Errata: Tired brain was adding Sacred weapon to the damage instead of the +to hit :). The result, of course, means slightly lower damage at lower enemy ACs and slightly better damage at mid and higher ACs - most importantly, it means the AC at which we turn "off" Great Weapon Master is higher. I have updated the spreadsheets and graphs to reflect actual numbers!
Paladin + barbarian rage (works/looks way better with Zealot) = holy/divine wrath. You don't loose control. You become a direct conduit of your god's wrath, ceding some control to a holy spirit or something.. "Only God can judge you, and will do so starting NOW!"
Yo there is a reason he tries to get people to join the channel in order to get the cheat sheets. He could put this in the description if he wanted to.
@@carsonlake3842 when Colby 1st started offering that. I asked him if he wanted me to stop. He stated it was fine. I also responded to that comment telling him that changes to let me know. We communicate on Twitter about once every 3 or 4 months & I would hope he would tell me if he thought it was hampering him in any way. Have a great day.
Hey Colby. I believe the sacred weapon channel divinity actually adds + to hit, not + damage. It’s still a dpt boost, but a different flavor. Would make a big difference for when to turn on/off GWM.
I love doing DPR calculations through Desmos. By mid-day I can get both of them on a graph so we can see what’s up. Usually, bonus to Attack rolls is significantly stronger.
Yeah, great weapon fighting is really a let down. With a d10 weapon, it's actually only 0.8 added to weapon damage on average. Fun fact (that's still probably a bad choice) if you use Sacred Weapon, you could actually use Elven Accuracy on an elf character with your Halberd since your attack would use both Str and Cha. It would be the only way to combine something like Reckless Attack and Elven Accuracy
The energy of this is so opposite of nearly everything else I watch. I think I come here to get a dose of that serenity as much as to stretch my mind about cool builds. Thank you.
At level 8: Given that you have Aura of Protection, giving you an automatic +3 to all your saves, advantage on DEX saves might actually be enough to save you, at least occasionally
@@benjaminwalker9369 advantage basically is +5.5 to roll so total is lime +8.5 added to a 10.5 d20 average means you are looking at the average roll of 19
For forgotten realms based campaigns your deity options are pretty awesome as the deities have tons of great backstories and ways they work as gods. Sure, you can play a paladin with no devotion to a deity, but its fun playing one that has a cool bro of a deity backing you up and giving you a ton to work with as a character. It's sad to see so many people not wanting to play paladins because of their link to religion when- D&D religions are so varied and interesting. "So, it's Sunday, dont you have to go somewhere Paladin?" "What?" "It's SUNDAY" "Yes, yes it is." "Then don't you need to go?" "Huh? Ohh! You mean to worship! Nah, I am a paladin of Chauntea. As worship I must eat of the food of the area and support the local farmers. I must also bring vengeance against any that would dare burn the crops and stand up for the people of the land." "That's it? That's- easy and kinda something you would do anyways-" "Yeah, except now I get divine power to help do it!"
I am not religious myself but love playing religious characters in game. I always used to think in dnd divine magic came from the deities of the setting so it was weird finding out paladins don't need to be religious when I returned to the game in 5e
I like the concept, it fulfills the party requirement of a paladin. Re find steed: Once a collective of games found the deck of many things and pulled the moon after a reroll result. She wished for "Mass Find Greater Steed" on a separate game playing Lost Mine of Phandelver. It was a huge amount of fun, although the steeds could only be summoned that once and couldn't easily go into dungeons.
The last two days I've been working on a Zealot barbarian/paladin multiclass character for a campaign I'm in. It's like you read my mind and showed me how to make it even better!
I think you're missing a big opportunity once you get your Steed, as any spell that targets yourself is also cast on your steed, so being able to essentially Twin Cast Spirit Shroud may be able to really bring up DPR with the Griffon and yourself benefiting.
I'd love to see your take on some of the notoriously garbage subclasses (looking at you battlerager, four elements monk and purple dragon knight) and trying to optimize on them.
I would love this, have just started a 4 elements monk, so far have taken CL with fey touched and aberant dragon mark and building for utility. I couldn't see a way that i could build sustained damage, or burst damge that was worth it.
I think prioritizing your ASI into Charisma over your Strength is better on most every paladin, particularly this one. Aura of Protection is your most important contribution to your party, you have on-demand Advantage so you can still be successful with a lower attack, Charisma adds to your attack bonus with Sacred Weapon (If you manage to use it), and in actual play you can get STR items like Gauntlets of Ogre Power/Belts of Giant Strength. I realize you need to keep the builds item agnostic but GoOP are only an uncommon item and in T3/T4 the Giant belts go from 21 to 29str which would leave your STR ASI wasted.
I love the arching story of thos character. The repressed anger finally breaking forth, and then the evolution where they get more in control of their rage and learn to use it, as well as learn to accept their anger and rage as a part of them. Excellent story and a great roleplay arch!
At low levels: First turn: activate Sacred Weapon, and cast Divine Favor (/Magic Weapon) as a bonus action Second turn and beyond: unleash with 3 GWM attacks
I'm quite new to dnd and these videos are the perfect way to get a better understanding of the strengths of each class while being entertaining, thank you so much.
I think you can achieve similar results by just going full paladin and picking up spirit shroud or crusaders mantle. And then at 17th level pick up holy weapon. And I don’t think advantage is necessary because when you went barbarian you would already have a +13 to hit I think with maxed out strength and charisma Update: my brother ran me through a gauntlet where I played as this character at level 11 where he threw me up against various monsters from level 11 onwards. I gotta say I did pretty decent considering I was alone. Beat the CR 11 guy and almost beat the CR 12 guy. Only downside is it takes a few rounds to get everything up but I will definitely play him in my next campaign I’m in!
At the time of this post there's a DND special on Amazon. I clicked the channel's affiliate link, the DND books in Cody's library have a "Buy 3 for the price of 2" banner beneath the item. The items are discounted 40 off of list price to begin with. I got the DMG, Icewind Dale and Monsters of the Multiverse books for a grand total of $57 while supporting the channel.
I did think you'd pop to Bard after the Barbarian run. If you did, you could potentially be 6 Bard / 8 Pally and that's a 10th level caster. You'd get 5th level spell slots and 4 extra spells for smiting / casting. Throw on College of Whispers and now we've got 3d6 4/short rest? I love the build. I think you can go either way with Bard vs Pally at the end. I do like having a rage and a smite button for the Pally. Did we crit? SMITE! Are we fighting the big bad? RAGE!!!! Are we out of combat? Oh... utility and healing spells. I love how it has potential to Nova, but is simmering the entire time. It's like the Incredible Hulk of sustained builds. 'You won't like me when I'm angry'
I have a player who has a steed with the Find Steed spell as a subclass feature from their homebrew subclass (The Highway Rider Rogue from the Grim Hollow books for those wondering). I have ruled that the wording "Your steed serves you as a mount, both in combat and out, and you have an instinctive bond with it that allows you to fight as a ***Seamless Unit***" allows the player and mount to sorta share a turn. Basically they share initiative, and while mounted they share movespeed, but the steeds actions will always come after the player takes their actions. While not mounted the steed just takes its turn immediately after the player. Also the player controlls the mount at all times except for when they are unconcious.
there is so many easier way to get free advantage other than barbarian. Personally, I love fog cloud with fighting style blind fighting. You can grab fog cloud magic initiate from the PhB. Sure like with darkness/devil sight, it requires your party to adapt to it (also grab fighting style blind fighting and the range character are screwed since blind fighting is only 10ft) but with a single feat, you gain advantage against more enemies then darkness allows, a creature with devil sight do not see through it, it's a spell level 1 compared to level 2 for darkness and the strategie can be upgraded to cloudkill (if you gain immunity to poison somehow) or incendiary cloud (with immunity to fire) still work in magical darkness with an eversmoking bottle you can do the same thing without requiring concentration, and is less threatening then asking a +1 weapon
Will remind you that you normally are playing in a party and the wizard that can't cast half their spells because they have to see the target will be a bit ignored at you. And even if advantage and disadvantage can sell out you still have to know where to attack so the rest of you party is just wobbling around trying to find the enemy felling like shit for not being effektiv.
a different route you could take for a little less damage and a bit more toughness would be not ditching your plate armor and going bear totem instead, since the restriction on heavy armor is never mentioned in the feature, you simply have resistance to all damage aside from psychic while raging.
That's an interesting idea. You lose most of the rage bonuses while in heavy armor but there is no phrasing that prevents you from raging in heavy armor.
