September 17, 2024 • 16 mins
Paladin Ranger Multiclass Guide - Hunt the Unholy Rangers are martial survivalists, tough but with adaptable features and a touch of spellcasting for withstanding what the wilderness can throw at you. Paladins are holy champions, scions of celestial power and keepers of divine oaths. Put them together and we get god’s left hand, a hunter of the unholy able to track evil to their dark pits and administer righteous retribution. Recite your oath and catch evil’s scent as we go through everything you need to know. What would you like to see a video on next? Let us know below! Read the full blog post here: https://www.skullsplitterdice.com/blogs/dnd/paladin-ranger-multiclass-guide Like our content? Check out our metal and sharped edge dice subscriptions: https://www.skullsplitterdice.com/collections/subscription-sets
Subscribe to SkullSplitter Dice Podcast on Soundwise
Subscribe to SkullSplitter Dice Podcast on Soundwise
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rangers are martial survivalists. They're tough, but with adaptable features
and a touch of spell casting, they're able to withstand
just about anything that the wilderness can throw at them.
Paladins are holy champions, scions of celestial power, and keepers
of divine oats. You put them together and we get
God's left hand, a hunter of the unholy, able to
track evil to their dark pits and administer righteous retribution.
(00:22):
If you've never thought of combining these classes, I can't
exactly say that I blame you, but in this video
we're going to talk about doing just that, so stick around.
Both Paladin and Ranger are primarily martial characters with ways
to pile damage on top of a normal attack, and conveniently,
(00:43):
that damage can all mix nicely together for the same attacks.
Paladins give us access to powerful defensive capabilities, while Ranger
gives us access to some powerful offensive and utility abilities,
combining into a tough DPS and yet still skill utility character.
Both are martial classes that can excel in melee combat,
with stackable damage source options that can combine into a tanky,
(01:05):
high damage output frontliner, though maybe not quite as good
as Balder's Gate would have you believe, which is a
good segue into the downsides. The biggest problem with this
particular combination is how thinly spread we have to get
on ability scores. A multi class Paladin requires at least
thirteen points in both strength and charisma, while Ranger requires
at least thirteen points in both dexterity and wisdom. This
(01:27):
automatically means we're going to have to accept lower ability
score bonuses on our primary abilities to pay for all
those prerequisites. The Ranger class wasn't reworked so many times
because it was too good. After all, Rangers suffered from
a situational nature of their core features, and while the
revisions have largely fixed that, it's hard to say what
the Ranger does better than other classes. We can achieve
(01:49):
an effective multi class with the Paladin, but taking any
Ranger levels is a debatable choice at the start. For
pure damage, you might be better off going with the
Fighter for the action surge or Rogue for the sneak attack.
We can achieve an effective multi class with the Paladin,
but taking any Ranger levels is a debatable choice at
the start. For pure damage, you might be better off
going with Fighter for the action Surge or Rogue for
(02:10):
the sneak attack or pairing specifically with Paladin, going for
an Eldridge Night with Warlock levels may be a better
option for the Eldridge blast and Smite fueling Warlock spell slots.
And of course, as with all multi class options, multi
classing means that you forego some late game features and
are slower to acquire others. A single class character has
more focused, powerful features, while multi class characters will have
(02:31):
more versatility and more options. You might be curious as
to when this Paladin Ranger multi class will kick in,
and we have some later synergies we want to take
advantage of, but at the core, we just want to
be stacking favored Foe and Hunter's Mark from Ranger and
Divide Smite from Paladin. We get those features from a
single level of Ranger and Smite from our second level Paladin,
so the build kicks in in around third total character level.
(02:56):
Now let's get into class features, and while not every
class feature is going to play huge role in our builds,
you should be aware of the following class features and
combatibilities while putting your Ranger Paladin together, especially if you
want to kind of remix anything we'll be talking about
here today. Starting with Ranger features, we have Deft Explorer.
This is one of the new optional features that replace
Natural Explorer, and it's all the better for it. Deft
(03:18):
Explorer now grants a double proficiency bonus on a chosen skill,
a couple extra languages, and with five Ranger levels, it
also grants us a fast walking, climbing, and swimming speed.
