Paladins in are holy warriors, but when your life is all foll♈owing strict oaths and practicing devotion, it can be nice to taꩲke a break. Multiclassing can be a nice respite from your paladin duties, but not all classes work well with paladins. Here’s a guide for how to multiclass as a paladin.
Artificer
Paladins don’t get a lot from artificer levels, although some infusions are nice until you get magic weapons and armor. If your DM lets you use Unearthed Arcana, look into taking three levels to get the Armorer subclass, which lets yo🐻u have an Iron Man suit that can either increase your tanking ability or eliminate all disadvantages from wearing heavy armor.
Barbarian
Barbarians can’t rage in heavy armor, but if you’re willing to sacrifice some AC, this is a decent enough choice. Rage and Rec🐭kless Attack both work well for paladins, but there are better ways to boost your martial prowess.
Bard
Bards are full casters that use Charisma, so they will boost a paladin’s spell slot levels, which means better smites. This prevents a lot of multiclass lagging, so you can put three levels into bard and get a subclass. College of Swords and College of Whispers both add bonus 🌊damage to your weapon attacks, which adds to your paladin burst damage. College of Lore increases your utility, and is great if you don’t have a bard or rogue. Bard levels will help you out if you’re the party face, but College of Eloquence will make you an unsurpassable negotiator.
Cleric
Taking cleric levels greatly depends on the Divine Domain you choose. The bonus action attack gained from War Domain increases a paladin’s one-turn burst, and the 2nd-level Channel Divinity doesn’t hurt when y꧟ou need to have an attack hit. A level of Light Domain or Tempest Domain is good, since you’ll likely hav൲e a lot of people trying to hit you, and you can make it harder for them or punish them for it. All of these require a good Wisdom score to fuel them, but Forge Domain is a decent dip if you have barely enough Wisdom for the multiclass.
Druid
A level of druid will give you access to the entire druid spell list that you have spell slots for, meaning up to 5th-level spells eventually. If💙 you want to more than double your spell list, go ahead. You’ll only be able to prepare a few druid spells a day, but you’ll know them. Wild Shape doesn’t do anything 🧸for paladins.
Fighter
Fighters get better with investment. More levels mean more extra attacks, more uses of Indomitable, more action surges. A dip inꦡto fighter isn’t great for a paladin. Two levels give action surge, which can increase paladin burst damage for a single turn, but it’s not the best use of two levels. A fighter subclass can offer useful abilities, but at a certain point you’re gett💖ing diminishing returns from taking levels in a purely martial subclass.
Monk
Everything about monks is opposite of everything about paladins. The base abilities conflict with each other a♏lmost entirely.
Ranger
Favored Enemy can be really flavorful for Oath of Vengeance paladins. However, since paladins already get a fighting style and Oath of Vengeance paladins get hunter’s mark,🍎 which is the best low-level ranger spell, thꦏere’s no need to get a second level.
Rogue
Since Sneak Attack damage doesn’t scale u🌳nless you level up rogue, the extra damage isn’t worth the damage you’ll lose by switching from your big paladin weapon to the light or finesse weapon that is needed to apply the damage. Expertise is nice for paladins wh♛o are the face of their party, but you’re better off investing three levels into bard instead of one into rogue.
Sorcerer
Sorcerer is a great choice for a paladin subclass. It’s a full caster who uses Charisma, which means you don’t need another stat to be useful and you’ll have better spell slots than just going paladin. If you take three lဣevels of sorcerer you gain access to the Quickened Spell Metamagic option, which opens up some interesting combos. Cast hold person as a bonus action and paralyze your opponent, which gives you auto-crits and doubles your smite damage. Get the magic initiate feat to get booming blade and green-flame blade and cast them as a bonus ac🐈tion for an effective extra attack in a turn, plus bonus damage. The possibilities are endless.
Warlock
Warlock with a little paladin is better than paladin with a little warlock, bu🧜t it’s still a powerful multiclass. Warlock spell slots regenerate after every short rest, so even with a few levels you’ll get a good amount of low-level smites if not♓hing else. Warlocks also have a lot of spells that help with defensive options, like mirror image and armor of Agathys. These are great for paladins who wade into battle, and they don’t require concentration, so you can cast them and then cast something like divine favor to help boost offense.
Wizard
Wizard abilities focus on spells, and use a different casting stat than paladins. Even with the spellbook, the likelihood of finding higher-level wizard spells to copy in is entir꧑ely up to the DM. Mostly this will only get you low-level wizard spells, which will likely be covered if you have other casters in your party.