@@OyBoy413 if you ask me, on certain multiclass tank builds it can be very worth it. +4 damage per round (or +6 if PAM) and advantage on str checks and saving throws can be worthwhile sacrifice to wear plate and have resistance to all damage except psychic
When I DM, find steed works like this. This generally gives the player the most options and fantasy without leaving it open for weird abuse. When Mounted: The initiative of a controlled mount changes to match yours when you mount it. It moves as you direct it, in place of your normal movement, and it has only three action options: Dash, Disengage, and Dodge. A controlled mount can move and act even on the turn that you mount it. A controlled mount forgoes its action for the round in the event that the rider has dismounted or been knocked off. When dismounted: When not being ridden, the steed acts as an independent creature. An independent mount retains its place in the initiative order and can make its own movement and attacks. Due to the steed's "long-lasting", "instinctive", and "loyal" nature toward you, the steed will generally attempt to follow your basic orders and ordinarily act in your defense. However, due to the steed's "unusually intelligent" nature, unridden you may make "no restrictions on the actions the mount can take, and it moves and acts as it wishes." Complex, conflicting, or unintuitive orders may require an Animal Handling check to be imposed by the DM.
Hey, I really loved the video. Barbarian/ Paladin is so fun to play! Another fun way I have been thinking to play Devotion Paladin is multi-classing with Sorcerer and picking up quicken spell for Bless. 1 prep round to cast Bless and activate Sacred Weapon, and then we are off to the races! I guess both would just make this character insanely fun to play. Very different flavors for each, but that's what makes D&D characters so fun to build!😁
Colby, love your videos. So informative and so soothing. I love the 'zen' that you bring to the web. I am currently playing a similar character: Zealot Barbarian 4/Fighter 6/Pally 3 currently. PAM, GWM, GW fighting style, +1 Voulge, and my DM allowed me to take UA Brute subclass for my fighter. So, at lvl 13, with Reckless Attack, and Action Surge, I am making the following 5 attacks: (1d10+18+1d4) + (1d10+18+1d4) + (1d4+18+1d4) + (1d10+18+1d4) + (1d10+18+1d4) + (1d6+2 zealot dmg) AND I have a 50% chance that one of those will be a crit, which means I will then drop another 2d8-4d8 smite damage AND if I crit or kill, one of those butt end 1d4 attacks becomes a 1d10. Needless to say, I am loving it.
Very Interesting build, as always you do good work. I usually go more magic based my self, 8 Bladesinger/8 Divine Soul/4 any Paladin, but I do like the idea of a naturally hearty Paladin. Plus the Sacred Weapon/Find Greater Steed combo is an awesome way to enhance the vaunted Polearm Master/Great Weapon Master combo. Great video as always.
I don't believe many people are aware of the Dragonnel being an option for "Find Greater Stead". Its found on page 190 in Fizban's. While it only has 60ft of flight vs the 80ft a griffon may have, it still has a multi attack for 2d6+3, but where I find it shines is it has "Flyby". Could flavor the zealotry towards Bahamut, and though your Furor and devotion, You have been blessed with a Draconic steed. Great video as always!
I just stumbled across this video while looking for D&D videos, and wow! I really like the vibe & flow of the video and the character building. It really gets me in the mood to build out more characters! Thanks for putting this Holy Warrior together!
Chiming in as a DM about your mounted combat ruling question. At all the tables I play at, your mount is either a controlled mount or it is independent. Those are the only two options and they do not intertwine. If you have control over the mount (as in find steed), it is a controlled mount and cannot attack while you are riding it. Sometimes in your builds, you've wanted it to act on your turn (as if a controlled mount) and make attacks while riding it (as if it were uncontrolled). Those are from two separate rules, they shouldn't mix. Uncontrolled mounts are relatively rare and almost always intelligent (if they are useful, anyway). You make an alliance with a dragon and it allows you to ride it into a battle that it wants to participate in. You trick a gynosphinx into helping you raid a tomb and it lets you mount it. These are independent creatures with their own motivations. Your summoned warhorse isn't that. He's (by rule) under your control. He's a controlled mount. Use those rules. They are very clear. For my absolute love of your videos, your frequently stated confusion on this baffles me. The rules are very clear and pretty well written. You just want them to allow something they don't. That's not confusion, that's disappointment. :)
Hey Colby, thanks for this awesome video. I, as a dm, give the pally player in our group full control and freedom over the actions is summoned warhorse can do. Stay save and have a nice day 👋
Colby, I have conceived exactly this build a few months back, even discussed it with @RobVera in these comments. I love to see that we are thinking along the same lines! My only differences was to start Barb then go Pally, and to use a spear/shield rather than a GWM & 2H weapon, but I was picturing a Spartan like character or even Pantheon from League of Legends, and less on maxing out the numbers. Besides the tradeoff of damage for defense, without having to take GWM you can max your STR sooner, and should allow you to max your CHA. But if we aren't worried about maxing ASI's, then we can pick up some other feats to round out the character, like Shield Master and Piercer
never heard a truer comment than at the beginning of this video, we're just playing a role. I can't speak for anyone else as always to each their own. I tend to always look forward to the chance to play a character that in no way lines up with any real world views I possess.
Note: If your DM allows you, dragonnel from Fizban's is an option for find greater steed. It is probably the best option in my opinion, but just my opinion
A small correction to Divine Fury that my zealot really appreciates: it triggers on *all* weapon attacks, not just melee. So even when you are forced to attack from range, you get the extra 1d6+X damage.
Throwing this out there for the spear; you can wear a shield with it. If you wanna give up GWM for shield master (+shield bonus to certain dex saves) which really hurts the dpr, but you can lessen the need for Dex for saves significantly considering a simple +1 shield translates into a +3 Dex save bonus for a bunch of Dex save stuff, plus a shove and bash, and with less ASI towards Dex, you can grab sentinel or mage slayer giving you more opats and therefore more chances to crit and therefore smite, which may lessen the real world dpr loss (since white rooming doesn't assume reaction attacks) plus add some excellent control (opat reduces speed to 0, ignore disengage, etc.). You'd get opats from creatures entering 5', moving within 5', casting within 5', and leaving 5', still have your butt attack, a push, and shield bash for bonus actions. I mean your dpr drops a lot without the power attack, but it is a consideration. With the focus on dpr though, I think you made the correct decision. Paladin is great for single-class builds, and smite is one of those amazing clutch abilities for big in game moments.
The Paladin is easily one of my favourite classes to play. Just started playing one recently so can’t wait to dive into this video for some inspiration.
oh on trampling charge fun fact the bonus action attack is actually not triggered by the target failing the saving throw to be knocked prone. it just says "if the target is prone" which means if the target was prone before attacking you get the bonus action attack saving throw or not.
Interesting video, as always! I was thinking about same character concept myself, and checking PHB (at least in translation to my language) I actually read that Oath of Devotion paladin using Sacred Weapon variant of Channel Divinity gains bonus not to damage rolls, but to attack rolls, thus being equal (or even better later on) to Bless (unfortunately only for yourself). But most important part, it doesn't require concentration, so you can combine it with some other good spells, that you can cast as a bonus action. Like Divine Favor. It is not the strongest concentration spells paladin have access to, but it is quite good in our scenario. Yes, we spend one turn preparing, using both our main and bonus actions. But we gain on other turns massive bonus to hit and additional d4 to all damage rolls, including butt-attack. Until lvl 5, in my calculations, this combo will deal same damage, as if we were just doing all attacks starting round 1, at round 2 (almost, we missing approximately 1 damage on average) and overcome in damage later on. And this is without including bonus to hit.
And I even checked DnD Beyond, and yes, Devotion Oath paladins with sacred weapon gain bonus to attack rolls, this feature better and more consistent then Bless in terms of your solo performance on the battlefield.
About mounted combat: I think a controlled mount would not be able to attack and an independent mount would. A controlled mount would move and act during the rider's turn and an independent mount would get its own initiative which means movement problems for the melee paladin on the rider's turn. So if you want it to attack it's better if you just don't mount it unless there is a really good spell you want to share with it. Sacred Weapon's bonus to hit justifies its action cost as to hit bonus is often more important than damage. But since it's not a spell you can combo it with bonus action spells like Shield of Faith or Sanctuary, both of which you can share with your steed.
What's kind of funny about this build is Joe Manganiello, who had guest starred on Critical Role, had a paladin/barbarian who had 1 vs. 5'd a death knight and minions. Even Matt Mercer was shocked at how strong of a combination that multiclass worked, and that was with the old red dragonborn from the PHB, not even the Fizban's version. Shows just how effective this combo was back then. With more options available these days, it's even more so.
Very good video! But I think that the Devotion Paladin's Sacred Weapon increases your attacks rolls instead of damage rolls, which imo is even better given that you're using -5/+10 of Great Weapon Master
I had a character who was a cavalier for about six levels and was definitely a leader in the party, especially in combat. She was fearless and righteous. Then she was captured, strapped to a sacrificial altar and nearly raped by the spirit form of Yog-Sothoth. At that point and for quite a while thereafter, let's call it at least one level, she absolutely lost her cool! I can definitely see being a paladin up to this point and then becoming an enraged vengeful or overzealous barbarian for some levels. Great build!
