How to Build an Aasimar Paladin/Warlock Multiclass

Mixing paladin and warlock on an aasimar gives you something genuinely powerful: a character whose celestial bloodline, divine oath, and eldritch pact all feed into the same core stat and reinforce each other instead of pulling in different directions. You get radiant smites backed by spell slots that refresh on short rests, healing magic for the party, and the flexibility to adapt to whatever the battlefield throws at you. The real strength here is that nothing feels wasted—your Charisma investment pays dividends across every layer of the build.

Tracking your multiclass resource economy gets easier with a Regal Regent Ceramic Dice Set – Handcrafted Ceramic Dice Set to manage spell slots and invocations separately.

Why Aasimar Works for Paladin/Warlock

Aasimar provides several traits that directly benefit a paladin/warlock build. The +2 Charisma bonus is perfect since both classes use Charisma as their primary spellcasting ability. This means you’re not stretching your ability scores thin trying to support two different casting stats. The racial healing ability gives you additional sustain beyond Lay on Hands, and the transformation features from the three subraces all provide combat benefits that scale with your level, not your class level.

Protector Aasimar adds flight and extra radiant damage once per long rest, which synergizes beautifully with melee combat. Scourge Aasimar deals area damage around you, turning you into a walking hazard for clustered enemies. Fallen Aasimar grants a fear effect and necrotic damage bonus, creating an interesting fallen angel concept if you’re playing a more morally complex character. Protector is generally the strongest mechanical choice for this build because flight gives you positioning options most melee characters lack.

Paladin/Warlock Multiclass Split

The most common split is Paladin 6/Warlock 14 or Paladin 7/Warlock 13, with some builds going Paladin 2/Warlock 18 for a warlock-focused character with smite capabilities. Starting with Paladin gives you heavy armor proficiency and better hit points. Your first level determines your hit point maximum calculation, so beginning as a paladin means d10 instead of d8.

Paladin 6 gets you Extra Attack and your Aura of Protection, which adds your Charisma modifier to all saving throws for you and nearby allies. This is one of the best defensive features in the game and justifies going this deep into paladin. Paladin 7 adds your subclass aura, which can be powerful depending on your oath. Devotion paladins gain immunity to charm, Ancients paladins get resistance to spell damage, and Vengeance paladins can prevent enemies from escaping melee range.

The warlock levels give you short-rest spell slot recovery, which is the real power of this multiclass. Warlock spell slots recharge on a short rest, and you can burn them for Divine Smite just like paladin slots. This means you can smite far more frequently than a straight paladin. At Warlock 11, you gain a third spell slot, giving you three smites per short rest. Warlock 12 adds an ability score increase or feat. Most builds stop at Paladin 6-7 and take the remaining levels in warlock.

Subclass Choices

For paladin, Oath of Devotion and Oath of Conquest work well thematically with the celestial aasimar concept. Devotion emphasizes your holy warrior nature with features like Sacred Weapon that adds your Charisma to attack rolls. Conquest is more aggressive, focusing on fear effects and lockdown control, which pairs interestingly with the Fallen Aasimar’s frightening transformation.

For warlock patron, Celestial is the obvious thematic choice and mechanically solid. You gain bonus radiant or fire damage on spells, access to healing spells including bonus action healing dice, and at level 6 you add your Charisma modifier to radiant and fire damage rolls. The Hexblade patron is stronger mechanically because it lets you use Charisma for weapon attacks instead of Strength, freeing up your ability scores dramatically. You can dump Strength entirely and focus on Charisma and Constitution. Hexblade also gives you medium armor and shields at first level if you start as warlock, though you lose this benefit if you start paladin.

Ability Score Priority for Aasimar Paladin/Warlock

Charisma is your primary stat, governing your spell save DC, spell attack bonus, and Aura of Protection range. Aim for 20 Charisma by level 12 if possible. Constitution should be your second priority since you’ll be in melee combat and need hit points. A Constitution score of 14-16 works well.

If you’re taking Hexblade, you can ignore Strength and use a finesse weapon or just rely on Hexblade’s feature to use Charisma for weapon attacks with your bonded weapon. If you’re not taking Hexblade, you need at least 15 Strength to wear heavy armor effectively (plate armor requires 15 Strength). Some builds settle for 13 Strength to meet multiclass requirements and focus everything on Charisma and Constitution, accepting slightly lower armor class.

Dexterity can stay at 10 if you’re wearing heavy armor. Wisdom and Intelligence are your dump stats. A typical stat array using point buy might look like: Str 13, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 15 (becomes 17 with racial bonus). This gives you the minimum Strength for multiclassing, decent Constitution, and immediately high Charisma.

Essential Feats and ASI Choices

Your first priority should be maxing Charisma to 20. This affects too many things—spell save DC, attack bonus if using Hexblade, Aura of Protection saves, healing from Celestial patron—to delay. However, there are a few feats worth considering before or after capping Charisma.

