Paladin fighter or paladin warlock

[Whit]

Which would be a better build of these. 1/2 elf
Fighter 2, paladin 5. Fixed stats 16 str 16 cha 14 con Fighting style. Two weapon fighting and defense. Plate armor 18 (19) defense and (20) with duel wield feat. Long swords.
3 attack’s 1 is bonus action. with 5 attack’s using action surge once per short rest.
Using paladin divine smites for extra damage. . 4 lvl1 2 lvl 2.

Or 1/2 elf paladin 5 warlock 2 hexblade.
Fixed stats 16 str 16 cha 14 con. Fighting style great weapon fighting. Plate armor (18)
Great weapon mastery feat. 2 attack’s great sword using paladin divine smite for extra damage along with hex curse add prof. Damage and hex spell

Hope I covered it

[JeenLeen]

Is your main goal to maximize damage per round, or are there other concerns?

The warlock build gives you some class features and spells that could have handy utility, like the at-will Disguise Self invocation.
Also, if you go Paladin of Vengeance (or... whatever the kinda dark archetype in the PHB is; away from books), that gives Hunter's Mark. With that, you can buff your damage per round similar to Hex, even without warlock levels.

I'm not that great at damage per round math, so I'll let others respond to that, but I figured the question of what you want is worth asking.

[Waazraath]

Warlock. With paladin, I'd never bother with fighter levels. You don't need the con save proficiency, don't need heavy armor proficiency, only action surge is nice. Pally 6 is crazy powerful, as are several paladin 7 subclass abilities (like Ancients). Paladin 5 / warlock 2, I could understand for 2 invocations, and the front loaded goodness of Hexblade, or some other patron (telepathy for GOO isn't good for DPR, but can be very useful). This at least add some new abilities to the pally (also a strong ranged attack).

I'd consider full class paladin as well though.

[Whit]

I would say damage potential first.
Secondary something extra. . Fighter Pali gives 20 ac

Pali hexlock gives ac 18 but hex gives 1d6 concentration. Hex curse adds prof damage and 2 invocation

[Whit]

I hear yiu waaz. But a lot of Pali spells if used is concentrate. Bless shield faith protect evil good. If not used for divine smite.
Yuh lose a lot with fighter Pali combo but con save extra fight style better ac action surge second wind

And trying to find out if duel wield would do more than great weapon style

[CTurbo]

Either would work just fine. Taking a couple levels of Fighter gives you the second Fighting style, Action Surge, and Second Wind. A 3rd level gets you Battle Master Maneuvers. A Paladin with Action Surge is pretty much the king of Burst Damage. I don't recommend TWF on a Paladin unless you're building a Smite spamming build and have little interest in actually using the Pally spells since most of your spells are Bonus Action and would compete with your offhand attack.

Warlock works extremely well with Pallys but I really hate the Cha instead of Str for attack and damage gimmick.

I don't think I would dip another class until after Pally 6 though for the Aura of Protection.

[Whit]

Yes cturbo there are a lot of bonus action. It if you look they are all concentration so either you bonus action and concentrate on 1 or you bonus action cast and dump it.

[Spiritchaser]

My first answer has to be warlock for the SAD build... but...

My caveat is that you become very vulnerable to grapples and shoves. Neither your accro nor your athletics will be maxed (though one could be ok)

Also build order with paladin hexblade is a bit daft.

Assuming paladin first for heavy armor, you limit STR to 15 for a level... which is... actually not horrible.

Then you probably take hexblade 1 for that CHA to attack, though paladin 6 makes sense too if you can put up with that 15, even after level 4 when everyone else has at least 16 and more likely 18 in their primary stat.

Either way, get to 6/1 and decide if you want a 2 handed weapon . If so it’s warlock 3 for you.

This all means you won’t even get to abuse darkness until level 9

Sure you could go for more warlock levels early, but then your extra attack is later, as is your aura

[djreynolds]

A warlock spells recharge on a short rest, that's a boon for a smiting paladin.
Wisdom saves are as needed as con saves.

You could do all 3, since fighter is front loaded grab the levels as you go

But 6th aura of protection is money. With a high charisma you may not need to worry about concentration checks with a 16 in con and 16 in charisma. It's +6 already.

Good luck

[Citan]

Hi!
Easy peasy:
For one level dip, both are good:
Fighter as a starting dip for Constitution proficiency and additional FS.
Warlock for spells and cantrips.

For two levels...
Fighter is only worth if you take first level as starting dip and the second...
- Muuuuuuuch later when you actually have the fuel to back up an Action Surge + Extra Attack Divine Smite nova.
- Or, as soon as you get that one spell that you reaaaally want to use every encounter that requires an action to be cast.

In ALL other cases, Warlock is better.

Same holds true for three levels: Fighter is worth only if you have an extreme fanciness for one particular feature (manoeuvers or improved criticals) but otherwise a dead weight compared to everything a Warlock provides (patron features + spells + cantrips + slots + invocations).
Although you could technically get a nice compromise with starting Fighter 1 then Warlock 2 later. ;)

For 4+, Warlock all the way except corner case of "War Magic Paladin" but I fail to see the value of it myself. ^^

[Mikal]

If your Strength is stuck at 16 I say fighter. You have smiting and spells via Paladin, Fighter gives you extra attacks beyond the single one all other classes get, action surge, and a better subclass option with Battlemaster.