November 1, 2023 • 22 mins
Barbarians are creatures of adrenaline and wrath, berserkers whose blind rage and strength allow them to power through mortal wounds and cleave through the impenetrable. Paladins are living paragons of divine grace, conduits of godly power and deliverers of divine punishment. Put them together and we get a rage knight, dealing divine wrath in a zealot's fervor, if perhaps a pit less cognizant of who actually deserves it. Grab your holy book and your axe and get ready to strike down the unbelievers as we go through everything you need to know about 5e Dungeons & Dragons barbarian paladin multiclassing. Support our Content: Monthly Dice Subscription: https://www.skullsplitterdice.com/products/rpg-dice-subscription Amazing dice every month, no repeats. Andrar's Vault is Open - Over 100 Unique Magic Items: https://www.skullsplitterdice.com/products/andrars-vault Check out the blog post here: https://www.skullsplitterdice.com/blogs/dnd/barbarian-paladin-multiclass-guide-for-5e
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Barbarians are creatures of adrenaline, whoseblind rage and strength allow them to power
through mortal wounds and cleave through anyopponent. Paladins are living paragons of divine
grace, conduits of godly power,and deliverers of divine punishment. You put
them together and we get a rageknight dealing divine wrath in a Zelotz fervor,
if perhaps a bit less cognizant ofwho actually deserves it. So they're
(00:22):
kind of like actual historical nights inthat sense. I guess if you're wanting
to play a character that's as equallyguided by the battle acts as much as
Creed, stick around for today's video. Geez, I'm about to teach everyone
how to make a Knight's templar ifthey were even stupider. Barbarians are the
(00:46):
best damaged sponge class and are alsodecent damage dealers. Paladins are the original
nova damage class, capable of pouringout insane amounts of damage. Put this
cool combination together and we have afantastic damage dealer that also soaks up damage
like there's no tomail. You'll beable to deal no damage using smites,
consistent damage using rage and will justgenerally be a nightmare to bring down as
(01:06):
you shrug off everything that comes yourway. Unfortunately, it's not hard to
see the downsides here. This classcombination with Barbarian and Paladin will feel fantastic
at early levels, but sadly,the primary damage scaling of both classes is
essentially dependent on their respective class levels. You can't get more smiting without more
spell slots, and you can't getmore rage damage without more Barbarian class levels.
We also can't rage in heavy Armour, meaning we'll be sacrificing one of
(01:30):
the Paladin's greatest defenses. This meansthat we're stuck either just taking a single
level dip and being happy with whatwe get off a single level or two,
or for a more even split,will be very behind compared to a
single class character. This isn't adeal breaker, but just be prepared for
the underscaled features. Both classes alsounfortunately have some early dead levels, and
it doubly hurts to go through deadlevels twice. It's also worth noting that
(01:53):
Paladins are great for multi classing,but this class combination isn't making the best
use of it. Paladin Cleric multiclass is strong. Just dip into Cleric
and it provides a ton of extraspell slots for smiting. With even just
a few Cleric levels, you couldsmite with a Monk's weapons flurry of blows
for maximum martial arts chances to landthe Divine smite, or for a combination
with Barbarian, you could rock anincredibly high damage fighter Barbarian build with Action
(02:16):
Surge to boot, and of coursethere's always Warlock for some evil magic.
Make sure this is the combo youreally want to go for, and maybe
look elsewhere if you're trying to minmax. Finally, as with any multi
class character, we're going to bereaching our mid game features slower than with
single class builds, and never reachingour highest level features like twentieth level capstones
(02:37):
at all. For the record,I know that most of you guys will
not get to a level twenty characterin your campaign, and that even fewer
dms are interested in running such athing, but I do feel it necessary
to mention that those capstone abilities aren'tgoing to happen now. With all those
disclaimers aside, when does this multiclass actually start to kick in? The
answer is, with two levels ineach class, we want both rage and
reckless attacks from the Barbarian, andwe want both the fighting style the divine
(03:00):
smite from Paladin. We have somemore fun things to combine with both of
their respective third level archetype features,but the core concept works with two levels
in each class and kicks in atour fourth character level. Now it's time
to get into what class features wereally care about. We've got two martial
classes, and while we want tofocus on a few of these features,
most of their special abilities will factorinto our build in one way or another.
(03:22):
We'll most likely be treating Paladin asour core class and only dipping a
few levels into Barbarian. Starting withour significant Barbarian features, we have hit
points. The Barbarians still reigns supremeas the only official class with a D
twelve hit die. The upgrade toD twelve from a D ten isn't huge,
but it's still good to note thatevery level of Barbarian should make us
a bit metior than if we werejust pure Paladin. And then next,
(03:45):
of course, we have rage,which is the core feature we all know
and love about Barbarians. We canenter rage as a bonus action, and
while in rage, we get advantageon strength checks and saving throws. We
also get extra damage on all strengthbased attacks, and most importantly, we
gain resist stance to all the physicaldamage types. That damage reduction is scientifically
speaking, nuts and is worth givingup on other features to keep up,
(04:08):
and should be our first bonus actionin every combat. Our rageability lasts for
a minute or if we don't attackstuff for around We can rage two times
per day and get an additional rageeach of our third barbarian levels, with
extra rage damage at later barbarian levels, and then we have unarmoured defense.