9:22 Hell yeah. Really broadens your own perspectives and understandings of the people who do believe it. I don't myself, but 100% agree with this take here.
Hey Colby, was wondering if you've given thought to the idea of taking the mounted combatant feat instead of barbarian levels. It won't really come online until you get the gryphon at 13th level or if you're fighting small creatures all of the time, but it does read: While you are mounted and aren't incapacitated, you gain the following benefits: You have advantage on melee attack rolls against any unmounted creature that is smaller than your mount. You can force an attack targeted at your mount to target you instead. If your mount is subjected to an effect that allows it to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, it instead takes no damage if it succeeds on the saving throw, and only half damage if it fails. If you *could* somehow get a Large mount earlier and won't miss the mount's damage per round, it could be a good way to make use of an under-utilized feat. Could also gimmick it and have a party member enlarge your summoned steed every combat, but that might be asking a but much :)
So you would be in favor of taking either fairy or duergar for their enlarge spell? I mean advantage on all attacks (mount or mounted player as long as they become large or larger) and an extra d4 on attacks isn't the worst thing to concentrate on.
@@JugglingAddict It should work I would imagine. Hadn't though of using the racial enlarge but it does make sense. Only issue would be giving up the juicy ASI at 4th level for it since custom lineage doesn't work
On the aura of devotion, I played a devotion paladin in my Curse of Strahd game and giving immunity to charm just straight up removed one of a vampire's most powerful abilities to turn your allies against you
A cool alternative to a griffon is a dragonnel from fizbans. The stat block says paladins can summon them with find greater steed and the only real difference in stats from a griffon is 60ft fly speed instead of 80, however they get the flyby feature instead of keen sight. if you ride it with the independent rules you can fly in fly out with no opportunity attacks
Find steed at the table I used to run as a DM was treated as what The 5E Beast Master Should've been at launch: The beast gets its own turn, directly after the player, in which it can take the basic actions (Attack, Dodge, Hide - though unlikely that one will work- help (I would allow this action before the player Characters attack), disengage, and dash). Depending on the Steed, they follow the appropriate stat blocks according to The PHB, DMs Guide, or the book they are most relevant relevantly mentioned in (for example Drakewarden Ranger being in Fizbans even though that's technically not a part of the find steed spell it is still a mount.) The player can also move on the creatures turn when mounted equal to the movement speed of the creature. If the creature takes no actions directly they will assume the Dodge action.
Don’t forget that you can still use Reckless Attack in heavy armour, so if you wanted to use Bless instead of raging, you could wear plate and only take two levels of Barbarian.
My friend had a charcter with a split personality, Chrono was a LG Paladin, the other personality was Bain a CE Fighter, odds are the personality stays the same but he Rerolls, everytime he wakes up from sleep or 0 HP, or high emotions, or the DM says roll for shift.
A little late on watching the video, but it was a good one as usual. Multiclassing barbarian with a spellcaster always seems counterintuitive, but the smites can be used during rage because they don’t count as spells, so that’s pretty cool. Along the same lines as this, I was recently trying to think up a strength-based drakewarden ranger so that the character could ride a dragon and use a lance, but I kinda struggled to find the best balance for it to work. Eventually, I remembered the reckless attack feature and realized that it would work wonders for it. Since you also need dex for rangers anyway, that helps making use of your unarmored defense too. Only issue is that you can’t concentrate on something like hunter’s mark or favored foe if you rage, so that kinda sucks. I know you already did a drakewarden video, but I feel like this build could be optimized pretty well. I envisioned 15 levels of drakewarden for the drake to be large-sized and be allowed to fly while you mount, along with a 2-level barbarian dip for reckless attack to help with the lance attacks. There might be something else that I’m missing that could be better, but this still seems like it could work.
there's actually a way to make a "sustainable smiter." i'd consider these factors: 1. how long is combat typically at your table and how many combats do you have per day? most tables have 3-4 rounds of combat so that means 3-4 spell slots need to be allocated for smites to be sustainable. most tables also have typically 3-4 combats per day so that means you need around 9-16 spell slots to make it sustainable. 2. just dipping paladin 3-4 for divine smite then adding more caster levels helps speed up the spell slot progression. this also means we dont' want extra attack early on as that'll burn our spell slots twice as fast by smiting on each attack if both hits. going the booming blade route is better for this purpose. channel divinity will generally be used to recover spell slots. 3. dipping hexblade isn't just good for the cast/atk aligning but also for more smite slots. we need more slots, not necessarily high level slots. going to at least hexblade 2 gives you 2 pact slots per short rest. 4. to give us more slots, i'd suggest sorc as the caster class so you can convert sorc points into slots in a pinch. so level 10 theorycraft as always but i wont go into much detail, just the essentials: "sustained smiter" divine sorc 5, pal 3 (any subclass), hexblade 2 custom lineage: feytouched-hex asi: crusher smiting resources: 5 sorc points, 2 level 1 pact slots, 1 harness divine power level 2 slot, 4 level 1 spell slots, 3 level 2 spells slots, 3 level 3 spell slots. total=13 slots + 5 sorc points assuming 1 short rest: 16 slots + 5 sorc points assuming 2 short rests: 19 slots + 5 sorc points so this means if you have about 4 rounds of combat on average and 4 combats per day with 1 short rest, you can smite on EVERY attack. with 2 short rests, you can even sustain for 5 rounds of combat. the typical action sequence would be: bonus action: hexblade's curse/move hex action: booming blade crusher dmg report per round: 1d8 (warhammer) + 4 (cha) + 1d6 (hex) + 1d8 (booming blade) + 2d8-4d8 (divine smite) + 2 (dueling)= 27.5-36.5 sustained. add an additional 9 if the target moves. of course at latter levels once we have an excess amount of spell slots we can go back into paladin for extra attack (ditch booming blade), aura of protection, find steed and the 2nd use of harness divine power at 7.
21:33 True, it does take your action. And IF you have to wait to be in combat to use it, that is a con. But often times DM's will allow you to do something right before combat initiates, especially if they know your character is looking for those opportunities. Using Sacred Weapon is probably a DPR LOSS until you get GWM. So essentially for all of level 3 play (assuming you take GWM at level 4,) you would just use channel divinity to recover a spell slot or Turn Unholy. Alternatively...IF multiclassed with Sorcerer, one could Quicken Spell Bless the same turn, to stack the buffs. Making subsequent turns highly effective. Given the video title, I'm predicting a Divine Soul Multi-class. Everyone agrees Bless is really good, but statistically a static +3 to hit is better than 1d4, AND Sacred Weapon scales with charisma AND it doesn't take concentration. If you're willing to spend an action in combat to cast bless, spending the same action to use Sacred Weapon is more beneficial to your "White Room" DPR calculations. I know bless buffs 2 other players AND gives a bonus to saves, but for DPR calculations of the paladin itself Sacred Weapon is better assuming at least 16 Cha. 32:00 I don't like mixing Barbarian and Paladin. You claim bless is fantastic, and it is, but one cannot rage AND concentrate. Granted reckless attacks do not require you to rage, but I don't think advantage via reckless attacks is nearly as valuable while not raging. Additionally your 10 dexterity massively diminishes the value of Danger Sense. I get that you're probably going Zealot at this point.. which could be fun thematically, I just find it mechanically anti-synergistic. 34:00 Wow... yea no. I forgot you can't even rage in heavy armor. Dude this is bad news. Just wear the heavy armor and don't rage. Also note for all your damage calculations while raging you probably won't be able to benefit from any bless. At least not in the self calculations. I'm not precisely sure how the math would shake out, but if Chris (Treantmonk) is willing to put plate armor on a monk, and give up what a monk looses JUST for the AC of full plate.. you should probably consider of Rage is even worth it. I would contest that it is in fact NOT worth. 39:00 No Colby... it's not a perfect fit. At best it's a thematic fit. At worst, it's a mechanical travesty of a multiclass choice that neuters your character. I love your content, but this isn't one of your better builds IMO. 45:00 You say there's nothing better... but Hexblade + Oathbreaker is objectively better. More Damage, More AC, Less MAD. I get it doesn't fulfill the premise of the video, but... better is better. I think it might be worth considering an aggregate score of DPR and RTD to determine Tire Score. Because if your character is a Barbarian + Paladin, but you lack the traditional staying power of either class... you will probably go down when targeted. At which point... is your DPR REALLY sustained? Just my 2 cents. I don't feel like this build would be able to fulfill the role of a front liner. I think a straight paladin or a straight barbarian with reasonable attribute distribution would out perform this build in terms of survivability. Damage IS very useful, but running medium armor with +0 dex, means you have AC on par with a rogue or wizard (without mage armor). Relying on rage in combat means you sacrifice ANY benefits of having spell casting. I get the thematic element... but flavor is free. The main reason to multiclass is for mechanical advantage. And I just feel like this build shoots itself in the foot at every turn. If instead of going zealot, you had gone divine soul... this build would have been WAY stronger overall. 7 levels of Paladin allows for 13 levels of something else. And NOTHING buffs paladin as much as a charisma based full caster that gets access to Spirit Guardians. And I would say.. that a Divine Soul MC would be as much or more thematically "Holy Warrior" than a Zealot multicalss, AND works better mechanically.
