Quote Originally Posted by PeteNutButter
Sure what's the details?
Hey PeteNut, your DM's are full/need to be cleared and I might be heading off for the night soon, so figured I'd reply to your optimizing post just incase you never noticed/cleared your messages.

So, we are starting at Level 5, and we can start the game with either two uncommon magical items or one rare magical item. We also had some extra starting gold for gear.

Our party consists of:

  • A Divine Soul Sorcerer
  • A Ranger/Druid who is going to be running around on her mount as a small race.
  • Me, a Vengeance Paladin with a Hexblade dip.


I know its a commonly well-regarded multiclass and hard to mess up, but I'd like to optimize it to the best of my ability, within concept/design space of the character.

He's a paladin from an order of blackguards/dark knights. They're all criminals or knights who lost their honor. They live in a society ripe with concepts of law and justice. So short of being exiled or executed, you can join this order of knights who go around hunting monsters and killing demons which plague the land quite a bit. Think like Witchers meet the Nights Watch. Instead of partaking in weird alchemical rituals they drink the blood of fiends and can bind the will of a fiend to their blades. The first little story beat involves us fighting off a devil-worshipping cult who is trying to take over/instill power within a region of land that is vast, untamed, and sort of loose. So its easy pickings for a cult when these little villages are so far away from the main city/ruling power of the kingdom.

So, here are my questions:

  • Best race: I'm thinking Variant Human or Half Elf. And in general for roleplay reasons I'm kinda boring and tend to prefer the more vanilla races. So this works just fine for me.
  • Best starting level spread: I'm thinking Paladin 4/Hexblade 1, to at least have the 1 level in hexblade, even if it is delaying my extra attack by one level. The one level has a lot of benefits early on. Sadly CHA to a Greatsword is not one of them.
  • Best weapon: I'm personally biased/leaning toward a Greatsword with either a crit fishing or GWM build. That's kind of the way I envisoned the character in my head. BUT my ears are open to hear about the benefits of a polearm or a sword and shield on a Hexadin.
  • Best magical items to start the game with: It's two uncommon or one rare magical item I can choose. A +2 Greatsword or a Flametongue seems juicy to me. Though the campaign will feature cultists and fiends so maybe not the latter.


Here are answers to some potential followup questions you might have:

  • Starting Gear: I had like 600 or 800 gold to play with. Best armor I can take is Splint. And yes, I'd like to use Heavy Armor because nobody else in the party is good at STR and i think its important for at least one person in a party to be good at it. Even if I leave my strength like at a 15 instead of a 16.
  • Any UA: Some of it. The DM is allowing some of the UA Feats so I caaan take something like say, Blade Mastery, for a +1 to sword attack rolls.


Thanks for taking the time to read through this! I really appreciate it.