This gives us an alternate AC equalto ten plus our constitution modifier plus our
(04:28):
dexterity modifier. Sadly, we can'twear armor well raging, making us use
this instead of our other defensive options. We'll need to put some points into
dexterity to keep our AC reasonable usingthis and about on par with medium armor,
and then we have danger sense advantageon dexterity. Saving throws is a
nice extra way to make sure we'retough against attacks even if they're not going
against our AC. Next, wehave the very fun and very roleplay friendly
(04:53):
reckless attack, which allows us togain advantage on all of our attacks in
exchange for granting advantage on attacks againstus for a turn. With this,
we can choose when we want toprioritize tanking or damage, and it feels
amazing to gain advantage on our divinesmites. We'll touch more on primal paths
here in just a second, butin most builds we'll care about our Barbarian
archetype, especially the features gained atthird level. Our builds don't quite utilize
(05:15):
it, but if you want moreof a general build, rather than going
for one of our gimmicks, I'drecommend taking path of the Totem Warrior and
the Bear. Totem Bear gives usresistance to all damage while raging except for
psychic damage, and psychic damage doesn'tcome along really that often. It's not
exciting, but it's a powerful defenseoption. And then we have extra attack
just like the Palade and Barbarians area martial class and they're stuck making a
(05:39):
single attack until level five, whenwe gloriously gain a second. Note that
these features don't stack, and ifwe take five levels in each class,
the superfluous extra attack feature is wasted, and then there's fast movement normally Barbarians
get ten feet worth of extra movementat fifth level, but sadly it has
the caveat that we can't be wearingheavy armor, so we likely won't be
making use of it. Now,moving on to the significant paladin features,
(06:01):
we have heavy armour, which sadlywe can't wear armour while raging, which
means we have to give up onthe most iconic of paladin abilities for the
build, or come up with reasonswhy we are wearing heavy armor except for
combat. And then we have layon hands. Paladins get a pool of
healing equal to five times their paladinlevel, While multi classing will shrink this
(06:24):
pool comparatively, it's always helpful tohave healing on hand, especially if we
want to fill a support role.And then we have spell casting, which
rage also outright prevents us from castingspells, so we're going to ignore most
of our spell casting abilities and thepaladin spell list in favor of divine smiting.
When we pick spells, we shouldprioritize utility options to cast outside of
combat, since we definitely aren't castingthem in combat. Our caster level increases
(06:47):
at half pace for paladin, butit will be the only source of spell
slots we have, and we wantall the extra smites we can get our
hands on. Sadly, that halfpaced spell casting does mean we don't get
second level spells and therefore a betterdivine Smite attack until level five, and
then of course we have divine Smitegain at second level. This is the
big ticket item that we're picking Paladinfor over any other martial class. Divine
(07:12):
Smite lets you sacrifice from your poolof spell slots for pure, consistent damage
when you hit things with melee attacks. Thankfully, this doesn't count as casting
a spell, which I would lovefor someone in the comments to explain to
me why exactly that is. Butanyway, we're free to do it while
raging. Each first level spell slotturns into two D eight damage, with
an extra one D eight damage foreach spell slot above the first up to
(07:33):
a maximum of five D eight smitedamage or sixty eight smite damage if the
target is undead or a fiend,and then, with fighting style also gained
its second level, it's going togo a long way towards buffing up your
marshal ability. We've got some solidoptions. Defense gives us a flat plus
one AC bonus, which is alot more impactful than you might expect.
Dueling is attempting option to take ifyou want to go with a one handed
(07:55):
weapon in a shield for plus twodamage per swing, and great weapon fighting
lets you reach roll damage rolls ofone or two for big two handed weapons,
making it arguably the best defensive option. And then there's Harness Divine Power,
one of the newer optional palette abilities. This lets you essentially convert your
use of Channel Divinity into another spellslot, or really another use of Divine
Smite in this case. Some ofour funkier builds use that Channel Divinity,
(08:18):
but it's sometimes better to just havemore Smite power. And a fifth level
you get extra attack. I'll giveyou three guesses as to what that allows
you to do. Just keep inmind this doesn't stack with any other extra
attacks, including the barbarians identical ability, and then with are of protection gained
at sixth level, this is goingto be one of the strongest defensive buffs
in the game. You and everyfriendly creature within ten feet of you gain
(08:39):
a bonus to all saving throws equalto your charisma modifier. By sticking together,
you can wildly improve your party survivalrate. And then we have Sacred
Oath. You gain your first SacredOath feature at third level, and the
Oath's aura ability doesn't kick in untilseventh level. Depending on what build you
go for, these archetype features mayor may not be worth it, but
we'll dig into that more just asecond. And then at tenth level you
(09:01):
gain Aura of Courage, which emitsan aura that stops you and your allies
from being frightened. And I guaranteethis will help you out way more than
you expect if you have a worthwhileDM. And then with improved Divine Smite
at eleventh level, all of ourDivine Smites get a free extra one D
eight bonus damage. Eleventh level isa lot to ask, but it is
a goal to shoot for. Now, let's talk ability scores. First and
(09:22):
foremost, we're going to be smashingfor the Lore, smashing for the Lord.
That's we left that in the script. No one read that out loud
to see how that sounded. Ikind of want to leave it in.
First and foremost, we're going tobe fighting on behalf of the Lord,
and we need our strength as highas possible for our tax and damage only
(09:43):
attacks made with strength get to applyour rage damage, so there's not going
to be any finessing here. Andthen, as with any martial class,
we should put some points into constitutionto help pat out our hit points to
survive the front line. For us, this is especially important as it also
calculates into our AC For unarmored defense, we'll be able to survive a lot
due to rages decrease in damage,but it's always good to have high hit
(10:05):
points to back it up. Next, we have several Paladin features that rely
on charisma, and we'll want tomake it our third highest ability score.
You could argue that this can bedropped if you're only dipping into Paladin,
but we plan on making use ofseveral features that would benefit from the charisma
boost. We'll likely not have thatgrade of a spell DC with this as
our third highest stat but we planon siphoning most of those slots into smites
(10:26):
anyway. Unfortunately, Barbarians can't ragein armors, so we'll also need to
put points into Dexterity to keep ourAC reasonable. Using unarmoured Defense, we
don't make much use of it elsewhere, but it's needed as our fourth highest
ability score. And finally, Intelligenceand wisdom don't factor into our build really
at all, and we can useboth as dumpstats. Since we're stretched into
(10:48):
so many abilities, I highly recommendusing all your ability score increases on boosting
your stats and holding off on featsfor this build. I see people mention
magic initiate to snag another spell slotfor Divine Smite, but it actually doesn't
give you the spell slot, sono dice. Keep in mind that you'll
gain an ability score increase at eachfourth level, eighth level, twelfth level,
sixteenth level, and nineteenth level ina class not those levels overall.