I am playing one of these builds in my current game and I'm loving the character. Bless + Aura is a crazy combo (+6 to +9 on all saves with my 20 CHA).
As far as find steed goes, our DM makes mounted combat simple for it. Take note this is house rules and not RAW: "the steed acts during your turn and follows all your commands." this has solved mounted combat for us and has made it fun/seamless. now when i DM (and you know i;m a stickler for RAW and RAI), the player at their turn can declare whether the steed is a controlled mount or independent mount. if controlled: the steed can only take dash, disengage and dodge actions but can act during the player's turn. it's initiative matches the player's. if independent: the steed can take any actions commanded by the player but acts after the player's turn or before the players turn but not during.
"Intelligent creatures act independently." (PHB 198) and Find Steed fixes Int to be sufficient to communicate/think, so i think the simple thing is both since the 2 types of mount use having no requirements of how/when its chosen or restriction that it cant be swapped between. And from fellow forever map and monster man side, everyone else that is sane seems to apply "shared initiative/can splice your turns when you aint attacking/doint anything with the mount that isnt mout-based; if creature that is a mount does/you want it to do anything other than dash/dodge/disengage, its entire turn is before or after you act" skipping both clumsy combat desynch of high initiative mount vs low initiative rider, clutter in initiative and problems with (in case of non-npc mounts with int above 3~4) what can be done. Thats actually how i run all pets/creatures that arent just random animals in bags the group picked up (or in a old converted case, literally rabid disease packet wildlife used as corpse offerings after being fuel for greater cleave while also having a sheer chance of maybe attacking the enemy; it was still a technically good aligned party dont ask) or summoned via concentration spell; be it familiars, beast companion, mounts, undead thralls, etc.
Love it! Great damage and utility Build idea: a character who concentrates on a spell, like Bless or what have you, then plays keep-away with polearm master and sentinel so enemies cant break your concentration
So, I spotted some Night Angel Trilogy on the shelf and now the back of my brain is trying to figure out how to build Durzo. I'm assuming you've already completed it. :) Regarding this week's build, I absolutely love the flavor here, as well as the simplicity of the action. Difficult to drop, impossible to keep down, and a literal holy terror in melee. I'll take two. Question for the fans: Anyone ever play something like this in a "Lawful-Good-Is-Not-Lawful-Nice" way? Like sacrificing defeated foes' hearts to Ra so he can remain strong enough to defeat Apophis and keep the lands from descending into eternal darkness and chaos.
Little late to the party but I do enjoy a good Barbaladin build. One potential alteration I wanna mention for people who are okay losing a little damage for defensive purposes. If you went Bear Totem instead of Zealot, you could benefit from the damage resistance while still in plate armor. You would lose the rage damage bump and the Zealot's divine fury, but would otherwise be a lot more durable. But I know we're here to push the numbers ;)
This video made me think of a build I want to call "The Summer Knight" involving Devotion Paladin 4 (to get dueling, smites, and sacred weapon) / Glamour Bard 6 (to get Mantle of Majesty to bonus action command kneel enemies and rp value from bard) / Wild Magic Sorcerer 4 (for a couple sorcery points and twinned spell and invoking advantage with tides of chaos and wild magic fun) / Bladesinger Wizard 6 (for obvious bladesong and special extra attack reasons) all on a Half-Elf with Elven Accuracy and Piercer. Could be a little mad but with some good rolls, sounds like a ton of fun!
I think you get even more consistent dps, with even more versatility and burst when needed if you go oathbreaker 7/hexblade 13 (8/12 if you feel the need for extra asi). Go half elf, gwm, pam, elven accuracy and then put everything into charisma and con. Pick up lifedrinker, use darkness/devil sight, then shadow of moil and use eldritch smite for prone as well. Can also have ranged versatility of eb as well as higher spells and interesting stuff with invocations. At 19 or 20 depending on how you split you’ll be doing 2d10 + 1d4 + 103 from gwm, pam, hexblades curse, and lifedrinker. This isn’t counting any smites or anything, and with the warlock spells you could use something like hex, or a summoning to make up for the steed. Theres just no downsides. I’ve been using it for a character and they are the most powerful character I’ve ever played.
Comments aren’t loading so others may have brought this up already, if so, sorry for redundancy. Sacred Weapon only increases to-hit chance, not damage. Better than damage since missing means 0 damage.
Everytime I watch one of your videos, I say to myself. "God I love having Homelander tell me DnD stuff". Also, I love your videos! Please keep making awesome stuff, and I'll keep watching.
Thoughts on a dagger wizard? Like an animate object caster, with rogue levels. Animate some good daggers, while also applying sneak attack, themselves.
You don't have to rage in order to attack recklessly. So you can concentrate on bless and use reckless for advantage at the same time. Giving you a really good to hit chance.
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Errata: Tired brain was adding Sacred weapon to the damage instead of the +to hit :). The result, of course, means slightly lower damage at lower enemy ACs and slightly better damage at mid and higher ACs - most importantly, it means the AC at which we turn "off" Great Weapon Master is higher. I have updated the spreadsheets and graphs to reflect actual numbers!
Good catch, I was about to say!
Ok. Now we need a shadowblade sorcadin...
Haven't watched you in awhile but I saw the title and was super excited. Thank you so much!
this made me realizing I’ve been doing this ability wrong in a game at home 😥
"The all-mighty has permitted me to see another dawn, and I'm about to make it everyone's problem" - Holy Warrior
I love this!
Got damn. Hell yeah
Well, I just found my next characters motto lol
Paladin + barbarian rage (works/looks way better with Zealot) = holy/divine wrath. You don't loose control. You become a direct conduit of your god's wrath, ceding some control to a holy spirit or something..
"Only God can judge you, and will do so starting NOW!"
Level 1:(see above) [paladin 1 & race]
Level 2:(see above) [paladin 2 & fighting-style]
Level 3:(@17:49) [paladin 3 & sub-class]
Level 4:(@22:48) [paladin 4 & ASI]
Level 5:(@24:17) [paladin 5]
Level 6:(@27:36) [paladin 6]
Level 7:(see above) [barbarian 1]
Level 8:(@35:48) [barbarian 2]
Level 9:(@37:20) [barbarian 3 & sub-class]
Level 10:(see above) [barbarian 4 & ASI]
Level 11:(@42:25) [paladin 7]
Level 12:(@43:00) [paladin 8 & ASI]
Level 13:(@43:09) [paladin 9]
Level 14:(see above) [paladin 10]
Level 15:(@46:25) [paladin 11]
Level 16:(@46:51) [paladin 12 & ASI]
Level 17:(@47:24) [paladin 13]
For all the pious zeal of this character, it is you, here in the comments, doing god's work.
Yo there is a reason he tries to get people to join the channel in order to get the cheat sheets. He could put this in the description if he wanted to.
@@carsonlake3842 when Colby 1st started offering that. I asked him if he wanted me to stop. He stated it was fine. I also responded to that comment telling him that changes to let me know. We communicate on Twitter about once every 3 or 4 months & I would hope he would tell me if he thought it was hampering him in any way. Have a great day.
@@BLynn okay awesome 👌 just trying to look out for him
Nível 10:(42:21) [bárbaro 4 & ASI] ele pediu para você parar de postar esses comentários?
Hey Colby. I believe the sacred weapon channel divinity actually adds + to hit, not + damage. It’s still a dpt boost, but a different flavor. Would make a big difference for when to turn on/off GWM.
I love doing DPR calculations through Desmos. By mid-day I can get both of them on a graph so we can see what’s up. Usually, bonus to Attack rolls is significantly stronger.
That is correct
Truth! I misspoke. Will pin a comment.
@@DnDDeepDive Love your content! Keep it up! :)
I used to think it did both and was a bonus action
Yeah, great weapon fighting is really a let down. With a d10 weapon, it's actually only 0.8 added to weapon damage on average. Fun fact (that's still probably a bad choice) if you use Sacred Weapon, you could actually use Elven Accuracy on an elf character with your Halberd since your attack would use both Str and Cha. It would be the only way to combine something like Reckless Attack and Elven Accuracy
Chris you just blew my mind......again!!!!