Polearm Master is exceptional if you’re using a quarterstaff, spear, or polearm. It gives you a bonus action attack and opportunity attacks when enemies enter your reach. Combined with Divine Smite, you can smite on the bonus action attack and on opportunity attacks. Sentinel pairs with Polearm Master to lock down enemies and generate even more opportunity attacks. Great Weapon Master works if you’re using heavy two-handed weapons, though the -5 to hit hurts more on this build since you’re making fewer attacks than a fighter.

The radiant smites and eldritch blasts feel especially satisfying when rolled with a Dawnblade Dice Set – Handcrafted Ceramic Dice Set, whose celestial aesthetic matches this build’s thematic identity.

War Caster helps with concentration saves and lets you cast spells as opportunity attacks. Since you’ll be maintaining concentration on spells like Hex or Spirit Shroud while in melee, advantage on concentration saves is valuable. Resilient (Constitution) is an alternative that gives you proficiency in Constitution saves, and since you’ll have a positive Constitution modifier, this often ends up better than advantage at higher levels.

Combat Tactics and Resource Management

The core loop of this build is entering combat, activating your aasimar transformation, casting a concentration spell if you have one prepared, then mixing weapon attacks with smites. Your warlock spell slots recharge on short rests, so you can afford to burn them more freely than a single-class paladin. Save your paladin slots for emergencies or when you’ve exhausted warlock slots.

Eldritch Blast with Agonizing Blast invocation gives you a reliable ranged option when you can’t reach melee. Don’t neglect this. Some combats don’t favor melee, and having a solid ranged attack prevents you from being useless. Eldritch Blast scales with character level, not class level, so by level 11 you’re firing two beams, and by 17 you have four beams.

Spirit Shroud is a concentration spell available to both paladins (Oath of Conquest) and warlocks that adds 1d8 damage to every attack and slows enemies near you. This works on every hit from Extra Attack and your bonus action if you have one. Hex is the classic warlock choice, adding 1d6 to every attack against one target. Hex doesn’t work with Divine Smite since smite isn’t part of the attack, but it still increases your damage output significantly.

Warlock Invocations for Paladin Builds

Agonizing Blast adds your Charisma to Eldritch Blast damage and should be your first invocation. Eldritch Smite is tempting since it lets you smite using warlock slots and knocks enemies prone, but you can already burn warlock slots on Divine Smite. The prone condition is nice but not essential. Devil’s Sight gives you darkvision through magical darkness, which combos with the Darkness spell to give you advantage on attacks while enemies have disadvantage against you. This is strong but interferes with your party’s ability to fight, so use it carefully.

Improved Pact Weapon makes your pact weapon a +1 weapon and lets you use a bow or crossbow as your pact weapon, expanding your ranged options. Thirsting Blade gives you Extra Attack if you didn’t take Paladin 5, but most builds already have Extra Attack from paladin levels so this is wasted. Cloak of Flies deals poison damage to adjacent enemies and creates a fear effect, which is thematic for a Fallen Aasimar but relatively weak. Choose invocations that either boost your ranged damage or provide utility rather than trying to double down on melee features you already have from paladin.

Spell Selection Strategy

You have limited spell slots, so focus on spells that provide lasting value or fill gaps in your capabilities. Shield is excellent for when you need emergency defense. Armor of Agathys gives you temporary hit points and deals cold damage to attackers, scaling well with higher level slots. Hex and Spirit Shroud provide ongoing damage increases worth concentrating on. Hold Person is a powerful control spell that auto-crits paralyzed enemies, and your smites crit with it.

From paladin, Bless is always useful for buffing your party’s attacks and saves. Find Steed gives you a mount that improves your mobility dramatically and doesn’t cost a spell slot once you’ve cast it. Misty Step lets you teleport as a bonus action, helping with positioning. At higher levels, Banishment removes enemies from combat entirely, and Destructive Wave from paladin deals large area damage while knocking enemies prone.

Avoid overlapping spell picks between your paladin and warlock lists. If you take Hex from warlock, don’t take Wrathful Smite from paladin. Use paladin spells for party support and utility, warlock spells for personal combat power.

Playing the Aasimar Paladin Warlock

This multiclass works best when you think of yourself as a versatile striker rather than a pure tank or damage dealer. You can handle front-line combat, but you don’t have a fighter’s hit points or a barbarian’s damage reduction. You can blast from range, but you’re not a full caster. Your strength is flexibility and the ability to sustain high output across multiple combats per day.

Position yourself to benefit allies with Aura of Protection, but don’t be afraid to break away when you need to eliminate priority targets. Your mobility from flight or Find Steed lets you engage backline enemies. Your smites let you delete single targets. Your spell slots recharge on short rests, so push for short rests after difficult encounters. You can smite more in a day than any other class combination, but only if your party actually takes those short rests.

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What makes this multiclass work in practice is the staying power. You can maintain consistent damage output through a full adventuring day, hit hard on single targets when it matters, and still have room to shield your allies. Since both classes reward the same ability score, you’re not making tradeoffs between being good at paladin stuff and being good at warlock stuff—you’re just getting better at both.

Looking for more builds, subclasses, and tactics? Explore our complete D&D 5e Paladin Guide.