(11:11):
It may be attempting option to pickup a fourth level eventually in our secondary
class. Now let's talk equipment.To start off, we're not allowed to
wear metal armor, heavy armours,medium armor, light armour, or any
armour at all while raging, sothat's a simple answer on what armour to
wear. Nothing. We may haveheavy armoured proficiency, but we can't have
our cake while eating at too.I've never understood that that's saying. Thankfully,
(11:35):
no matter which class we start with, we're not stuck with simple melee
weapons and have full martial weapons proficiencyto play with. When it comes to
our choice of weaponry, we havesome martial options to pick from big weapons,
sword and board, or duel wielding. For the biggest weapons, we
want either a great sword or amall, both big two handed heavy weapons
that deal two D six damage aswing. For this biggest weapon route,
we definitely want to take the greatweapon fighting fighting style to reroll any ones
(11:58):
or two we get for damage dice. For sore and board, we want
to take a shield which we canuse while raging, along with any of
the one D eight martial weapons suchas a long sword. For this route,
we'll be best off taking the duelingfighting style that'll toss an extra two
damage onto each of our attacks.Plus two AC from the shield makes this
a tempting option, but it'll beup to you if you want more of
(12:18):
a defensive option or an offensive option. And finally, for dual wielding,
we'll take a pair of one handedlight marshal weapons and most likely just the
defense fighting style for a bit ofAC. Note, attacking with an off
handed weapon is a bonus action attack, so we can't use a bonus action
to rage and make our bonus attackon the same turn. The big advantage
for dual wielding is that you'll havean extra chance every turn to land a
(12:39):
hit and fire off your divine Smite. When it comes to what class you
should start with, the skill proficienciesare nearly identical except for heavy Armour,
which we can't use anyway. Wedon't pick up additional skills either way,
and we're mostly picking between strength andConstitution Saving throws are Wisdom and Charisma saving
throws. It's also rather juicy tostart with a Barbarian class level, since
we'd be started with a maximum ofa twelve plus constitution modifier hit points,
(13:03):
and considering how weak a first levelPaladin is no spells, no smites,
I'd recommend starting out as a Barbarianand taking your Paladin levels afterward. When
it comes to the core character concept, we're going to build for a combination
of the Barbarian's rage and the Paladin'sDivine Smite for a high damage output.
With two levels in both Barbarian andPaladin, we'll be able to activate our
(13:24):
rage and then slam in for morepowerful divine Smite attacks using a great sword.
For example, our fourth level charactersmiting will deal a hefty twenty four
that's two eight two six three plustwo plus three average damage and plus three
on average from the Great Weapon fighting. Great Weapon fighting applies to smite damage,
giving us even better odds on hittinghigher damage numbers, and we can
(13:45):
help ensure that we hit by ignoringour own defense using reckless attack. Now,
let's talk a few Barbaladin, Paladin, Barbarian, Polarian, Barbaladin.
Let's talk some Barbarian, paladin,and multi class builds. All of these
strategies utilize the core of the build, but we can elevate that into some
more interesting and powerful concepts. First, we have the Golden as Our goal
(14:09):
here is to make a single mightyswing with a divinely infused great weapon that's
as accurate as possible to deliver oursmite and as many damage bonuses as we
can stack up. We start withthe core of the build, taking two
levels of Barbarian, two levels ofPaladin, and selecting Great Weapon Fighting as
our fighting style. Next, wewant a single level of Barbarian to bring
us up to three to pick upthe path of the Zealot, and all
(14:31):
of our remaining levels should go towardsPaladin, making it our primary class.
Selecting the Oath of Devotion Oath ofDevotion gives us a powerful channel divinity option
called Sacred Weapon. As an action, we can infuse our weapon with divinity,
making it glow like a torch andgiving it an attack roll bonus equal
to our charisma modifier for a minute. This charisma bonus to attack rolls stacks
up with our normal strength bonus andshould give us, along with proficiency,
(14:54):
a plus nine to plus ten tohit. But we're not done yet.
With reckless Attack, we can guaranteewe'll also get advantage on our attack.
Now that we've all but guaranteed ourbig attack will hit, let's stack up
the average damage. As a greatweapon master, we're starting with a great
axe or a great sword or amall if you prefer, for one D
twelve plus two D six damage.Next, we can convert one of our
(15:16):
first level spells into divide smite fortwo D eight. Then, due to
the Path of the Zealot, wehave the feature Divine Fury. We deal
extra holy damage our choice of radiantdamage or necrotic damage equal to one D
six plus half of our barbarian levelson our first attack each turn. And
since all of these extra dice effectsare dealt In addition to the attack.
Great Weapon Fighting applies to all ofthe damage dice rolls, statistically pushing up
(15:39):
our output by about plus one perdie rolled. Putting it all together,
our six level character will be swingingat plus ten with an advantage to deal
thirty three. That's one D twelveplus two D eight plus one D six
plus three plus two plus one plusfour attack damage. Next, we have
the storm Blind SI on for thisbuild. We're going to blind our opponents
while hitting them from a safe distanceand obscured from ranged attacks. We're going
(16:03):
to be the eye of the storm, and with clever positioning you'll blow through
all of the opposition. Once again, we start off with our core build
at two levels Barbarian and two levelsPaladin, taking Great Weapon Fighting as our
fighting style. We will deviate abit here because rather than taking one of
the two D six weapons, we'lltake one of the one D ten reach
weapons such as a pike, halberdor glave. Then all of our remaining
(16:25):
levels should go into Paladin taking theOath of the Open Sea As a side
note, Oath of the Open Seais technically a third level content from Matt
Mercer, but I doubt most dmswill object to it, so let's just
roll with that. The way thisall comes together is by relying on the
Channel Divinity option marine layer that emitsa twenty foot radius cloud of fog around
us as an action. But thisfog is particularly special, as every creature
(16:48):
treats it as heavily obscured, unlessthey're you, or they're standing within five
feet of you, in which caseit's only lightly obscured. The intent of
this is to basically blind everyone aroundyou except for the target you're actually fighting.
