The Paladin is the divine reckoning class in BG3, offering players the opportunity to role-play as a holy warrior, here to fulfill their duty and oath, and fight for justice. Yet, with Larian’s homebrewing of !Warlock, you can essentially create an Hexblade-style class using these two combinations, and thanks to both the !Paladin and !Warlock using Charisma, it means you can turn the class into a charismatic fighter, destroying foes with a mixture of pact weaponry and smites to slay people in the most holy of unholy ways. Here’s a closer look at the !Paladin !Warlock build in Baldur’s Gate 3, aka the Palalock, or a budget Hexblade.

The Palalock Build in Baldur’s Gate 3¶

The build summary of levels for this !Paladin !Warlock build is as follows:

• !Warlock: 3
• !Paladin: 9
• !Paladin Subclass: Select whichever subclass interests you the most. Vengeance is likely better for the extra weapon damage via the oath skill, but Ancients is good healing, and Devotion is decent for thorns-like damage reflected attackers.
• !Warlock Subclass: Again, whichever is your preference. The Fiend grants some life return on kills based on your Charisma modifier, which helps your tankyness, via Dark One’s Blessing. Meanwhile, Fey grants a passive like Fey Presence to Charm enemies, and Sleep for some more CC options.
• !Warlock Invocations: You can pick whichever ones you want, but, we recommend taking Devil Sight for the Darkness vision, both natural and magical, especially since the Underdark and Act 2 have some very dark locations. It also grants synergy to the Darkness spell, which can improve your ability to hit with heavy two-handed weapons. The other one is your flavor option.

The Palalock is a build that starts as !Warlock, and then transitions to !Paladin for nine levels. Going to level 3 is important first, as that grants you Pact of the Blade. Pact of the Blade essentially summons a weapon pact, or turns the weapon you are wielding into a Pact weapon. You can find a list of the pact weapons below. Moreso, the pact of the blade turns your weapon attack scaling s from Dex or Strength into using your primary caster modifier, aka Charisma. This allows you to take full advantage of the Locks and !Paladins main stat, meaning you don’t need to dump it in Strength like you do a Barbarian or Fighter. Therefore, your martial damage and spell damage are now the same stat, granting all the synergy you need from Level 3 !Warlock onwards.

If you bind a weapon, you merely become proficient with it, and you convert its damage to magic, allowing you to benefit from the Charisma modifier, rather than strength. If you summon a weapon, you instead get:

• Pactbound Warhammer - Versatile - Bludgeoning - 1d10 (2h)/1d8 (1h)
• Pactbound Trident - Versatile - Piercing - 1d8 (2h)/1d6 (1h)
• Pactbound Rapier - Finesse - Piercing - 1d8 (1h)
• Pactbound Greatsword - Two-handed - Slashing - 2d6 (2h)
• Pactbound Glaive - Two-handed - Extra Reach - Slashing - 1d10 (2h)
• Pactbound Battleaxe - Versatile - Slashing - 1d10 (2h)/1d8 (1h)

All weapons benefit from your Charisma + Ability score, so at 17, you get to add +3 as damage to each of the weapons, for example.

While levelling, you should take five levels in !Warlock, just because Pact of the Blade locks get another melee attack at level 5, they can keep up with Extra Attacks from Fighter, Ranger, Monk, !Paladin and Barbarian. Once you get to level 8, feel free to respec using Withers, and go 5 !Paladin and 3 !Warlock.

Once you’re level 8, and are 3 Lock and 5 !Paladin, you’ll have extra tracks from the !Paladin feature, and you still get your spell slots from Lock and its Charisma modifier, which is all you need. From now, you spend your remaining levels on !Paladin upgrades. The main features you get are your subclass unique spells, extra attacks, and things like Aid and Branding Smite. It means you can spend some spell slots on either party healing, or niche smite usages for whatever situation arrives. Later levels include Aura of Protection at level 6, which is a base !Paladin spell. It adds your Charisma modifier to allies and yourself for bonus saving throws, which is very handy for frontline defense. You also get more spell slots at level 7 and 9, and an extra feat at 8, meaning you get two feats for the build. And finally, at level 9, you will get more subclass options, with base class spells unlocked. You should be able to pick enough utility or various forms of smites now for dumping your spell slots.

Best Feats for Paladin Warlock Build in BG3¶

Since you get your hands on two feats, you want to consider the following:

• Great Weapon Mastery (GWM): -5 to hit rolls, but gain 10 weapon damage. Landing these hits, on top of your things like Divine Smite crit reactions are very strong, and is one of the things that makes martial classes with casters as you get your party to mid and late game.
• War Caster: There are a few !Paladin Spells you can concentrate on, like Bless, or Magic Weapon. If you end up using these spells, Warcaster is good for concentrating on them.
• Ability Score Improvements: Both your spells and attack rolls rely on Charisma, so, grabbing an extra two ability scores to Charisma to push it to 19 is a good option. Ideally, you want it at 20 for the extra ability score modifier.

Best Ability Scores and Paladin Race for Baldur’s Gate 3¶

For this build, you will want to use your ability score improvements for the following:

• STR: 10
• DEX: 14
• CON: 15
• INT: 8
• WIS: 10
• CHA: 17

Again, your starting stats want to reflect Charisma as much as possible for both the Lock and !Paladin spell scalings. The strength can go down to ten; again, by the time you get Pact of the Blade, you will not need strength for weapon modifiers. The points can therefore be reallocated for Con, as you are a frontline, and Dex, for initiation and AC buffs.

As for the best races for a !Paladin build in Badlur’s Gate 3, you’re looking at:

• Half-Orc: The Orc racial feat grants triple the damage on crits, rather than double. Since when you crit, you cast Divine Smite as a spell slot reaction, it means you’re going to dump so many dice on the table the monster dies from pure CPU spike usage rather than the weapon itself.

• Halfling: Halflings get their Brave and Lucky racial. Lucky allows them to re-roll 1s, and use the next dice rolled instead. This is handy for attack rolls with GWM, as it offers more ways to mitigate the lowered attack roll penalty that comes from the feat. You also get Brave, which is handy for avoiding fear CC types and things of that nature.

• Elves and Humans: Elves and Humans get decent weapon proficiencies, especially with things like longswords, which are often Great weapons or Heavy weapons. It means you get proficient with them for better attacks, on top of the Blade modifiers.

• Gold Dwarves: Dwarven Toughness grants an additional 2 HP, then one more per level you climb. So, that’s 14 HP at level 12, which is nice for your frontline opportunities.

This concludes this !Paladin !Warlock Build for Baldur’s Gate 3. Now you have an idea on how to level it, the type of spells you can use:

Read More:

• BG3 Warlock Build
• BG3 Paladin Build
• BG3 Sorcerer Build
• BG3 Rogue Build
• BG3 Ranger Build
• BG3 Fighter Build
• BG3 Druid Build
• BG3 Barbarian Build
• BG3 Bard Build
• BG3 Class Tier List