Ooo... never considered Sacred Weapon + EA - nice!
@@muskrat7444 I pointed that out on his video
Not saying I made him aware of it, but I have seen him mentioning it afterwards.
I think treantmonk just thought of a new way to break the game. Can we see a video on this?
@@jimmyreinstein9993 Hardly game breaking because it's once a short rest and requires a feat
The energy of this is so opposite of nearly everything else I watch. I think I come here to get a dose of that serenity as much as to stretch my mind about cool builds.
Thank you.
Come for that buttery voice. Stay of the dnd knowledge 😁
At level 8: Given that you have Aura of Protection, giving you an automatic +3 to all your saves, advantage on DEX saves might actually be enough to save you, at least occasionally
yeah +3 with advantage is actually quiet good
@@benjaminwalker9369 advantage basically is +5.5 to roll so total is lime +8.5 added to a 10.5 d20 average means you are looking at the average roll of 19
@@Javawocky92 with +3 and advantage you’ll roll at least a 19 about 44% of the time. So your estimation pretty much checks out.
One of the cool things about oathbreaker is that your steed also benefits from the extra damage because you can choose the fiend creature type for it.
For forgotten realms based campaigns your deity options are pretty awesome as the deities have tons of great backstories and ways they work as gods. Sure, you can play a paladin with no devotion to a deity, but its fun playing one that has a cool bro of a deity backing you up and giving you a ton to work with as a character. It's sad to see so many people not wanting to play paladins because of their link to religion when- D&D religions are so varied and interesting. "So, it's Sunday, dont you have to go somewhere Paladin?" "What?" "It's SUNDAY" "Yes, yes it is." "Then don't you need to go?" "Huh? Ohh! You mean to worship! Nah, I am a paladin of Chauntea. As worship I must eat of the food of the area and support the local farmers. I must also bring vengeance against any that would dare burn the crops and stand up for the people of the land." "That's it? That's- easy and kinda something you would do anyways-" "Yeah, except now I get divine power to help do it!"
I am not religious myself but love playing religious characters in game.
I always used to think in dnd divine magic came from the deities of the setting so it was weird finding out paladins don't need to be religious when I returned to the game in 5e
I like the concept, it fulfills the party requirement of a paladin.
Re find steed: Once a collective of games found the deck of many things and pulled the moon after a reroll result. She wished for "Mass Find Greater Steed" on a separate game playing Lost Mine of Phandelver. It was a huge amount of fun, although the steeds could only be summoned that once and couldn't easily go into dungeons.
Awesome!
The last two days I've been working on a Zealot barbarian/paladin multiclass character for a campaign I'm in. It's like you read my mind and showed me how to make it even better!
Very potent build and nice song indeed at the end. Thanks, as always, for the good work!
I love the little smile that appears every time the "butt action" is mentioned.
I can't help but let my inner 4 year old out...
I think you're missing a big opportunity once you get your Steed, as any spell that targets yourself is also cast on your steed, so being able to essentially Twin Cast Spirit Shroud may be able to really bring up DPR with the Griffon and yourself benefiting.
Always great to hear the positivity from your videos. Thank you for the comforting and quality content! Amazing work.
Colby seems like a really nice guy. There would always be a place for him at my table.
It’s finally Summer and I just woke up to this instead of seeing it at school and not being able to watch it. This is the best.
Liked for the "Rivendell" segment at the end. Also, Oath of Devotion has always been my favorite.
I'd love to see your take on some of the notoriously garbage subclasses (looking at you battlerager, four elements monk and purple dragon knight) and trying to optimize on them.
On the to do lists! I *did* dip into Purple Dragon once... th-cam.com/video/_Am28IWw3-s/w-d-xo.html
@@DnDDeepDive When you run out of cards in videos so you pin them in the comments LMAO Love your videos
@@mojojomoo ROFL, oh man, so good.
I would love this, have just started a 4 elements monk, so far have taken CL with fey touched and aberant dragon mark and building for utility. I couldn't see a way that i could build sustained damage, or burst damge that was worth it.
I don't think purple dragon knights are awful
I think prioritizing your ASI into Charisma over your Strength is better on most every paladin, particularly this one. Aura of Protection is your most important contribution to your party, you have on-demand Advantage so you can still be successful with a lower attack, Charisma adds to your attack bonus with Sacred Weapon (If you manage to use it), and in actual play you can get STR items like Gauntlets of Ogre Power/Belts of Giant Strength. I realize you need to keep the builds item agnostic but GoOP are only an uncommon item and in T3/T4 the Giant belts go from 21 to 29str which would leave your STR ASI wasted.
I love the arching story of thos character. The repressed anger finally breaking forth, and then the evolution where they get more in control of their rage and learn to use it, as well as learn to accept their anger and rage as a part of them. Excellent story and a great roleplay arch!
At low levels:
First turn: activate Sacred Weapon, and cast Divine Favor (/Magic Weapon) as a bonus action
Second turn and beyond: unleash with 3 GWM attacks
I'm quite new to dnd and these videos are the perfect way to get a better understanding of the strengths of each class while being entertaining, thank you so much.
Thank you for all you do, and the time and work you put into these for us!
I have been munching and crunching through this channel’s content since I found it a few weeks ago. Awesome work, through and through, Colby!
Colby- thank you so much for your excellent build videos. I started watching with my girls and they love learning d&d with you. Thank you!
Awww! As a fellow girl-Dad this makes me happy :). You're welcome! Tell your girls hi for me ;)
I hope you have something big planned for 100. Maybe an entire party of four or five? Would be so awesome! At least give us a combination of two. 😄
I think you can achieve similar results by just going full paladin and picking up spirit shroud or crusaders mantle. And then at 17th level pick up holy weapon. And I don’t think advantage is necessary because when you went barbarian you would already have a +13 to hit I think with maxed out strength and charisma
Update: my brother ran me through a gauntlet where I played as this character at level 11 where he threw me up against various monsters from level 11 onwards. I gotta say I did pretty decent considering I was alone. Beat the CR 11 guy and almost beat the CR 12 guy. Only downside is it takes a few rounds to get everything up but I will definitely play him in my next campaign I’m in!
At the time of this post there's a DND special on Amazon. I clicked the channel's affiliate link, the DND books in Cody's library have a "Buy 3 for the price of 2" banner beneath the item. The items are discounted 40 off of list price to begin with. I got the DMG, Icewind Dale and Monsters of the Multiverse books for a grand total of $57 while supporting the channel.
Opened YT and I see my favorite channel for dnd content just dropped! LETS GOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Rawr
Butt damage!
I did think you'd pop to Bard after the Barbarian run. If you did, you could potentially be 6 Bard / 8 Pally and that's a 10th level caster. You'd get 5th level spell slots and 4 extra spells for smiting / casting.
Throw on College of Whispers and now we've got 3d6 4/short rest?
I love the build. I think you can go either way with Bard vs Pally at the end. I do like having a rage and a smite button for the Pally. Did we crit? SMITE! Are we fighting the big bad? RAGE!!!! Are we out of combat? Oh... utility and healing spells.
I love how it has potential to Nova, but is simmering the entire time. It's like the Incredible Hulk of sustained builds. 'You won't like me when I'm angry'
I have a player who has a steed with the Find Steed spell as a subclass feature from their homebrew subclass (The Highway Rider Rogue from the Grim Hollow books for those wondering). I have ruled that the wording "Your steed serves you as a mount, both in combat and out, and you have an instinctive bond with it that allows you to fight as a ***Seamless Unit***" allows the player and mount to sorta share a turn. Basically they share initiative, and while mounted they share movespeed, but the steeds actions will always come after the player takes their actions. While not mounted the steed just takes its turn immediately after the player. Also the player controlls the mount at all times except for when they are unconcious.
Keep doing your awesome work Colby! I really enjoy listening to these while studying, doing chores or theory crafting myself. Have a great day!
there is so many easier way to get free advantage other than barbarian. Personally, I love fog cloud with fighting style blind fighting.
You can grab fog cloud magic initiate from the PhB. Sure like with darkness/devil sight, it requires your party to adapt to it (also grab fighting style blind fighting and the range character are screwed since blind fighting is only 10ft) but with a single feat, you gain advantage against more enemies then darkness allows, a creature with devil sight do not see through it, it's a spell level 1 compared to level 2 for darkness and the strategie can be upgraded to cloudkill (if you gain immunity to poison somehow) or incendiary cloud (with immunity to fire)
still work in magical darkness
with an eversmoking bottle you can do the same thing without requiring concentration, and is less threatening then asking a +1 weapon
Will remind you that you normally are playing in a party and the wizard that can't cast half their spells because they have to see the target will be a bit ignored at you. And even if advantage and disadvantage can sell out you still have to know where to attack so the rest of you party is just wobbling around trying to find the enemy felling like shit for not being effektiv.