But what if your target was tenfeet away? With a reach weapon,
we can dance around our target asthey suffer from blinded condition, which
(17:10):
will grant us advantage on all ofour attacks against them, while inflicting disadvantage
on all their attacks against us.But why stop there, Let's hit everybody
lost in your fog with some stormywrath. Thanks to our storm our,
we'll deal damage against creatures within tenfeet. All those creatures will suffer to
fire damage when you go into ragein every turn you start in your rage,
and this damage doesn't need to target, doesn't need to attack on a
(17:33):
roll or allow a saving throw.It's just free automatic damage, and this
automatic damage will keep happening while theyremain blind and confused within your burning fog
cloud. Next, we have thebomb Barion. Our goal here is to
jump into the middle of combat andforce our enemies into a catch twenty two
where they'll be stuck attacking at disadvantageno matter who they target. We'll have
(17:55):
to take a small decrease in damage, but this is a very disruptive tactical
option. To start, we takethe same core build of two levels in
Barbarian and two levels in Paladin.Since we're trying to be more of a
target nuisance than a raw damage dealer, we'll also want to go with the
sword and board route with the defenseor dueling fighting style. Then we'll need
to take a third level in Barbariansselecting the Path of the Ancestral Guardian,
(18:17):
and all of our remaining levels inPaladins selecting the Oath of Conquest. So
what exactly do we accomplish with this? With Path of the Ancestral Guardian,
we get the feature Ancestral Protectors thatsurrounds us with angry spirits whenever we rage.
While raging surrounded by ghosts, anybodyhit gets hassled by our spooky friends,
and has disadvantage on any attacks thattarget anybody but you until your next
(18:37):
turn, and any damage they dealto them gets cut in half. Now
we combine that with the Oath ofDevotion, which gets us in access to
the Channel Divinity option Conquering presents.Conquering presence lets us use an action to
force a wisdom saving throw on everyonewithin thirty feet, and on a failure,
creatures become frightened of us for upto one minute until they manage to
save. Frightened gives them dis advantageon everything so long as they can see
(19:02):
you, and stops them from willinglymoving closer to you. Now, so
long as the targets we hit arefrightened, they can't do literally anything without
disadvantage. Even if they run arounda corner and get out of eyesight,
they'd still be making attacks at disadvantagesince they're attacking someone other than us.
And then, lastly, we havethe scare Bear, which is built for
more fun than efficiency, which iskind of how I make ninety nine percent
(19:26):
of the characters I play as wheneverI'm not dming, And this is also
made to just sort of revel inthe fact that you can use Divine Smite
with natural weapons. Divine Smite workswith anything so long as it's a melee
weapon attack, which natural attacks andmartial weapon attacks count. As we're going
to jump into combat suddenly grow abare head and absolutely freak out everybody in
(19:47):
the near vicinity. It's not quitea wild shape, but it's about as
close as you can get without takingany Druid levels. We'll start out with
our core build of two Paladin levelsand two Barbarian levels. Then we want
to take a third Barbarian level inpick up the Beast Barbarian archetype Path of
the Beast. This archetype gives usaccess to form of the beast, which
is sort of a partial beast formtransformation, so you just get the head
(20:10):
and claws or tail of a beastwith natural attack rather than fully becoming a
beast shape like a moon Druid.And to top this off, I'm sorry,
I'm just the visuals of that arekind of getting to me. And
to top all this off, takethe oath Breaker Paladine archetype. As we
make Paladin our core class and putall of our remaining levels into it.
Oath Breaker has a Channel Divinity optioncalled Dreadful Aspect, which as an action,
(20:33):
forces a save on everybody within thirtyfeet or they become frightened. Our
beast form activates when we enter rage, which means we can go into a
beast shape and scare everybody in thesame round, which just makes sense.
And the image of freaking everybody outwith a sudden, bare arms and bare
head kind of thing, it's it'sdefinitely worth doing, at very least for
(20:53):
the laughs. Mechanically, your bestoptions for your form of the Beast is
between the bite or the claws.The bit can regain some lost hit points
when you're below half, but theclaws allow for an extra attack as part
of an action without using your bonusaction and are likely your best offensive options.
I've had a Barbarian paladin at mytable before, and kind of like
(21:15):
the joke I made at the beginningof this video, he was more or
less role playing his character as justthe most fratboy Knights templar crusader that you
could possibly imagine. It made forsome really fun sessions, and he actually
could hold his own in combat,so he was able to have that smarmy
holier than thou attitude. At theend of the sessions, it made for
(21:37):
as many good role playing opportunities asit did for good combats, so I
can recommend it purely on that experience. Thank you guys so much for watching.
I really appreciate it. Be sureto like and subscribe because we're putting
out new videos all the time aswell as new content. Check out our
book of magic items and Rar's Vaulton our website at SKULLSPLITERDCE dot com.
And if any of you guys areplanning on playing as a paladin, barbarian
(21:59):
or bar balladin, if you guyscan think of a better combination of whatever,
a better word for that, letme know in the comments. But
if you guys are planning on playingas this multi class, I would love
to hear all about your characters downin the comments. I think your guys'
characters are so entertaining, so thankyou for constantly telling me about the hosts.