And then we have Favored Foe. It uses concentration, which
means we can't stack it with Hunter's Mark sad, I know,
but it's still basically a free additional damage that will
scale up with our Ranger levels. It also doesn't take
(03:40):
any action. You can just choose to apply it when
you hit with an attack, making it even more free.
And then we have fighting Styles. Just like a fighter,
the Ranger gains access to a fighting style that will
be integral to some of our builds, will in fact
be getting a similar feature from Paladin, meaning we'll get
to enjoy an additional fighting style here, which low wise
and mechanic wise. I just kind of think that's cool
(04:01):
for any character. And then we have Hunter's Mark, which
might be a little bit weird since we get Favored
fau already, which is almost like a free, downsized version
of this unique Ranger spell, but the original Hunter's Mark
still matters. Hunter's Mark is a Ranger exclusive spell that
stacks an extra D six damage for every hit we
make for the rest of a combat for the low
cost of a first level spell slot and a bonus action.
(04:24):
And then at fifth level we gain extra attack, which
of course gives us an additional attack, but this is
especially useful as a Ranger since favored foe triggers off
each one of our attacks. We can't do multiple divine
smites in the same turn, but more weapon damage is
always a good thing. Keep in mind though this will
not stack with the paladin's identical ability though. And then
at third level, Rangers gain archetype features which will be
(04:47):
useful to us, and we will talk about them a
bit later on, but just know that we will be
caring about these for the Ranger archetypes. Now moving on
to significant Paladin features, we have lay on hands. Paladins
get a pool of healing equal to five five times
their paladin level. While multi classing will shrink your lay
on hand's ability comparatively, it's always helpful to have healing
on hand, especially if we want to fill a support role.
(05:09):
And then we have spell casting, and in all honesty,
we plan on pouring our spell slots into smites rather
than actually using them for casting, but it's always helpful
to have the options should the need arise. And then
at second level we gain Divine Smite, and this is
the big ticket item that you're picking a paladin for
over any other martial class. Divine Smite lets you sacrifice
your spell slots for pure extra damage when you hit
(05:31):
things with a melee weapon attack. It doesn't even use
an action or a bonus action, and we're free to
just use and stack this damage whenever we so choose.
Each first level spell slot turns into two D eight damage,
with an extra one D eight damage for each spell
slot above the first, up to a maximum of five
D eight smite damage or sixty eight smite damage if
(05:51):
the target is undead or a fiend. And then also
gained at second level, we have fighting style, and this
goes a long way towards buffing up your martial ability.
We got some solid options. Defense gives us a flat
plus one AC bonus, which is a lot more impactful
than you might think dueling is the option to take
if we want to go with a one handed weapon
and a shield for plus two damage per swing, and
great weapon fighting lets you reroll damage rolls of one
(06:14):
or two for big two handed weapons. And then once
again at fifth level we've got extra attack, but as
I mentioned, this one doesn't stack with the other, so ooops.
And then at six level you gain the feature of
or of Protection, and this is one of the strongest
defensive buffs in the entire game. You and every friendly
creature within ten feet of you gain a bonus to
all saving throws equal to your charisma modifier. By sticking together,
(06:38):
you can widely improve your party saving throw and survival rate.
Six level is a lot to ask though, and you'll
likely only hit this if dipping into Ranger. And then
we have Sacred Oaths. You gain your first sacred Oath
feature at third level, and the oaths or ability doesn't
kick in until seventh. Depending on what build you go for,
these archetype features may or may not be worth it,
but we'll get into more of that later. And when
(07:00):
it comes to which class you should pick first, starting
with a class level in Paladin versus levels in Ranger
has very similar proficiencies, with a few notable exceptions. When
you start with Ranger, you miss out on heavy armour proficiency,
your saving throws are strength and dexterity, And the starting
with Paladin thing is that you get heavy armour proficiency
and you can start with chain mail and your saving
(07:21):
throws are wisdom and charisma. If you're using medium armor anyway,
then this is really just a choice between two roughly
equal save efficiency options. If, however, you plan on using
heavy armor, then you should absolutely start out as a
paladin first. Now let's talk ability scores, because we probably should.
