Talking with them about what they *wanted* their character to be, it was very much a classic gish, 4E swordmage -- swinging around with a sword in one hand, blasts of fire in the other kind of idea. Paladin is the "Swords and magic" in the description 5e class, so he figured that's where it was at.
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I get why they changed subclasses to level 3, but it just makes level one play as some concepts feel terrible.
If people are building characters at higher levels than there's no issue, but you're really constrained at first
Now it's "I made a pact with
Of course, Fighter 1 (Magic Initiate: True Strike) at level 1, Bladelock from then on is even better...
Had he stuck around, the concept was salvageable, but not very discoverable to a new player.
4e ironically made this one thing much easier--just take swordmage. But that system was so hard otherwise.
D&D 5e has got complexity in combat focused gameplay, but isn't tightly tuned and balanced, and kind of never can be with the legacy ideas it has to keep.
Though, Daggerheart has me interested.