I just want to say the intro music is a welcome part of tge week. Don’t know who made it but A+ work.
I've never been this early for a video, but I'm loving the content this channel puts out, very fun to look into all of these different builds.
a different route you could take for a little less damage and a bit more toughness would be not ditching your plate armor and going bear totem instead, since the restriction on heavy armor is never mentioned in the feature, you simply have resistance to all damage aside from psychic while raging.
That is so stoopid but fun, definitely won't fly at most tables I think but damn.
@@abcrasshadow9341 hey, rules as written. tankiness will never be particularly broken unless its straight up invincibility.
The DR is definitely good, but I don't think I could stomach losing out on all the other juicy rage benefits.
That's an interesting idea. You lose most of the rage bonuses while in heavy armor but there is no phrasing that prevents you from raging in heavy armor.
@@OyBoy413 if you ask me, on certain multiclass tank builds it can be very worth it. +4 damage per round (or +6 if PAM) and advantage on str checks and saving throws can be worthwhile sacrifice to wear plate and have resistance to all damage except psychic
Thanks Colby. I always love the sincere outro too. Makes me happy.
When I DM, find steed works like this. This generally gives the player the most options and fantasy without leaving it open for weird abuse.
When Mounted: The initiative of a controlled mount changes to match yours when you mount it. It moves as you direct it, in place of your normal movement, and it has only three action options: Dash, Disengage, and Dodge. A controlled mount can move and act even on the turn that you mount it. A controlled mount forgoes its action for the round in the event that the rider has dismounted or been knocked off.
When dismounted: When not being ridden, the steed acts as an independent creature. An independent mount retains its place in the initiative order and can make its own movement and attacks. Due to the steed's "long-lasting", "instinctive", and "loyal" nature toward you, the steed will generally attempt to follow your basic orders and ordinarily act in your defense. However, due to the steed's "unusually intelligent" nature, unridden you may make "no restrictions on the actions the mount can take, and it moves and acts as it wishes." Complex, conflicting, or unintuitive orders may require an Animal Handling check to be imposed by the DM.
Hey, I really loved the video. Barbarian/ Paladin is so fun to play!
Another fun way I have been thinking to play Devotion Paladin is multi-classing with Sorcerer and picking up quicken spell for Bless. 1 prep round to cast Bless and activate Sacred Weapon, and then we are off to the races!
I guess both would just make this character insanely fun to play. Very different flavors for each, but that's what makes D&D characters so fun to build!😁
Always looking forward to watching these videos at lunch!
Colby, love your videos. So informative and so soothing. I love the 'zen' that you bring to the web. I am currently playing a similar character: Zealot Barbarian 4/Fighter 6/Pally 3 currently. PAM, GWM, GW fighting style, +1 Voulge, and my DM allowed me to take UA Brute subclass for my fighter. So, at lvl 13, with Reckless Attack, and Action Surge, I am making the following 5 attacks: (1d10+18+1d4) + (1d10+18+1d4) + (1d4+18+1d4) + (1d10+18+1d4) + (1d10+18+1d4) + (1d6+2 zealot dmg) AND I have a 50% chance that one of those will be a crit, which means I will then drop another 2d8-4d8 smite damage AND if I crit or kill, one of those butt end 1d4 attacks becomes a 1d10. Needless to say, I am loving it.
Let’s go!! Been walking around my apartment waiting for this video to come out! Also first comment!(I think)
Very Interesting build, as always you do good work. I usually go more magic based my self, 8 Bladesinger/8 Divine Soul/4 any Paladin, but I do like the idea of a naturally hearty Paladin. Plus the Sacred Weapon/Find Greater Steed combo is an awesome way to enhance the vaunted Polearm Master/Great Weapon Master combo. Great video as always.
I don't believe many people are aware of the Dragonnel being an option for "Find Greater Stead". Its found on page 190 in Fizban's. While it only has 60ft of flight vs the 80ft a griffon may have, it still has a multi attack for 2d6+3, but where I find it shines is it has "Flyby". Could flavor the zealotry towards Bahamut, and though your Furor and devotion, You have been blessed with a Draconic steed.
Great video as always!
I just stumbled across this video while looking for D&D videos, and wow! I really like the vibe & flow of the video and the character building. It really gets me in the mood to build out more characters! Thanks for putting this Holy Warrior together!
Glad you enjoyed! Welcome! :)
Chiming in as a DM about your mounted combat ruling question. At all the tables I play at, your mount is either a controlled mount or it is independent. Those are the only two options and they do not intertwine. If you have control over the mount (as in find steed), it is a controlled mount and cannot attack while you are riding it.
Sometimes in your builds, you've wanted it to act on your turn (as if a controlled mount) and make attacks while riding it (as if it were uncontrolled). Those are from two separate rules, they shouldn't mix.
Uncontrolled mounts are relatively rare and almost always intelligent (if they are useful, anyway). You make an alliance with a dragon and it allows you to ride it into a battle that it wants to participate in. You trick a gynosphinx into helping you raid a tomb and it lets you mount it. These are independent creatures with their own motivations. Your summoned warhorse isn't that. He's (by rule) under your control. He's a controlled mount. Use those rules. They are very clear.
For my absolute love of your videos, your frequently stated confusion on this baffles me. The rules are very clear and pretty well written. You just want them to allow something they don't. That's not confusion, that's disappointment. :)
An extremely well rounded powerful character! Only roles they can’t take on are battlefield control, utility and scouting. Pretty impressive!
Huge RUSH fan.. was happy to have watched til the end.
Fly by Night such a brilliant album! Definitely gonna listen to some Rush today.
/high five
the 'welcome home' always brings a warm smile to my face. :)
Hey Colby, thanks for this awesome video. I, as a dm, give the pally player in our group full control and freedom over the actions is summoned warhorse can do. Stay save and have a nice day 👋
Colby, I have conceived exactly this build a few months back, even discussed it with @RobVera in these comments. I love to see that we are thinking along the same lines! My only differences was to start Barb then go Pally, and to use a spear/shield rather than a GWM & 2H weapon, but I was picturing a Spartan like character or even Pantheon from League of Legends, and less on maxing out the numbers. Besides the tradeoff of damage for defense, without having to take GWM you can max your STR sooner, and should allow you to max your CHA. But if we aren't worried about maxing ASI's, then we can pick up some other feats to round out the character, like Shield Master and Piercer
never heard a truer comment than at the beginning of this video, we're just playing a role. I can't speak for anyone else as always to each their own. I tend to always look forward to the chance to play a character that in no way lines up with any real world views I possess.
That Battle Zoo Bestiary book was pretty awesome. Great illustrations.
Note: If your DM allows you, dragonnel from Fizban's is an option for find greater steed. It is probably the best option in my opinion, but just my opinion
Colby is the human equivalent of a golden retriever. 😍
Ha ha ha! My wife tells me the same thing :P
A small correction to Divine Fury that my zealot really appreciates: it triggers on *all* weapon attacks, not just melee. So even when you are forced to attack from range, you get the extra 1d6+X damage.
Throwing this out there for the spear; you can wear a shield with it. If you wanna give up GWM for shield master (+shield bonus to certain dex saves) which really hurts the dpr, but you can lessen the need for Dex for saves significantly considering a simple +1 shield translates into a +3 Dex save bonus for a bunch of Dex save stuff, plus a shove and bash, and with less ASI towards Dex, you can grab sentinel or mage slayer giving you more opats and therefore more chances to crit and therefore smite, which may lessen the real world dpr loss (since white rooming doesn't assume reaction attacks) plus add some excellent control (opat reduces speed to 0, ignore disengage, etc.). You'd get opats from creatures entering 5', moving within 5', casting within 5', and leaving 5', still have your butt attack, a push, and shield bash for bonus actions. I mean your dpr drops a lot without the power attack, but it is a consideration. With the focus on dpr though, I think you made the correct decision.
Paladin is great for single-class builds, and smite is one of those amazing clutch abilities for big in game moments.
The Paladin is easily one of my favourite classes to play. Just started playing one recently so can’t wait to dive into this video for some inspiration.
oh on trampling charge fun fact the bonus action attack is actually not triggered by the target failing the saving throw to be knocked prone. it just says "if the target is prone" which means if the target was prone before attacking you get the bonus action attack saving throw or not.
I like when you speak spanish. And I really appreciate that you speak in a way any foreign can understand
Gracias! :)
Interesting video, as always!