One of the biggest hurdles for this build is walking
the ability distribution tightrope on four different ability scores. Firstly,
(07:45):
I highly recommend selecting Human as your race, the normal version,
not the variant, because getting plus one to every ability
score is actually like a plus four plus five counting
constitution for our build. By taking Human and using a
point by to get our scores just right, we can
get everything that we need. At our core. We're trying
to be a DPS character, and strength should be our
(08:06):
highest ability score at sixteen. Next, we need to have
at least thirteen dexterity to meet the ranger requirements, but
should go ahead and push that one higher to fourteen
dexterity to take advantage of medium armors over heavy armors. Thankfully,
we really only need to meet the minimum requirements of
both wisdom and charisma since we aren't actually going to
be doing much spell casting. We still have just enough
(08:28):
points to push through wisdom and charisma to fourteen, which
is worthwhile since we already have to push them to
thirteen anyway. That leaves us with just enough points to
get a constitution bonus with twelve constitution. Finally, we just
have the humans base plus one two intelligence, leaving it
as our only real dump stat, and we're not coming
out too shabby with that. On the other end, as
(08:48):
you advance in levels, I recommend spending your ability score
improvement on strength. Despite all of our multi classing, strength
will be our primary damage stat after all. Now let's
talk spell casting. When you have a multi class compon
nation of two different spell casting classes, things can get
a little weird. As you've just created a multi class spellcaster,
your spells known stay completely separate. So if you have
(09:10):
three levels of Paladin and five levels of ranger. You'll
know the same number of paladin spells as a third
level paladin and the same number of ranger spells as
a fifth level ranger. The spell slots, however, combined into
a special multi class spell slots table, which basically counts
half caster levels as a half level and full caster
levels as one level. For our build, both rangers and
(09:31):
paladins count as half casters, so on the table on
screen you'll count half of your total levels rounded down
to determine how many spell slots you have. And now
let's talk ranger equipment. Assuming we're going to take the
route with fourteen dexterity, our best bet is to utilize
medium armour. Ideally we want half plate, but at seven
hundred and fifty gold pieces it can be a bit
pricey early on, and you may need to rely on
(09:54):
scale mail for a level or two. Next. For Divine
Smite to function, we have to use melee weapon attacks,
and while we could go for a big two handed
weapon or two weapon fighting, i'd recommend sword and board
to maximize our ac This means putting a shield in
one hand in any of the other one da damage.
One handed martial weapons such as a battle axe, flail,
(10:14):
long sword, morning Star, warpick or warhammer on the other
and lances are also on the table for a couple
of our builds, so don't leave those behind. Now, let's
get into our Paladin Ranger multi class builds are ranger
lynn we try to combine the words sometimes. I don't
think I'm going to find anything here. There's no one
(10:34):
correct way to play this multi class, or really any
multi class choice, but I do hope you find the
following build ideas at least a little interesting. First, we
have the Dragon Knight, and the goal here is simple,
be a Knight and write your own personal dragon friend
into battle with a lance. Sadly, we can't do this early,
and to set this up, we'll need two levels of
Paladin and seven levels of Ranger, making sure to take
(10:56):
the Drake Warden archetype for our two fighting styles. We
want to go with dual and defense. With defense plus
two dexterity half plate and a shield, we'll be sitting
at a pretty twenty AC. At our third ranger level,
the Drake Warden gets a Drake companion. He starts out small,
but once we get to seven ranger levels, his size
improves to medium, and we're specifically allowed to ride him
(11:16):
as a mount, but sadly, he can't use his flying
speed while doing so. Now, theoretically this process should be simple,
You acquire amount, you ride the mount. Well, sort of
it works like that in this case, thanks to some
very awkward action sequencing, we have to be very particular
in how we do things. In order for our dragon
to use their attacks while we ride them, we have
to get into the subtly strange rules that five has
(11:39):
for mounts. Mounts can either be controlled mounts, which are
very simple to use but can't do a whole lot,
and independent mounts, which can do more but take a
bit more work to use Correctly. For our purposes, we
need to treat our dragon as an independent mount, which
will allow it to still make use of all of
the cool abilities, but we have to be very particular
in how our turns are sequet. The main problem is
(12:01):
that our dragon takes their turn immediately after ours, which
means we're stuck like a bump on a log until
they take their turn and carry us along with them.
