Hi and welcome to my guide for playing a Hexadin. Now, why TexMex Hexadin? Because it sounds cool with that repetitive "ex." While there are other guides, I want to present my own take. This guide will present a character that is very focused on combat and damage, namely Burst Damage. Utility? Not so much. Control? Possibly with the right spells. No, instead this is the guide you want when your party is already chalk full of controllers, skill monkeys, and utility casters. Can a Hexadin do those things? Sure, to an extent, but that’s not what the TexMexHexadin is about.
Here’s what you need:
Start as half-drow elf
16 STR, 8 DEX, 16 CON, 8 INT, 8 WIS, 17 CHA.
You may also begin with 15 STR instead and bump up one of those 8 scores.
Begin as paladin, for heavy armor proficiency.
Pick up a longsword/rapier + shield
Now, I’m recommending 16 STR from the get go and dumping three whole stats. Why? Because I find lvl 1 to be one of the most dangerous levels. I really want my best chances at making sure attacks land. Might it go unused later on? Not so much, as you can always take and benefit from proficiency in athletics, and it will definitely come in handy when you pick up plate armor.
From here, take another level in paladin. We get spell slots and a fighting style, which I’ll recommend dueling for now. It’ll later change when we get an ASI in paladin.
Now we pick up hexblade. For cantrips, take green flame blade and eldritch blast. Why not booming blade? Because enemies almost never move after being attacked without reason, but enemies certainly do bunch up more frequently. For spells we’ll take Shield (duh), and Armor of Agathys. If you’d like, Hex can be taken instead of AoA if you don’t like AoA’s theme or if you’re in a party with lots of sources for temp HP.
At this point, we’re 2 paladin/1 hexblade. Get paladin to 6 straight away. Some key notes
Take Oath of Vengeance
Pick up elven accuracy at 4 level
Swap from dueling fighting style to defense fighting style as we’ll prepare for a future transition.
Once you enter tier 2 (character’s lvl 5 total) and everyone else is using extra attack, you use green flame blade to keep up. You’ll only do this for a level until you get extra attack.
At this point, the chassis of the build is starting to come together. While we lost some sustainable damage going from Dueling to Defense, our burst has jumped up considerably. This is a burst damage build, so that’s okay! When we use Vow of Enmity (VoE), we’ll roll three dice for advantage thanks to Elven Accuracy. When we use Hexblade’s Curse (HC), we’ll crit on a 19 or 20. With both active, that’s a 27% chance to crit on a single attack roll. Basically, once we unlock extra attack, we have a ~50/50 chance to crit per turn after VoE and HC are active on the same target. You could choose to use both of those resources separate or together. Either’s fine as they’re both resources that recharge on a short rest. If you want both active on the same target but have a hard time deciding what needs to be used first, simply think about their AC. High? VoE. Low? HC.
Now we’re paladin 6/ hexblade 1. From here, go Hexblade 5. Some key notes.
When you unlock invocations, take Agonizing Blast.
Pact of the blade pact boon. Take improved pact weapon invocation if you still don’t have a +1 weapon or if you have a flame tongue/frost brand greatsword.
Take GWM at 4 hexblade level
Take Eldritch smite at 5 hexblade level
Now this build is taken to the next level! It went from using a sword-n-shield to using a big boy heavy hitter. Now our sustain damage is pretty good with GWM. Using VoE on key targets now takes priority since we want to ensure getting +10 from GWM over +4 damage from HC. Of course, the big crown of this build comes down to Eldritch Smite! When we crit (and boy we are gonna crit!), that’s when you can use both your pact slots for a divine and eldritch smite. At this level, you’ll be using third level spell slots. Crit, and you’ll toss out a total of 16d8’s, or 72 damage on average from smite dice alone. If the target is particularly tanky, then consider using only one pact slot for eldritch smite, and another paladin slot for divine smite. This will allow you to double-smite the following turns until you deplete your pact slots.
From here, your have freedom in what you do next. Want more options in spellcasting? Go higher warlock. Want to be a smite-machine? Go more paladin as having more long-rest, higher level slots will balance out your double-smite spread for the long run. Now, I’m sure many of you are familiar with the 6 paladin 14 hexblade spread, or the 11 paladin and 9 hexblade spread. But since I want to introduce something often unexplored and since we’re in the paladin subforum, here’s a heavily paladin leaning build: paladin 13, warlock 5, fighter 2.
At 8 paladin level, take mounted combatant.
12 paladin level, cap out CHA
13 paladin level, access to find greater steed
Fighter 2, take action surge.
CHA and Mounted Combatant are interchangeable so if you find your party needs better saves (or you do), then do CHA first. But, with MC you’ll be activating EA much more frequently and perform more reliable GWM attacks without using a single resource. This goes to its extreme when you get find greater steed. Use your haste spell from oath of vengeance’s spell list on both you and your Pegasus. Go zoom at extreme speeds with your hasted flying mount as you easily cover at least 180 ft of ground (or sky) per turn. With that much movement, this is the kind of build you use to hit-n-run an ancient red dragon to death. Then, if you want to nova and crit fish to the max, use your action surge. That’s a lot of damage!
When mixing paladin and hexblade, there is so much synergy that there are few really bad or wrong ways to build it. Same with adding fighter 2, hard to ever go wrong with Action Surge.