I was thinking about same character concept myself, and checking PHB (at least in translation to my language) I actually read that Oath of Devotion paladin using Sacred Weapon variant of Channel Divinity gains bonus not to damage rolls, but to attack rolls, thus being equal (or even better later on) to Bless (unfortunately only for yourself). But most important part, it doesn't require concentration, so you can combine it with some other good spells, that you can cast as a bonus action. Like Divine Favor. It is not the strongest concentration spells paladin have access to, but it is quite good in our scenario. Yes, we spend one turn preparing, using both our main and bonus actions. But we gain on other turns massive bonus to hit and additional d4 to all damage rolls, including butt-attack. Until lvl 5, in my calculations, this combo will deal same damage, as if we were just doing all attacks starting round 1, at round 2 (almost, we missing approximately 1 damage on average) and overcome in damage later on. And this is without including bonus to hit.
And I even checked DnD Beyond, and yes, Devotion Oath paladins with sacred weapon gain bonus to attack rolls, this feature better and more consistent then Bless in terms of your solo performance on the battlefield.
About mounted combat: I think a controlled mount would not be able to attack and an independent mount would. A controlled mount would move and act during the rider's turn and an independent mount would get its own initiative which means movement problems for the melee paladin on the rider's turn. So if you want it to attack it's better if you just don't mount it unless there is a really good spell you want to share with it.
Sacred Weapon's bonus to hit justifies its action cost as to hit bonus is often more important than damage. But since it's not a spell you can combo it with bonus action spells like Shield of Faith or Sanctuary, both of which you can share with your steed.
Just saw an actual play with Pally who saved the day the whole time. And all I could think of was the short about Paladins being OP.
What's kind of funny about this build is Joe Manganiello, who had guest starred on Critical Role, had a paladin/barbarian who had 1 vs. 5'd a death knight and minions. Even Matt Mercer was shocked at how strong of a combination that multiclass worked, and that was with the old red dragonborn from the PHB, not even the Fizban's version. Shows just how effective this combo was back then. With more options available these days, it's even more so.
Very good video! But I think that the Devotion Paladin's Sacred Weapon increases your attacks rolls instead of damage rolls, which imo is even better given that you're using -5/+10 of Great Weapon Master
I had a character who was a cavalier for about six levels and was definitely a leader in the party, especially in combat. She was fearless and righteous. Then she was captured, strapped to a sacrificial altar and nearly raped by the spirit form of Yog-Sothoth. At that point and for quite a while thereafter, let's call it at least one level, she absolutely lost her cool! I can definitely see being a paladin up to this point and then becoming an enraged vengeful or overzealous barbarian for some levels. Great build!
9:22 Hell yeah. Really broadens your own perspectives and understandings of the people who do believe it. I don't myself, but 100% agree with this take here.
Hey Colby, was wondering if you've given thought to the idea of taking the mounted combatant feat instead of barbarian levels. It won't really come online until you get the gryphon at 13th level or if you're fighting small creatures all of the time, but it does read:
While you are mounted and aren't incapacitated, you gain the following benefits:
You have advantage on melee attack rolls against any unmounted creature that is smaller than your mount.
You can force an attack targeted at your mount to target you instead.
If your mount is subjected to an effect that allows it to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, it instead takes no damage if it succeeds on the saving throw, and only half damage if it fails.
If you *could* somehow get a Large mount earlier and won't miss the mount's damage per round, it could be a good way to make use of an under-utilized feat. Could also gimmick it and have a party member enlarge your summoned steed every combat, but that might be asking a but much :)
So you would be in favor of taking either fairy or duergar for their enlarge spell? I mean advantage on all attacks (mount or mounted player as long as they become large or larger) and an extra d4 on attacks isn't the worst thing to concentrate on.
@@JugglingAddict It should work I would imagine. Hadn't though of using the racial enlarge but it does make sense. Only issue would be giving up the juicy ASI at 4th level for it since custom lineage doesn't work
Love this build. Im trying to make something a bit different and haveing a little difficulty with feats A Centaur Paliden but I love this build
you can talk with your DM about charger and charge, the feat and centaur feature about combining their effect if you take the feat?
Okay, but the little outro songs you sing are kinda the best. Like your just singing to yourself, enjoying life, and having a great time 😊
On the aura of devotion, I played a devotion paladin in my Curse of Strahd game and giving immunity to charm just straight up removed one of a vampire's most powerful abilities to turn your allies against you
A cool alternative to a griffon is a dragonnel from fizbans. The stat block says paladins can summon them with find greater steed and the only real difference in stats from a griffon is 60ft fly speed instead of 80, however they get the flyby feature instead of keen sight. if you ride it with the independent rules you can fly in fly out with no opportunity attacks
I love the idea of a raging paladin, it's so great
Find steed at the table I used to run as a DM was treated as what The 5E Beast Master Should've been at launch: The beast gets its own turn, directly after the player, in which it can take the basic actions (Attack, Dodge, Hide - though unlikely that one will work- help (I would allow this action before the player Characters attack), disengage, and dash). Depending on the Steed, they follow the appropriate stat blocks according to The PHB, DMs Guide, or the book they are most relevant relevantly mentioned in (for example Drakewarden Ranger being in Fizbans even though that's technically not a part of the find steed spell it is still a mount.)
The player can also move on the creatures turn when mounted equal to the movement speed of the creature.
If the creature takes no actions directly they will assume the Dodge action.
Don’t forget that you can still use Reckless Attack in heavy armour, so if you wanted to use Bless instead of raging, you could wear plate and only take two levels of Barbarian.
My friend had a charcter with a split personality, Chrono was a LG Paladin, the other personality was Bain a CE Fighter, odds are the personality stays the same but he Rerolls, everytime he wakes up from sleep or 0 HP, or high emotions, or the DM says roll for shift.
I've been surprised by playing a Paladin. Enjoying this class especially Oath of Glory. Fun swinging a maul and just helping the team out.
I'm getting a seriously funny Merlin/Ambrosius from Labyrinth with David Bowie idea from this build. Amazing as always.
A little late on watching the video, but it was a good one as usual.
Multiclassing barbarian with a spellcaster always seems counterintuitive, but the smites can be used during rage because they don’t count as spells, so that’s pretty cool.
Along the same lines as this, I was recently trying to think up a strength-based drakewarden ranger so that the character could ride a dragon and use a lance, but I kinda struggled to find the best balance for it to work. Eventually, I remembered the reckless attack feature and realized that it would work wonders for it. Since you also need dex for rangers anyway, that helps making use of your unarmored defense too. Only issue is that you can’t concentrate on something like hunter’s mark or favored foe if you rage, so that kinda sucks.
I know you already did a drakewarden video, but I feel like this build could be optimized pretty well. I envisioned 15 levels of drakewarden for the drake to be large-sized and be allowed to fly while you mount, along with a 2-level barbarian dip for reckless attack to help with the lance attacks. There might be something else that I’m missing that could be better, but this still seems like it could work.
This was awesome.
I’d love to see a warlock echo knight pali build sometime too!
there's actually a way to make a "sustainable smiter." i'd consider these factors:
1. how long is combat typically at your table and how many combats do you have per day? most tables have 3-4 rounds of combat so that means 3-4 spell slots need to be allocated for smites to be sustainable. most tables also have typically 3-4 combats per day so that means you need around 9-16 spell slots to make it sustainable.
2. just dipping paladin 3-4 for divine smite then adding more caster levels helps speed up the spell slot progression. this also means we dont' want extra attack early on as that'll burn our spell slots twice as fast by smiting on each attack if both hits. going the booming blade route is better for this purpose. channel divinity will generally be used to recover spell slots.
3. dipping hexblade isn't just good for the cast/atk aligning but also for more smite slots. we need more slots, not necessarily high level slots. going to at least hexblade 2 gives you 2 pact slots per short rest.
4. to give us more slots, i'd suggest sorc as the caster class so you can convert sorc points into slots in a pinch.
so level 10 theorycraft as always but i wont go into much detail, just the essentials:
"sustained smiter"
divine sorc 5, pal 3 (any subclass), hexblade 2
custom lineage: feytouched-hex
asi: crusher
smiting resources: 5 sorc points, 2 level 1 pact slots, 1 harness divine power level 2 slot, 4 level 1 spell slots, 3 level 2 spells slots, 3 level 3 spell slots. total=13 slots + 5 sorc points
assuming 1 short rest: 16 slots + 5 sorc points
assuming 2 short rests: 19 slots + 5 sorc points
so this means if you have about 4 rounds of combat on average and 4 combats per day with 1 short rest, you can smite on EVERY attack. with 2 short rests, you can even sustain for 5 rounds of combat. the typical action sequence would be:
bonus action: hexblade's curse/move hex
action: booming blade crusher
dmg report per round: 1d8 (warhammer) + 4 (cha) + 1d6 (hex) + 1d8 (booming blade) + 2d8-4d8 (divine smite) + 2 (dueling)= 27.5-36.5 sustained. add an additional 9 if the target moves.
of course at latter levels once we have an excess amount of spell slots we can go back into paladin for extra attack (ditch booming blade), aura of protection, find steed and the 2nd use of harness divine power at 7.