The second problem comes from the lance. Lances impose disadvantage
on attacks that are within five feet and expect you
to strike while you are ten feet away. This means
we want to attack after the dragon moves, but before
they finish moving and make their own attacks. The correct
(12:24):
sequences should look like this. On our turn, we hold
our attack action for when the target is within range.
The dragon takes their turn moving towards the enemy, and
once in range, our attack action is triggered and we
make two lance attacks using a divine smite and favored foe.
The dragon then uses their infused strikes reaction to stack
another one D six damage onto one of our lance attacks,
(12:47):
and then the dragon finishes moving another five feet finally
and makes their own bite attack. That was all a
little bit more complicated than it really should be, but
rules is written. That's the way you need to go.
If you go through this correctly using a second level smite,
you get to charge in for an average of fifty
one damage. That's two D twelve plus one D six
plus three D eight plus two D six plus four
(13:09):
plus eight plus two per turn. And for all of
you dms out there, maybe consider making this whole attack
process for them a little bit easier. There's nothing more
of a buzz gill than getting on a dragon and
wanting to do something cool, and then income rules that
don't really do anything for anybody. Like. Don't get me wrong,
I love the concept of independent mounts versus controlled mounts.
(13:30):
I do that kind of thing all the time. But
this sort of attack sequencing is where I think D
and D use your own judgment DMS is all I'm saying.
And then we have Night of the Spike Trap. The
goal of this build is to use the spell Spike
Growth and then slam your opponents into it over and
over as they die into a thousand spike cuts. Good Lord.
(13:53):
Note that for this one we need to make use
of one of critical rules archetypes, so this isn't technically
Base five Y. However, we jump out of that territory
all the time on this show. We also need to
get up to eighth levels to do what we really
want to do with this. To accomplish this goal, we
need three levels of Paladin selecting the Oath of the
Open Sea, and at least five levels in Rangers selecting
(14:14):
the swarm Keeper archetype. For our two fighting styles, we
once again want to take dueling and defense using a
shield in any of the D eight marshal one handed
weapons will still let us deal decent damage while rocking
an armoor class of twenty. Unlike the other builds, I
recommend spending at least one of your acis on increasing
your wisdom, since we're relying heavily on a ranger spell
(14:35):
and ability that uses the ranger spell save DC at
the beginning of combat, we want to cast the spell's
Spike Growth and try to catch as many of the
enemies in it as possible. It covers a surprisingly large
twenty foot radius with difficult terrain, and for every five
feet a creature travels in it, they take two D
four damage. Two D four may not sound like a lot,
but we're going to stack that up on top of
(14:57):
all sorts of other things and methods. Firstly, as a
s warm Keeper, we get a swarm of nature spirits,
which should be flavored however you like. I like to
go with bees because bees are my family animal, and
that lets us apply an effect to an attack once
per turn. One of those abilities forces a strength save,
and on a failed save, you can move them up
to fifteen feet, which can conveniently be right back through
(15:18):
that spike Growth patch for a total of six D
four damage. Next, thanks to the Oath of the Open Sea,
we get the Channel Divinity option Fury of the Tides
that we can activate for a minute using a bonus action.
While it's active once per turn. When we hit with
a melee attack, we can push the target up to
ten feet away from you without a save of any kind,
and if that's into our spike growth, that's another four
(15:39):
D four damage. Because the swarm keeper movement is in
any direction rather than just a way. When we combine
these effects, we can throw them back using the Fury
of the Tides, then swerve them back into the same
spike growth area using our swarm. Assuming you can stand
at the edge of your spike growth and swing, you'll
be able to move your target for twenty five feet
through your spikes. Adding in favored foe and smite, you'll
(16:01):
be doing an average of fifty two damage. That's two
D eight plus six plus two D eight plus one
D four plus ten DY four every round. I mean
the night with the spikes, it's it's it's very brutal,
kind of feels more like an elden ring boss than
a thing a character would play. So I guess in
that sense maybe it does feel like a D and
D character. Thank you guys so much for watching. I
(16:22):
really appreciate it. Be sure to like and subscribe. We're
putting out new content all the time. Go see what
we're up to over on skullsplitterdice dot com. And if
you plan on making one of these multi classes, I
would really be curious why a Paladin ranger speaks to you,
and please let me know down in the comments. My
name is Patrick Ferguson from skull splitter Dice and until
next time, farewell
Rangers are martial survivalists. They're tough, but with adaptable features
and a touch of spell casting, they're able to withstand
just about anything that the wilderness can throw at them.
