting your Constitution. As a Paladin, you're going to be in melee so will want higher HP, and you're going to want to keep Concentration on spells too. Both rely on Constitution. 12 CON is pretty low for those purposes.

Second, it's delaying your sweet, sweet Paladin abilities, which are already delayed due to the Hexblade dip. You really do want to get to Paladin 6's Aura ASAP.

Third, you already have access to a great CHA-based ranged cantrip option through Eldritch Blast thanks to your Hexblade dip. And at level 5, this is now "twinnable" since you can split your two blasts between two enemies, although focusing fire to down one enemy at a time is generally the better option.


Put it together, and it's not worth the extra dip and 12 CON just to potentially do an extra few points of TtD damage on the rare occasions that you're engaged in ranged combat vs. the more common melee.

And unless you're starting at Level 6+, I wouldn't wait until after Paladin 5 to dip into Hexblade. It's best taken early on, either right at Level 1 if you don't need Heavy Armor, or at Level 2 or 3 if you do want Heavy Armor. This gets your CHA-based attacks online ASAP, and allows you to focus on just CHA instead of investing in STR. (This also gets your ranged EB cantrip online at Level 1/2/3 as well.) Then after Paladin 6/7/8/9, you might consider a 2nd level into Hexblade for another short rest slot and a couple Invocations.

Therefore, I'd recommend something more like:
Half Elf
STR 14+1
DEX 8
CON 15+1
INT 8
WIS 10
CHA 15+2
Going Paladin 1 -> Hexblade 1 -> Oathbreaker Paladin 6/7/8/9 -> Hexblade 2, and then deciding from there if you want more Paladin levels or more Warlock levels.
ASIs would be a +1 CHA half-feat like Fey Touched at Paladin 4, then Warcaster at Paladin 8, followed by +2 CHA next.

You can still do Blessed Warrior fighting style if you want some additional cantrips, grabbing stuff like Guidance and Toll the Dead (for use as an alternative to EB against high AC but low WIS ranged enemies). Hexblade cantrips would be Eldritch Blast and then Booming Blade, to combo with Warcaster to punish enemies from moving away from you and also to use as your temporary primary attack at Paladin 4/Hexblade 1 until your Extra Attack comes online at the next level. You should even consider going with the Variant High Half Elf to grab racial Booming Blade and free up a Warlock cantrip slot for a utility cantrip like Mage Hand or Minor Illusion.

Would not say that CON 12 is bad when you will rarely get hit due to heavy armor and shield equipped tho so not a big price to pay for insane ranged damage no?

[RogueJK]

Would not say that CON 12 is bad when you will rarely get hit due to heavy armor and shield equipped tho so not a big price to pay for insane ranged damage no?


AC becomes less meaningful starting in Tier 2 and especially into Tiers 3/4. A 20ish AC from Heavy Armor and a shield isn't that impressive when enemies start having +10/+12/+15/etc. to hit.

Bottom line: As a melee Paladin, you're going to get hit. A lot. And you're going to be in melee much more often than you will be sitting back plinking away with ranged cantrips.


Besides, an additional 6.5/13/18.5 damage from a Twinned Toll the Dead is far from "insane ranged damage".

[Spacehamster]

AC becomes less meaningful starting in Tier 2 and especially into Tiers 3/4. A 20ish AC from Heavy Armor and a shield isn't that impressive when enemies start having +10/+12/+15/etc. to hit.

Bottom line: As a melee Paladin, you're going to get hit. A lot. And you're going to be in melee much more often than you will be sitting back plinking away with ranged cantrips.


Besides, an additional 6.5/13/18.5 damage from a Twinned Toll the Dead is far from "insane ranged damage".

Should not AC be more like 22-24 at tier 3 play tho, like should at the very least have got a +1 shield, full plate and perhaps a cloak or ring of protection at that late stage of play. :) and with shield spell from hexblade it becomes 27-29 as a reaction. Not that it really matters, were just brainstorming to get a good use for toll the dead. :)

[Guy Lombard-O]

AC becomes less meaningful starting in Tier 2 and especially into Tiers 3/4. A 20ish AC from Heavy Armor and a shield isn't that impressive when enemies start having +10/+12/+15/etc. to hit.

Agreed. Plus, AoE attacks and other saving throw effects will often do half damage even if you make the save. So high Con is very important (12 is quite minimal Con score on any melee PC).

[Nefariis]

If you are trying to optimize for Toll the Dead, then why have any levels in Paladin? I don't see what that adds.

Just doing Death Cleric 1 / Hexbade 1

Gets you Hex and Hexblade's curse which gives you potentially 2d12 + 1d6 + 2 (Prof)

I know quite a few DM's allow players to switch out the Death Cleric's 8th level ability "Divine Strike" for the other Cleric 8th level "Potent Spellcasting" which adds wisdom modifier to cantrips

So at level 8 that becomes 4d12 + 1d6 + 3(Prof) + 8(WIS)

As a side note, LudicSavant had this great writeup about how the Death Cleric's 2nd level ability is better than Paladin's smite at every level -

https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25377905&postcount=45

Which absolutely blew me away (and incidentally caused me to roll up a few death clerics).

So personally, I would skip the Paladin levels.

Edit: Actually, isn't there also a wizard or a sorcerer that adds INT or CHA to cantrips?

[That-OneGuy]

If your just trying to optimize for Toll, Grave cleric / sorc for Quicken metamagic, or taking metamagic adept for a couple extra uses seems more optimal.

[RogueJK]

Edit: Actually, isn't there also a wizard or a sorcerer that adds INT or CHA to cantrips?

Evocation Wizard, but that's only to Evocation cantrips, so wouldn't apply here.

But Evokers do get Potent Cantrip, which would allow Toll the Dead to do half damage on a successful save.

[Nefariis]

If your just trying to optimize for Toll, Grave cleric / sorc for Quicken metamagic, or taking metamagic adept for a couple extra uses seems more optimal.

At the cost of a Channel Divinity and 2 Sorc points which is a pretty high cost to double cantrip damage - at least Death Cleric can twin it maybe somewhat regularly for free.

But also lol - if I were a wizard, rogue, or smiting paladin and I saw the cleric curse and quicken a Toll the dead for a possibility of ~24 damage, I would be pissed.

[stoutstien]

Really need at least 6 lvs in death cleric if you want to solely optimize toll the dead. Resistance is fairly common for necrotic damage. After that I'd say alchemist 5 with the artificer initiate feat or evoker 6 to add some extra. Both make you MaD. thought the alchemist is pretty flavorful and adds to your healing as well.

[MrStabby]

Its worth pointing out that if you take toll the dead with a first level of death cleric you can use whatever casting stat you want (well out of wisdom, Intelligence or Charisma) as this is one of the rare 'give you a spell' abilities that doesn't make it a cleric spell for you or change its casting stat.

I played a death cleric 1, favoured soul sorcer X once that was pretty decent - armour and shields from the cleric, Toll the Dead from the Warlock list and then metamagic to play with on top. That level of cleric realy helped with the tight spells known restriction on the sorcerer and the armour/shield meant I didn't need the usual shield/mage armour type spells either (though later I did pick up shield anyway)