Thanks again for watching. My name'sPatrick Ferguson from skull Splitter Dice and
until next time, farewell. Finally, for dual wielding, we'll take a
(22:32):
pair of one handed light martial weaponssuch as sort. Finally, For dual
wielding, we'll take a pair ofone handed light martial weapons such as short
shorts short short short. Finally,for dual wielding, we'll take a pair
of one handed light martial weapons suchas SoRs short swords. Finally, for
dual wielding, we'll take a pairof one handed light martial weapons such as
short short such as short swords.Finally, for dual wielding, we'll take
(22:53):
a pair of one handed light martialweapons like sorch
Barbarians are creatures of adrenaline, whoseblind rage and strength allow them to power
through mortal wounds and cleave through anyopponent. Paladins are living paragons of divine
grace, conduits of godly power,and deliverers of divine punishment. You put
them together and we get a rageknight dealing divine wrath in a Zelotz fervor,
if perhaps a bit less cognizant ofwho actually deserves it. So they're
(00:22):
kind of like actual historical nights inthat sense. I guess if you're wanting
to play a character that's as equallyguided by the battle acts as much as
Creed, stick around for today's video. Geez, I'm about to teach everyone
how to make a Knight's templar ifthey were even stupider. Barbarians are the
(00:46):
best damaged sponge class and are alsodecent damage dealers. Paladins are the original
nova damage class, capable of pouringout insane amounts of damage. Put this
cool combination together and we have afantastic damage dealer that also soaks up damage
like there's no tomail. You'll beable to deal no damage using smites,
consistent damage using rage and will justgenerally be a nightmare to bring down as
(01:06):
you shrug off everything that comes yourway. Unfortunately, it's not hard to
see the downsides here. This classcombination with Barbarian and Paladin will feel fantastic
at early levels, but sadly,the primary damage scaling of both classes is
essentially dependent on their respective class levels. You can't get more smiting without more
spell slots, and you can't getmore rage damage without more Barbarian class levels.
We also can't rage in heavy Armour, meaning we'll be sacrificing one of
(01:30):
the Paladin's greatest defenses. This meansthat we're stuck either just taking a single
level dip and being happy with whatwe get off a single level or two,
or for a more even split,will be very behind compared to a
single class character. This isn't adeal breaker, but just be prepared for
the underscaled features. Both classes alsounfortunately have some early dead levels, and
it doubly hurts to go through deadlevels twice. It's also worth noting that
(01:53):
Paladins are great for multi classing,but this class combination isn't making the best
use of it. Paladin Cleric multiclass is strong. Just dip into Cleric
and it provides a ton of extraspell slots for smiting. With even just
a few Cleric levels, you couldsmite with a Monk's weapons flurry of blows
for maximum martial arts chances to landthe Divine smite, or for a combination
with Barbarian, you could rock anincredibly high damage fighter Barbarian build with Action
(02:16):
Surge to boot, and of coursethere's always Warlock for some evil magic.
Make sure this is the combo youreally want to go for, and maybe
look elsewhere if you're trying to minmax. Finally, as with any multi
class character, we're going to bereaching our mid game features slower than with
single class builds, and never reachingour highest level features like twentieth level capstones
(02:37):
at all. For the record,I know that most of you guys will
not get to a level twenty characterin your campaign, and that even fewer
dms are interested in running such athing, but I do feel it necessary
to mention that those capstone abilities aren'tgoing to happen now. With all those
disclaimers aside, when does this multiclass actually start to kick in? The
answer is, with two levels ineach class, we want both rage and
reckless attacks from the Barbarian, andwe want both the fighting style the divine
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smite from Paladin. We have somemore fun things to combine with both of
their respective third level archetype features,but the core concept works with two levels
in each class and kicks in atour fourth character level. Now it's time
to get into what class features wereally care about. We've got two martial
classes, and while we want tofocus on a few of these features,
most of their special abilities will factorinto our build in one way or another.
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We'll most likely be treating Paladin asour core class and only dipping a
few levels into Barbarian. Starting withour significant Barbarian features, we have hit
points. The Barbarians still reigns supremeas the only official class with a D
twelve hit die. The upgrade toD twelve from a D ten isn't huge,
but it's still good to note thatevery level of Barbarian should make us
a bit metior than if we werejust pure Paladin. And then next,
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of course, we have rage,which is the core feature we all know
and love about Barbarians. We canenter rage as a bonus action, and
while in rage, we get advantageon strength checks and saving throws. We
also get extra damage on all strengthbased attacks, and most importantly, we
gain resist stance to all the physicaldamage types. That damage reduction is scientifically
speaking, nuts and is worth givingup on other features to keep up,
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and should be our first bonus actionin every combat. Our rageability lasts for
a minute or if we don't attackstuff for around We can rage two times
per day and get an additional rageeach of our third barbarian levels, with
extra rage damage at later barbarian levels, and then we have unarmoured defense.