Paladins are holy champions, scions of celestial power, and keepers
of divine oats. You put them together and we get
God's left hand, a hunter of the unholy, able to
track evil to their dark pits and administer righteous retribution.
(00:22):
If you've never thought of combining these classes, I can't
exactly say that I blame you, but in this video
we're going to talk about doing just that, so stick around.
Both Paladin and Ranger are primarily martial characters with ways
to pile damage on top of a normal attack, and conveniently,
(00:43):
that damage can all mix nicely together for the same attacks.
Paladins give us access to powerful defensive capabilities, while Ranger
gives us access to some powerful offensive and utility abilities,
combining into a tough DPS and yet still skill utility character.
Both are martial classes that can excel in melee combat,
with stackable damage source options that can combine into a tanky,
(01:05):
high damage output frontliner, though maybe not quite as good
as Balder's Gate would have you believe, which is a
good segue into the downsides. The biggest problem with this
particular combination is how thinly spread we have to get
on ability scores. A multi class Paladin requires at least
thirteen points in both strength and charisma, while Ranger requires
at least thirteen points in both dexterity and wisdom. This
(01:27):
automatically means we're going to have to accept lower ability
score bonuses on our primary abilities to pay for all
those prerequisites. The Ranger class wasn't reworked so many times
because it was too good. After all, Rangers suffered from
a situational nature of their core features, and while the
revisions have largely fixed that, it's hard to say what
the Ranger does better than other classes. We can achieve
(01:49):
an effective multi class with the Paladin, but taking any
Ranger levels is a debatable choice at the start. For
pure damage, you might be better off going with the
Fighter for the action surge or Rogue for the sneak attack.
We can achieve an effective multi class with the Paladin,
but taking any Ranger levels is a debatable choice at
the start. For pure damage, you might be better off
going with Fighter for the action Surge or Rogue for
(02:10):
the sneak attack or pairing specifically with Paladin, going for
an Eldridge Night with Warlock levels may be a better
option for the Eldridge blast and Smite fueling Warlock spell slots.
And of course, as with all multi class options, multi
classing means that you forego some late game features and
are slower to acquire others. A single class character has
more focused, powerful features, while multi class characters will have
(02:31):
more versatility and more options. You might be curious as
to when this Paladin Ranger multi class will kick in,
and we have some later synergies we want to take
advantage of, but at the core, we just want to
be stacking favored Foe and Hunter's Mark from Ranger and
Divide Smite from Paladin. We get those features from a
single level of Ranger and Smite from our second level Paladin,
so the build kicks in in around third total character level.
(02:56):
Now let's get into class features, and while not every
class feature is going to play huge role in our builds,
you should be aware of the following class features and
combatibilities while putting your Ranger Paladin together, especially if you
want to kind of remix anything we'll be talking about
here today. Starting with Ranger features, we have Deft Explorer.
This is one of the new optional features that replace
Natural Explorer, and it's all the better for it. Deft
(03:18):
Explorer now grants a double proficiency bonus on a chosen skill,
a couple extra languages, and with five Ranger levels, it
also grants us a fast walking, climbing, and swimming speed.
And then we have Favored Foe. It uses concentration, which
means we can't stack it with Hunter's Mark sad, I know,
but it's still basically a free additional damage that will
scale up with our Ranger levels. It also doesn't take
(03:40):
any action. You can just choose to apply it when
you hit with an attack, making it even more free.
