No i understand and am listening to what your telling me. my point is that a 2nd level paladin gets 2 first level spell slots. if you take a DIFFERENT character and make them a 4th level EK they get 3 first level spell slots. putting them together in 1 character is "breaking" their spell slots apart. I dont care if they are 1/2 or 1/3 caster, that means they gain spells slower. it shouldnt mean they LOSE them.
Either you've modded or your missing something.
4th level EK would have 2 first level spell slots because they are ESL 1.
An EK will not receive 3 first level spell slots until level 6 when they reach ESL 2.
Unless that was a typo and your concern is that ESL 1 provides 2 spell slots, while other ESL's only provide 1 (Within a spell level). Making it seem like you "Lose" a level 1 spell slot because combining 2 classes that would normally get 2 level 1 spell slots when they reach ESL 1 will net result in only 3 first level spell slots instead of 4. While the reality is that you're not "Losing" anything, you're simply gaining ESL at the same rate, just that there's a special bonus upon reaching a new spell level where you get 2 slots instead of 1 (For spell levels 1, 2 and 3 only)
Which is simply the way that 5e handles spell slots. All classes (Besides Warlock) combine into a singular ESL, which determines a singlular pool of spell slots. This drastically reduces the overall number of spell slots one can obtain compared to prior editions - Especially when you factor in multiclassing. But the upside is that this system provides access to higher level spell slots for lower level classes, allowing you to take a few spells from a multiclass and upscale them to your highest spell slots.