This gives us an alternate AC equalto ten plus our constitution modifier plus our
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dexterity modifier. Sadly, we can'twear armor well raging, making us use
this instead of our other defensive options. We'll need to put some points into
dexterity to keep our AC reasonable usingthis and about on par with medium armor,
and then we have danger sense advantageon dexterity. Saving throws is a
nice extra way to make sure we'retough against attacks even if they're not going
against our AC. Next, wehave the very fun and very roleplay friendly
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reckless attack, which allows us togain advantage on all of our attacks in
exchange for granting advantage on attacks againstus for a turn. With this,
we can choose when we want toprioritize tanking or damage, and it feels
amazing to gain advantage on our divinesmites. We'll touch more on primal paths
here in just a second, butin most builds we'll care about our Barbarian
archetype, especially the features gained atthird level. Our builds don't quite utilize
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it, but if you want moreof a general build, rather than going
for one of our gimmicks, I'drecommend taking path of the Totem Warrior and
the Bear. Totem Bear gives usresistance to all damage while raging except for
psychic damage, and psychic damage doesn'tcome along really that often. It's not
exciting, but it's a powerful defenseoption. And then we have extra attack
just like the Palade and Barbarians area martial class and they're stuck making a
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single attack until level five, whenwe gloriously gain a second. Note that
these features don't stack, and ifwe take five levels in each class,
the superfluous extra attack feature is wasted, and then there's fast movement normally Barbarians
get ten feet worth of extra movementat fifth level, but sadly it has
the caveat that we can't be wearingheavy armor, so we likely won't be
making use of it. Now,moving on to the significant paladin features,
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we have heavy armour, which sadlywe can't wear armour while raging, which
means we have to give up onthe most iconic of paladin abilities for the
build, or come up with reasonswhy we are wearing heavy armor except for
combat. And then we have layon hands. Paladins get a pool of
healing equal to five times their paladinlevel, While multi classing will shrink this
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pool comparatively, it's always helpful tohave healing on hand, especially if we
want to fill a support role.And then we have spell casting, which
rage also outright prevents us from castingspells, so we're going to ignore most
of our spell casting abilities and thepaladin spell list in favor of divine smiting.
When we pick spells, we shouldprioritize utility options to cast outside of
combat, since we definitely aren't castingthem in combat. Our caster level increases
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at half pace for paladin, butit will be the only source of spell
slots we have, and we wantall the extra smites we can get our
hands on. Sadly, that halfpaced spell casting does mean we don't get
second level spells and therefore a betterdivine Smite attack until level five, and
then of course we have divine Smitegain at second level. This is the
big ticket item that we're picking Paladinfor over any other martial class. Divine
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Smite lets you sacrifice from your poolof spell slots for pure, consistent damage
when you hit things with melee attacks. Thankfully, this doesn't count as casting
a spell, which I would lovefor someone in the comments to explain to
me why exactly that is. Butanyway, we're free to do it while
raging. Each first level spell slotturns into two D eight damage, with
an extra one D eight damage foreach spell slot above the first up to
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a maximum of five D eight smitedamage or sixty eight smite damage if the
target is undead or a fiend,and then, with fighting style also gained
its second level, it's going togo a long way towards buffing up your
marshal ability. We've got some solidoptions. Defense gives us a flat plus
one AC bonus, which is alot more impactful than you might expect.
Dueling is attempting option to take ifyou want to go with a one handed
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weapon in a shield for plus twodamage per swing, and great weapon fighting
lets you reach roll damage rolls ofone or two for big two handed weapons,
making it arguably the best defensive option. And then there's Harness Divine Power,
one of the newer optional palette abilities. This lets you essentially convert your
use of Channel Divinity into another spellslot, or really another use of Divine
Smite in this case. Some ofour funkier builds use that Channel Divinity,
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but it's sometimes better to just havemore Smite power. And a fifth level
you get extra attack. I'll giveyou three guesses as to what that allows
you to do. Just keep inmind this doesn't stack with any other extra
attacks, including the barbarians identical ability, and then with are of protection gained
at sixth level, this is goingto be one of the strongest defensive buffs
in the game. You and everyfriendly creature within ten feet of you gain
(08:39):
a bonus to all saving throws equalto your charisma modifier. By sticking together,
you can wildly improve your party survivalrate. And then we have Sacred
Oath. You gain your first SacredOath feature at third level, and the
Oath's aura ability doesn't kick in untilseventh level. Depending on what build you
go for, these archetype features mayor may not be worth it, but
we'll dig into that more just asecond. And then at tenth level you
(09:01):
gain Aura of Courage, which emitsan aura that stops you and your allies
from being frightened. And I guaranteethis will help you out way more than
you expect if you have a worthwhileDM. And then with improved Divine Smite
at eleventh level, all of ourDivine Smites get a free extra one D
eight bonus damage. Eleventh level isa lot to ask, but it is
a goal to shoot for. Now, let's talk ability scores. First and
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foremost, we're going to be smashingfor the Lore, smashing for the Lord.
That's we left that in the script. No one read that out loud
to see how that sounded. Ikind of want to leave it in.
First and foremost, we're going tobe fighting on behalf of the Lord,
and we need our strength as highas possible for our tax and damage only
(09:43):
attacks made with strength get to applyour rage damage, so there's not going
to be any finessing here. Andthen, as with any martial class,
we should put some points into constitutionto help pat out our hit points to
survive the front line. For us, this is especially important as it also
calculates into our AC For unarmored defense, we'll be able to survive a lot
due to rages decrease in damage,but it's always good to have high hit
(10:05):
points to back it up. Next, we have several Paladin features that rely
on charisma, and we'll want tomake it our third highest ability score.
You could argue that this can bedropped if you're only dipping into Paladin,
but we plan on making use ofseveral features that would benefit from the charisma
boost. We'll likely not have thatgrade of a spell DC with this as
our third highest stat but we planon siphoning most of those slots into smites
(10:26):
anyway. Unfortunately, Barbarians can't ragein armors, so we'll also need to
put points into Dexterity to keep ourAC reasonable. Using unarmoured Defense, we
don't make much use of it elsewhere, but it's needed as our fourth highest
ability score. And finally, Intelligenceand wisdom don't factor into our build really
at all, and we can useboth as dumpstats. Since we're stretched into
(10:48):
so many abilities, I highly recommendusing all your ability score increases on boosting
your stats and holding off on featsfor this build. I see people mention
magic initiate to snag another spell slotfor Divine Smite, but it actually doesn't
give you the spell slot, sono dice. Keep in mind that you'll
gain an ability score increase at eachfourth level, eighth level, twelfth level,
sixteenth level, and nineteenth level ina class not those levels overall.