And then we have fighting Styles. Just like a fighter,
the Ranger gains access to a fighting style that will
be integral to some of our builds, will in fact
be getting a similar feature from Paladin, meaning we'll get
to enjoy an additional fighting style here, which low wise
and mechanic wise. I just kind of think that's cool
(04:01):
for any character. And then we have Hunter's Mark, which
might be a little bit weird since we get Favored
fau already, which is almost like a free, downsized version
of this unique Ranger spell, but the original Hunter's Mark
still matters. Hunter's Mark is a Ranger exclusive spell that
stacks an extra D six damage for every hit we
make for the rest of a combat for the low
cost of a first level spell slot and a bonus action.
(04:24):
And then at fifth level we gain extra attack, which
of course gives us an additional attack, but this is
especially useful as a Ranger since favored foe triggers off
each one of our attacks. We can't do multiple divine
smites in the same turn, but more weapon damage is
always a good thing. Keep in mind though this will
not stack with the paladin's identical ability though. And then
at third level, Rangers gain archetype features which will be
(04:47):
useful to us, and we will talk about them a
bit later on, but just know that we will be
caring about these for the Ranger archetypes. Now moving on
to significant Paladin features, we have lay on hands. Paladins
get a pool of healing equal to five five times
their paladin level. While multi classing will shrink your lay
on hand's ability comparatively, it's always helpful to have healing
on hand, especially if we want to fill a support role.
(05:09):
And then we have spell casting, and in all honesty,
we plan on pouring our spell slots into smites rather
than actually using them for casting, but it's always helpful
to have the options should the need arise. And then
at second level we gain Divine Smite, and this is
the big ticket item that you're picking a paladin for
over any other martial class. Divine Smite lets you sacrifice
your spell slots for pure extra damage when you hit
(05:31):
things with a melee weapon attack. It doesn't even use
an action or a bonus action, and we're free to
just use and stack this damage whenever we so choose.
Each first level spell slot turns into two D eight damage,
with an extra one D eight damage for each spell
slot above the first, up to a maximum of five
D eight smite damage or sixty eight smite damage if
(05:51):
the target is undead or a fiend. And then also
gained at second level, we have fighting style, and this
goes a long way towards buffing up your martial ability.
We got some solid options. Defense gives us a flat
plus one AC bonus, which is a lot more impactful
than you might think dueling is the option to take
if we want to go with a one handed weapon
and a shield for plus two damage per swing, and
great weapon fighting lets you reroll damage rolls of one
(06:14):
or two for big two handed weapons. And then once
again at fifth level we've got extra attack, but as
I mentioned, this one doesn't stack with the other, so ooops.
And then at six level you gain the feature of
or of Protection, and this is one of the strongest
defensive buffs in the entire game. You and every friendly
creature within ten feet of you gain a bonus to
all saving throws equal to your charisma modifier. By sticking together,
(06:38):
you can widely improve your party saving throw and survival rate.
Six level is a lot to ask though, and you'll
likely only hit this if dipping into Ranger. And then
we have Sacred Oaths. You gain your first sacred Oath
feature at third level, and the oaths or ability doesn't
kick in until seventh. Depending on what build you go for,
these archetype features may or may not be worth it,
but we'll get into more of that later. And when
(07:00):
it comes to which class you should pick first, starting
with a class level in Paladin versus levels in Ranger
has very similar proficiencies, with a few notable exceptions. When
you start with Ranger, you miss out on heavy armour proficiency,
your saving throws are strength and dexterity, And the starting
with Paladin thing is that you get heavy armour proficiency
and you can start with chain mail and your saving
(07:21):
throws are wisdom and charisma. If you're using medium armor anyway,
then this is really just a choice between two roughly
equal save efficiency options. If, however, you plan on using
heavy armor, then you should absolutely start out as a
paladin first. Now let's talk ability scores, because we probably should.