The problems with this build imo is it will take a long time to really come together. Granted, just as a paladin or a paladin/hexblade, you will still always be effective. But if you are starting out paladin 6 and hexblade 5, then the earliest you are getting Haste is level 14. No Find Greater Steed until level 18.
So not really a criticism. Just a basic of all optimization, to get one thing, something else has to suffer. It's all about making the proper tradeoffs.
p.s. your initiative will be brutal! :)
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Hi and welcome to my guide for playing a Hexadin. Now, why TexMex Hexadin? Because it sounds cool with that repetitive "ex." While there are other guides, I want to present my own take. This guide will present a character that is very focused on combat and damage, namely Burst Damage. Utility? Not so much. Control? Possibly with the right spells. No, instead this is the guide you want when your party is already chalk full of controllers, skill monkeys, and utility casters. Can a Hexadin do those things? Sure, to an extent, but that’s not what the TexMex Hexadin is about.
Here’s what you need:
Now, I’m recommending 16 STR from the get go and dumping three whole stats. Why? Because I find lvl 1 to be one of the most dangerous levels. I really want my best chances at making sure attacks land. Might it go unused later on? Not so much, as you can always take and benefit from proficiency in athletics, and it will definitely come in handy when you pick up plate armor.
From here, take another level in paladin. We get spell slots and a fighting style, which I’ll recommend dueling for now. It’ll later change when we get an ASI in paladin.
Now we pick up hexblade. For cantrips, take green flame blade and eldritch blast. Why not booming blade? Because enemies almost never move after being attacked without reason, but enemies certainly do bunch up more frequently. For spells we’ll take Shield (duh), and Armor of Agathys. If you’d like, Hex can be taken instead of AoA if you don’t like AoA’s theme or if you’re in a party with lots of sources for temp HP.
At this point, we’re 2 paladin/1 hexblade. Get paladin to 6 straight away. Some key notes
At this point, the chassis of the build is starting to come together. While we lost some sustainable damage going from Dueling to Defense, our burst has jumped up considerably. This is a burst damage build, so that’s okay! When we use Vow of Enmity (VoE), we’ll roll three dice for advantage thanks to Elven Accuracy. When we use Hexblade’s Curse (HC), we’ll crit on a 19 or 20. With both active, that’s a 27% chance to crit on a single attack roll. Basically, once we unlock extra attack, we have a ~50/50 chance to crit per turn after VoE and HC are active on the same target. You could choose to use both of those resources separate or together. Either’s fine as they’re both resources that recharge on a short rest. If you want both active on the same target but have a hard time deciding what needs to be used first, simply think about their AC. High? VoE. Low? HC.
Now we’re paladin 6/ hexblade 1. From here, go Hexblade 5. Some key notes.
Now this build is taken to the next level! It went from using a sword-n-shield to using a big boy heavy hitter. Now our sustain damage is pretty good with GWM. Using VoE on key targets now takes priority since we want to ensure getting +10 from GWM over +4 damage from HC. Of course, the big crown of this build comes down to Eldritch Smite! When we crit (and boy we are gonna crit!), that’s when you can use both your pact slots for a divine and eldritch smite. At this level, you’ll be using third level spell slots. Crit, and you’ll toss out a total of 16d8’s, or 72 damage on average from smite dice alone. If the target is particularly tanky, then consider using only one pact slot for eldritch smite, and another paladin slot for divine smite. This will allow you to double-smite the following turns until you deplete your pact slots.
From here, your have freedom in what you do next. Want more options in spellcasting? Go higher warlock. Want to be a smite-machine? Go more paladin as having more long-rest, higher level slots will balance out your double-smite spread for the long run. Now, I’m sure many of you are familiar with the 6 paladin 14 hexblade spread, or the 11 paladin and 9 hexblade spread. But since I want to introduce something often unexplored and since we’re in the paladin subforum, here’s a heavily paladin leaning build: paladin 13, warlock 5, fighter 2.
CHA and Mounted Combatant are interchangeable so if you find your party needs better saves (or you do), then do CHA first. But, with MC you’ll be activating EA much more frequently and perform more reliable GWM attacks without using a single resource. This goes to its extreme when you get find greater steed. Use your haste spell from oath of vengeance’s spell list on both you and your Pegasus. Go zoom at extreme speeds with your hasted flying mount as you easily cover at least 180 ft of ground (or sky) per turn. With that much movement, this is the kind of build you use to hit-n-run an ancient red dragon to death. Then, if you want to nova and crit fish to the max, use your action surge. That’s a lot of damage!
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
"TAKE action surge?"
:)
When mixing paladin and hexblade, there is so much synergy that there are few really bad or wrong ways to build it. Same with adding fighter 2, hard to ever go wrong with Action Surge.
The problems with this build imo is it will take a long time to really come together. Granted, just as a paladin or a paladin/hexblade, you will still always be effective. But if you are starting out paladin 6 and hexblade 5, then the earliest you are getting Haste is level 14. No Find Greater Steed until level 18.
So not really a criticism. Just a basic of all optimization, to get one thing, something else has to suffer. It's all about making the proper tradeoffs.
p.s. your initiative will be brutal! :)