(11:11):
It may be attempting option to pickup a fourth level eventually in our secondary
class. Now let's talk equipment.To start off, we're not allowed to
wear metal armor, heavy armours,medium armor, light armour, or any
armour at all while raging, sothat's a simple answer on what armour to
wear. Nothing. We may haveheavy armoured proficiency, but we can't have
our cake while eating at too.I've never understood that that's saying. Thankfully,
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no matter which class we start with, we're not stuck with simple melee
weapons and have full martial weapons proficiencyto play with. When it comes to
our choice of weaponry, we havesome martial options to pick from big weapons,
sword and board, or duel wielding. For the biggest weapons, we
want either a great sword or amall, both big two handed heavy weapons
that deal two D six damage aswing. For this biggest weapon route,
we definitely want to take the greatweapon fighting fighting style to reroll any ones
(11:58):
or two we get for damage dice. For sore and board, we want
to take a shield which we canuse while raging, along with any of
the one D eight martial weapons suchas a long sword. For this route,
we'll be best off taking the duelingfighting style that'll toss an extra two
damage onto each of our attacks.Plus two AC from the shield makes this
a tempting option, but it'll beup to you if you want more of
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a defensive option or an offensive option. And finally, for dual wielding,
we'll take a pair of one handedlight marshal weapons and most likely just the
defense fighting style for a bit ofAC. Note, attacking with an off
handed weapon is a bonus action attack, so we can't use a bonus action
to rage and make our bonus attackon the same turn. The big advantage
for dual wielding is that you'll havean extra chance every turn to land a
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hit and fire off your divine Smite. When it comes to what class you
should start with, the skill proficienciesare nearly identical except for heavy Armour,
which we can't use anyway. Wedon't pick up additional skills either way,
and we're mostly picking between strength andConstitution Saving throws are Wisdom and Charisma saving
throws. It's also rather juicy tostart with a Barbarian class level, since
we'd be started with a maximum ofa twelve plus constitution modifier hit points,
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and considering how weak a first levelPaladin is no spells, no smites,
I'd recommend starting out as a Barbarianand taking your Paladin levels afterward. When
it comes to the core character concept, we're going to build for a combination
of the Barbarian's rage and the Paladin'sDivine Smite for a high damage output.
With two levels in both Barbarian andPaladin, we'll be able to activate our
(13:24):
rage and then slam in for morepowerful divine Smite attacks using a great sword.
For example, our fourth level charactersmiting will deal a hefty twenty four
that's two eight two six three plustwo plus three average damage and plus three
on average from the Great Weapon fighting. Great Weapon fighting applies to smite damage,
giving us even better odds on hittinghigher damage numbers, and we can
(13:45):
help ensure that we hit by ignoringour own defense using reckless attack. Now,
let's talk a few Barbaladin, Paladin, Barbarian, Polarian, Barbaladin.
Let's talk some Barbarian, paladin,and multi class builds. All of these
strategies utilize the core of the build, but we can elevate that into some
more interesting and powerful concepts. First, we have the Golden as Our goal
(14:09):
here is to make a single mightyswing with a divinely infused great weapon that's
as accurate as possible to deliver oursmite and as many damage bonuses as we
can stack up. We start withthe core of the build, taking two
levels of Barbarian, two levels ofPaladin, and selecting Great Weapon Fighting as
our fighting style. Next, wewant a single level of Barbarian to bring
us up to three to pick upthe path of the Zealot, and all
(14:31):
of our remaining levels should go towardsPaladin, making it our primary class.
Selecting the Oath of Devotion Oath ofDevotion gives us a powerful channel divinity option
called Sacred Weapon. As an action, we can infuse our weapon with divinity,
making it glow like a torch andgiving it an attack roll bonus equal
to our charisma modifier for a minute. This charisma bonus to attack rolls stacks
up with our normal strength bonus andshould give us, along with proficiency,
(14:54):
a plus nine to plus ten tohit. But we're not done yet.
With reckless Attack, we can guaranteewe'll also get advantage on our attack.
Now that we've all but guaranteed ourbig attack will hit, let's stack up
the average damage. As a greatweapon master, we're starting with a great
axe or a great sword or amall if you prefer, for one D
twelve plus two D six damage.Next, we can convert one of our
(15:16):
first level spells into divide smite fortwo D eight. Then, due to
the Path of the Zealot, wehave the feature Divine Fury. We deal
extra holy damage our choice of radiantdamage or necrotic damage equal to one D
six plus half of our barbarian levelson our first attack each turn. And
since all of these extra dice effectsare dealt In addition to the attack.
Great Weapon Fighting applies to all ofthe damage dice rolls, statistically pushing up
(15:39):
our output by about plus one perdie rolled. Putting it all together,
our six level character will be swingingat plus ten with an advantage to deal
thirty three. That's one D twelveplus two D eight plus one D six
plus three plus two plus one plusfour attack damage. Next, we have
the storm Blind SI on for thisbuild. We're going to blind our opponents
while hitting them from a safe distanceand obscured from ranged attacks. We're going
(16:03):
to be the eye of the storm, and with clever positioning you'll blow through
all of the opposition. Once again, we start off with our core build
at two levels Barbarian and two levelsPaladin, taking Great Weapon Fighting as our
fighting style. We will deviate abit here because rather than taking one of
the two D six weapons, we'lltake one of the one D ten reach
weapons such as a pike, halberdor glave. Then all of our remaining
(16:25):
levels should go into Paladin taking theOath of the Open Sea As a side
note, Oath of the Open Seais technically a third level content from Matt
Mercer, but I doubt most dmswill object to it, so let's just
roll with that. The way thisall comes together is by relying on the
Channel Divinity option marine layer that emitsa twenty foot radius cloud of fog around
us as an action. But thisfog is particularly special, as every creature
(16:48):
treats it as heavily obscured, unlessthey're you, or they're standing within five
feet of you, in which caseit's only lightly obscured. The intent of
this is to basically blind everyone aroundyou except for the target you're actually fighting.