One of the biggest hurdles for this build is walking
the ability distribution tightrope on four different ability scores. Firstly,
(07:45):
I highly recommend selecting Human as your race, the normal version,
not the variant, because getting plus one to every ability
score is actually like a plus four plus five counting
constitution for our build. By taking Human and using a
point by to get our scores just right, we can
get everything that we need. At our core. We're trying
to be a DPS character, and strength should be our
(08:06):
highest ability score at sixteen. Next, we need to have
at least thirteen dexterity to meet the ranger requirements, but
should go ahead and push that one higher to fourteen
dexterity to take advantage of medium armors over heavy armors. Thankfully,
we really only need to meet the minimum requirements of
both wisdom and charisma since we aren't actually going to
be doing much spell casting. We still have just enough
(08:28):
points to push through wisdom and charisma to fourteen, which
is worthwhile since we already have to push them to
thirteen anyway. That leaves us with just enough points to
get a constitution bonus with twelve constitution. Finally, we just
have the humans base plus one two intelligence, leaving it
as our only real dump stat, and we're not coming
out too shabby with that. On the other end, as
(08:48):
you advance in levels, I recommend spending your ability score
improvement on strength. Despite all of our multi classing, strength
will be our primary damage stat after all. Now let's
talk spell casting. When you have a multi class compon
nation of two different spell casting classes, things can get
a little weird. As you've just created a multi class spellcaster,
your spells known stay completely separate. So if you have
(09:10):
three levels of Paladin and five levels of ranger. You'll
know the same number of paladin spells as a third
level paladin and the same number of ranger spells as
a fifth level ranger. The spell slots, however, combined into
a special multi class spell slots table, which basically counts
half caster levels as a half level and full caster
levels as one level. For our build, both rangers and
(09:31):
paladins count as half casters, so on the table on
screen you'll count half of your total levels rounded down
to determine how many spell slots you have. And now
let's talk ranger equipment. Assuming we're going to take the
route with fourteen dexterity, our best bet is to utilize
medium armour. Ideally we want half plate, but at seven
hundred and fifty gold pieces it can be a bit
pricey early on, and you may need to rely on
(09:54):
scale mail for a level or two. Next. For Divine
Smite to function, we have to use melee weapon attacks,
and while we could go for a big two handed
weapon or two weapon fighting, i'd recommend sword and board
to maximize our ac This means putting a shield in
one hand in any of the other one da damage.
One handed martial weapons such as a battle axe, flail,
(10:14):
long sword, morning Star, warpick or warhammer on the other
and lances are also on the table for a couple
of our builds, so don't leave those behind. Now, let's
get into our Paladin Ranger multi class builds are ranger
lynn we try to combine the words sometimes. I don't
think I'm going to find anything here. There's no one
(10:34):
correct way to play this multi class, or really any
multi class choice, but I do hope you find the
following build ideas at least a little interesting. First, we
have the Dragon Knight, and the goal here is simple,
be a Knight and write your own personal dragon friend
into battle with a lance. Sadly, we can't do this early,
and to set this up, we'll need two levels of
Paladin and seven levels of Ranger, making sure to take
(10:56):
the Drake Warden archetype for our two fighting styles. We
want to go with dual and defense. With defense plus
two dexterity half plate and a shield, we'll be sitting
at a pretty twenty AC. At our third ranger level,
the Drake Warden gets a Drake companion. He starts out small,
but once we get to seven ranger levels, his size
improves to medium, and we're specifically allowed to ride him
(11:16):
as a mount, but sadly, he can't use his flying
speed while doing so. Now, theoretically this process should be simple,
You acquire amount, you ride the mount. Well, sort of
it works like that in this case, thanks to some
very awkward action sequencing, we have to be very particular
in how we do things. In order for our dragon
to use their attacks while we ride them, we have
to get into the subtly strange rules that five has
(11:39):
for mounts. Mounts can either be controlled mounts, which are
very simple to use but can't do a whole lot,
and independent mounts, which can do more but take a
bit more work to use Correctly. For our purposes, we
need to treat our dragon as an independent mount, which
will allow it to still make use of all of
the cool abilities, but we have to be very particular
in how our turns are sequet. The main problem is
(12:01):
that our dragon takes their turn immediately after ours, which
means we're stuck like a bump on a log until
they take their turn and carry us along with them.
The second problem comes from the lance. Lances impose disadvantage
on attacks that are within five feet and expect you
to strike while you are ten feet away. This means
we want to attack after the dragon moves, but before
they finish moving and make their own attacks. The correct
(12:24):
sequences should look like this. On our turn, we hold
our attack action for when the target is within range.