21:33 True, it does take your action. And IF you have to wait to be in combat to use it, that is a con. But often times DM's will allow you to do something right before combat initiates, especially if they know your character is looking for those opportunities. Using Sacred Weapon is probably a DPR LOSS until you get GWM. So essentially for all of level 3 play (assuming you take GWM at level 4,) you would just use channel divinity to recover a spell slot or Turn Unholy. Alternatively...IF multiclassed with Sorcerer, one could Quicken Spell Bless the same turn, to stack the buffs. Making subsequent turns highly effective. Given the video title, I'm predicting a Divine Soul Multi-class. Everyone agrees Bless is really good, but statistically a static +3 to hit is better than 1d4, AND Sacred Weapon scales with charisma AND it doesn't take concentration. If you're willing to spend an action in combat to cast bless, spending the same action to use Sacred Weapon is more beneficial to your "White Room" DPR calculations. I know bless buffs 2 other players AND gives a bonus to saves, but for DPR calculations of the paladin itself Sacred Weapon is better assuming at least 16 Cha.
32:00 I don't like mixing Barbarian and Paladin. You claim bless is fantastic, and it is, but one cannot rage AND concentrate. Granted reckless attacks do not require you to rage, but I don't think advantage via reckless attacks is nearly as valuable while not raging. Additionally your 10 dexterity massively diminishes the value of Danger Sense. I get that you're probably going Zealot at this point.. which could be fun thematically, I just find it mechanically anti-synergistic.
34:00 Wow... yea no. I forgot you can't even rage in heavy armor. Dude this is bad news. Just wear the heavy armor and don't rage. Also note for all your damage calculations while raging you probably won't be able to benefit from any bless. At least not in the self calculations. I'm not precisely sure how the math would shake out, but if Chris (Treantmonk) is willing to put plate armor on a monk, and give up what a monk looses JUST for the AC of full plate.. you should probably consider of Rage is even worth it. I would contest that it is in fact NOT worth.
39:00 No Colby... it's not a perfect fit. At best it's a thematic fit. At worst, it's a mechanical travesty of a multiclass choice that neuters your character. I love your content, but this isn't one of your better builds IMO.
45:00 You say there's nothing better... but Hexblade + Oathbreaker is objectively better. More Damage, More AC, Less MAD. I get it doesn't fulfill the premise of the video, but... better is better.
I think it might be worth considering an aggregate score of DPR and RTD to determine Tire Score. Because if your character is a Barbarian + Paladin, but you lack the traditional staying power of either class... you will probably go down when targeted. At which point... is your DPR REALLY sustained? Just my 2 cents.
I don't feel like this build would be able to fulfill the role of a front liner. I think a straight paladin or a straight barbarian with reasonable attribute distribution would out perform this build in terms of survivability. Damage IS very useful, but running medium armor with +0 dex, means you have AC on par with a rogue or wizard (without mage armor). Relying on rage in combat means you sacrifice ANY benefits of having spell casting. I get the thematic element... but flavor is free. The main reason to multiclass is for mechanical advantage. And I just feel like this build shoots itself in the foot at every turn. If instead of going zealot, you had gone divine soul... this build would have been WAY stronger overall. 7 levels of Paladin allows for 13 levels of something else. And NOTHING buffs paladin as much as a charisma based full caster that gets access to Spirit Guardians. And I would say.. that a Divine Soul MC would be as much or more thematically "Holy Warrior" than a Zealot multicalss, AND works better mechanically.
I get so excited every time u upload, and I dont even play DnD haha
I am playing one of these builds in my current game and I'm loving the character. Bless + Aura is a crazy combo (+6 to +9 on all saves with my 20 CHA).
As far as find steed goes, our DM makes mounted combat simple for it. Take note this is house rules and not RAW:
"the steed acts during your turn and follows all your commands."
this has solved mounted combat for us and has made it fun/seamless.
now when i DM (and you know i;m a stickler for RAW and RAI), the player at their turn can declare whether the steed is a controlled mount or independent mount.
if controlled: the steed can only take dash, disengage and dodge actions but can act during the player's turn. it's initiative matches the player's.
if independent: the steed can take any actions commanded by the player but acts after the player's turn or before the players turn but not during.
"Intelligent creatures act independently." (PHB 198) and Find Steed fixes Int to be sufficient to communicate/think, so i think the simple thing is both since the 2 types of mount use having no requirements of how/when its chosen or restriction that it cant be swapped between.
And from fellow forever map and monster man side, everyone else that is sane seems to apply "shared initiative/can splice your turns when you aint attacking/doint anything with the mount that isnt mout-based; if creature that is a mount does/you want it to do anything other than dash/dodge/disengage, its entire turn is before or after you act" skipping both clumsy combat desynch of high initiative mount vs low initiative rider, clutter in initiative and problems with (in case of non-npc mounts with int above 3~4) what can be done.
Thats actually how i run all pets/creatures that arent just random animals in bags the group picked up (or in a old converted case, literally rabid disease packet wildlife used as corpse offerings after being fuel for greater cleave while also having a sheer chance of maybe attacking the enemy; it was still a technically good aligned party dont ask) or summoned via concentration spell; be it familiars, beast companion, mounts, undead thralls, etc.
Love it! Great damage and utility
Build idea: a character who concentrates on a spell, like Bless or what have you, then plays keep-away with polearm master and sentinel so enemies cant break your concentration
So, I spotted some Night Angel Trilogy on the shelf and now the back of my brain is trying to figure out how to build Durzo. I'm assuming you've already completed it. :)
Regarding this week's build, I absolutely love the flavor here, as well as the simplicity of the action. Difficult to drop, impossible to keep down, and a literal holy terror in melee. I'll take two.
Question for the fans: Anyone ever play something like this in a "Lawful-Good-Is-Not-Lawful-Nice" way? Like sacrificing defeated foes' hearts to Ra so he can remain strong enough to defeat Apophis and keep the lands from descending into eternal darkness and chaos.
I need to read the rest of Brent Weeks' stuff :)
@@DnDDeepDive If you haven't read his Lightbringer series, you're in for a treat.
@@Wattsbot On my list!
Man I am so glad I found your channels. Ever took a glance at making builds with your way of thinking in Pathfinder Wraith of the Righteous ?
Consistency is key! This is why I like sustained DPR builds.
Little late to the party but I do enjoy a good Barbaladin build. One potential alteration I wanna mention for people who are okay losing a little damage for defensive purposes. If you went Bear Totem instead of Zealot, you could benefit from the damage resistance while still in plate armor. You would lose the rage damage bump and the Zealot's divine fury, but would otherwise be a lot more durable. But I know we're here to push the numbers ;)
This video made me think of a build I want to call "The Summer Knight" involving Devotion Paladin 4 (to get dueling, smites, and sacred weapon) / Glamour Bard 6 (to get Mantle of Majesty to bonus action command kneel enemies and rp value from bard) / Wild Magic Sorcerer 4 (for a couple sorcery points and twinned spell and invoking advantage with tides of chaos and wild magic fun) / Bladesinger Wizard 6 (for obvious bladesong and special extra attack reasons) all on a Half-Elf with Elven Accuracy and Piercer. Could be a little mad but with some good rolls, sounds like a ton of fun!
I think you get even more consistent dps, with even more versatility and burst when needed if you go oathbreaker 7/hexblade 13 (8/12 if you feel the need for extra asi). Go half elf, gwm, pam, elven accuracy and then put everything into charisma and con. Pick up lifedrinker, use darkness/devil sight, then shadow of moil and use eldritch smite for prone as well. Can also have ranged versatility of eb as well as higher spells and interesting stuff with invocations. At 19 or 20 depending on how you split you’ll be doing 2d10 + 1d4 + 103 from gwm, pam, hexblades curse, and lifedrinker. This isn’t counting any smites or anything, and with the warlock spells you could use something like hex, or a summoning to make up for the steed. Theres just no downsides. I’ve been using it for a character and they are the most powerful character I’ve ever played.
Comments aren’t loading so others may have brought this up already, if so, sorry for redundancy. Sacred Weapon only increases to-hit chance, not damage. Better than damage since missing means 0 damage.
Everytime I watch one of your videos, I say to myself. "God I love having Homelander tell me DnD stuff". Also, I love your videos! Please keep making awesome stuff, and I'll keep watching.
Gracias por hablar conmigo! Wish I would get in a d4 game session, would be a blast!!!
Thoughts on a dagger wizard? Like an animate object caster, with rogue levels. Animate some good daggers, while also applying sneak attack, themselves.
You don't have to rage in order to attack recklessly. So you can concentrate on bless and use reckless for advantage at the same time. Giving you a really good to hit chance.
I love paladins, and you’re totally right about trying new stuff on your roleplay