But what if your target was tenfeet away? With a reach weapon,
we can dance around our target asthey suffer from blinded condition, which
(17:10):
will grant us advantage on all ofour attacks against them, while inflicting disadvantage
on all their attacks against us.But why stop there, Let's hit everybody
lost in your fog with some stormywrath. Thanks to our storm our,
we'll deal damage against creatures within tenfeet. All those creatures will suffer to
fire damage when you go into ragein every turn you start in your rage,
and this damage doesn't need to target, doesn't need to attack on a
(17:33):
roll or allow a saving throw.It's just free automatic damage, and this
automatic damage will keep happening while theyremain blind and confused within your burning fog
cloud. Next, we have thebomb Barion. Our goal here is to
jump into the middle of combat andforce our enemies into a catch twenty two
where they'll be stuck attacking at disadvantageno matter who they target. We'll have
(17:55):
to take a small decrease in damage, but this is a very disruptive tactical
option. To start, we takethe same core build of two levels in
Barbarian and two levels in Paladin.Since we're trying to be more of a
target nuisance than a raw damage dealer, we'll also want to go with the
sword and board route with the defenseor dueling fighting style. Then we'll need
to take a third level in Barbariansselecting the Path of the Ancestral Guardian,
(18:17):
and all of our remaining levels inPaladins selecting the Oath of Conquest. So
what exactly do we accomplish with this? With Path of the Ancestral Guardian,
we get the feature Ancestral Protectors thatsurrounds us with angry spirits whenever we rage.
While raging surrounded by ghosts, anybodyhit gets hassled by our spooky friends,
and has disadvantage on any attacks thattarget anybody but you until your next
(18:37):
turn, and any damage they dealto them gets cut in half. Now
we combine that with the Oath ofDevotion, which gets us in access to
the Channel Divinity option Conquering presents.Conquering presence lets us use an action to
force a wisdom saving throw on everyonewithin thirty feet, and on a failure,
creatures become frightened of us for upto one minute until they manage to
save. Frightened gives them dis advantageon everything so long as they can see
(19:02):
you, and stops them from willinglymoving closer to you. Now, so
long as the targets we hit arefrightened, they can't do literally anything without
disadvantage. Even if they run arounda corner and get out of eyesight,
they'd still be making attacks at disadvantagesince they're attacking someone other than us.
And then, lastly, we havethe scare Bear, which is built for
more fun than efficiency, which iskind of how I make ninety nine percent
(19:26):
of the characters I play as wheneverI'm not dming, And this is also
made to just sort of revel inthe fact that you can use Divine Smite
with natural weapons. Divine Smite workswith anything so long as it's a melee
weapon attack, which natural attacks andmartial weapon attacks count. As we're going
to jump into combat suddenly grow abare head and absolutely freak out everybody in
(19:47):
the near vicinity. It's not quitea wild shape, but it's about as
close as you can get without takingany Druid levels. We'll start out with
our core build of two Paladin levelsand two Barbarian levels. Then we want
to take a third Barbarian level inpick up the Beast Barbarian archetype Path of
the Beast. This archetype gives usaccess to form of the beast, which
is sort of a partial beast formtransformation, so you just get the head
(20:10):
and claws or tail of a beastwith natural attack rather than fully becoming a
beast shape like a moon Druid.And to top this off, I'm sorry,
I'm just the visuals of that arekind of getting to me. And
to top all this off, takethe oath Breaker Paladine archetype. As we
make Paladin our core class and putall of our remaining levels into it.
Oath Breaker has a Channel Divinity optioncalled Dreadful Aspect, which as an action,
(20:33):
forces a save on everybody within thirtyfeet or they become frightened. Our
beast form activates when we enter rage, which means we can go into a
beast shape and scare everybody in thesame round, which just makes sense.
And the image of freaking everybody outwith a sudden, bare arms and bare
head kind of thing, it's it'sdefinitely worth doing, at very least for
(20:53):
the laughs. Mechanically, your bestoptions for your form of the Beast is
between the bite or the claws.The bit can regain some lost hit points
when you're below half, but theclaws allow for an extra attack as part
of an action without using your bonusaction and are likely your best offensive options.
I've had a Barbarian paladin at mytable before, and kind of like
(21:15):
the joke I made at the beginningof this video, he was more or
less role playing his character as justthe most fratboy Knights templar crusader that you
could possibly imagine. It made forsome really fun sessions, and he actually
could hold his own in combat,so he was able to have that smarmy
holier than thou attitude. At theend of the sessions, it made for
(21:37):
as many good role playing opportunities asit did for good combats, so I
can recommend it purely on that experience. Thank you guys so much for watching.
I really appreciate it. Be sureto like and subscribe because we're putting
out new videos all the time aswell as new content. Check out our
book of magic items and Rar's Vaulton our website at SKULLSPLITERDCE dot com.
And if any of you guys areplanning on playing as a paladin, barbarian
(21:59):
or bar balladin, if you guyscan think of a better combination of whatever,
a better word for that, letme know in the comments. But
if you guys are planning on playingas this multi class, I would love
to hear all about your characters downin the comments. I think your guys'
characters are so entertaining, so thankyou for constantly telling me about the hosts.
Thanks again for watching. My name'sPatrick Ferguson from skull Splitter Dice and
until next time, farewell. Finally, for dual wielding, we'll take a
(22:32):
pair of one handed light martial weaponssuch as sort. Finally, For dual
wielding, we'll take a pair ofone handed light martial weapons such as short
shorts short short short. Finally,for dual wielding, we'll take a pair
of one handed light martial weapons suchas SoRs short swords. Finally, for
dual wielding, we'll take a pairof one handed light martial weapons such as
short short such as short swords.Finally, for dual wielding, we'll take
(22:53):
a pair of one handed light martialweapons like sorch
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