The dragon takes their turn moving towards the enemy, and
once in range, our attack action is triggered and we
make two lance attacks using a divine smite and favored foe.
The dragon then uses their infused strikes reaction to stack
another one D six damage onto one of our lance attacks,
(12:47):
and then the dragon finishes moving another five feet finally
and makes their own bite attack. That was all a
little bit more complicated than it really should be, but
rules is written. That's the way you need to go.
If you go through this correctly using a second level smite,
you get to charge in for an average of fifty
one damage. That's two D twelve plus one D six
plus three D eight plus two D six plus four
(13:09):
plus eight plus two per turn. And for all of
you dms out there, maybe consider making this whole attack
process for them a little bit easier. There's nothing more
of a buzz gill than getting on a dragon and
wanting to do something cool, and then income rules that
don't really do anything for anybody. Like. Don't get me wrong,
I love the concept of independent mounts versus controlled mounts.
(13:30):
I do that kind of thing all the time. But
this sort of attack sequencing is where I think D
and D use your own judgment DMS is all I'm saying.
And then we have Night of the Spike Trap. The
goal of this build is to use the spell Spike
Growth and then slam your opponents into it over and
over as they die into a thousand spike cuts. Good Lord.
(13:53):
Note that for this one we need to make use
of one of critical rules archetypes, so this isn't technically
Base five Y. However, we jump out of that territory
all the time on this show. We also need to
get up to eighth levels to do what we really
want to do with this. To accomplish this goal, we
need three levels of Paladin selecting the Oath of the
Open Sea, and at least five levels in Rangers selecting
(14:14):
the swarm Keeper archetype. For our two fighting styles, we
once again want to take dueling and defense using a
shield in any of the D eight marshal one handed
weapons will still let us deal decent damage while rocking
an armoor class of twenty. Unlike the other builds, I
recommend spending at least one of your acis on increasing
your wisdom, since we're relying heavily on a ranger spell
(14:35):
and ability that uses the ranger spell save DC at
the beginning of combat, we want to cast the spell's
Spike Growth and try to catch as many of the
enemies in it as possible. It covers a surprisingly large
twenty foot radius with difficult terrain, and for every five
feet a creature travels in it, they take two D
four damage. Two D four may not sound like a lot,
but we're going to stack that up on top of
(14:57):
all sorts of other things and methods. Firstly, as a
s warm Keeper, we get a swarm of nature spirits,
which should be flavored however you like. I like to
go with bees because bees are my family animal, and
that lets us apply an effect to an attack once
per turn. One of those abilities forces a strength save,
and on a failed save, you can move them up
to fifteen feet, which can conveniently be right back through
(15:18):
that spike Growth patch for a total of six D
four damage. Next, thanks to the Oath of the Open Sea,
we get the Channel Divinity option Fury of the Tides
that we can activate for a minute using a bonus action.
While it's active once per turn. When we hit with
a melee attack, we can push the target up to
ten feet away from you without a save of any kind,
and if that's into our spike growth, that's another four
(15:39):
D four damage. Because the swarm keeper movement is in
any direction rather than just a way. When we combine
these effects, we can throw them back using the Fury
of the Tides, then swerve them back into the same
spike growth area using our swarm. Assuming you can stand
at the edge of your spike growth and swing, you'll
be able to move your target for twenty five feet
through your spikes. Adding in favored foe and smite, you'll
(16:01):
be doing an average of fifty two damage. That's two
D eight plus six plus two D eight plus one
D four plus ten DY four every round. I mean
the night with the spikes, it's it's it's very brutal,
kind of feels more like an elden ring boss than
a thing a character would play. So I guess in
that sense maybe it does feel like a D and
D character. Thank you guys so much for watching. I
(16:22):
really appreciate it. Be sure to like and subscribe. We're
putting out new content all the time. Go see what
we're up to over on skullsplitterdice dot com. And if
you plan on making one of these multi classes, I
would really be curious why a Paladin ranger speaks to you,
and please let me know down in the comments. My
name is Patrick Ferguson from skull splitter Dice and until
next time, farewell
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com