I have a character that, when finished, will be Warlock/Fighter/Rogue. Still got about 5 levels to go, but the general plan is...
Warlock (Undying Light) 9: I know it's not typical, but Mage Armor Invocation means you're always protected. And as a human, being able to match all my non-human dark vision was definitely worth the investment. And the boost to fire damage? Very useful. So is recharging 2 spell slots every short rest.
Fighter (Eldrich Knight) 8: For the cantrip + attack, plus always able to summon my weapons as needed. With the melee fighting skill and War Caster Feat, I could cast Protection from Good & Evil and be nigh untouchable in some situations. Then SCAG came out with Green Flame Blade and yup, perfect melee magical assault!
Rogue (Inquisitive) 3: Mostly for RP reasons. His closest friend, confidant, and adventurer is a rogue, so the secret language is a big bonus. And he's made a big deal of sussing out truth from fey and demons. It fits. Plus a bonus action to add 2d6 to one attack a turn? That means that bonus attack after a cantrip during battle? Hits a WHOLE lot harder than enemies expect.
If you are playing a character that tries to deceive or trick people often or get away with things without someone noticing, you could take a lvl of lock or the magic initiate feat and grab hex. It gives the target of your hex disadvantage on one stat's ability checks so goodbye insight/perception to the target if you choose wis. Hex has no saving throw, they're just affected by it automatically. If you stack that with expertise in whatever you're trying to get away with or advantage, it would be incredibly op. One problem with using the feat would be that you only get to use it once per long rest rather than once per short rest like locks normally do, but for your uncharismatic pickpocket thief, it may be more handy to stay in the rogue tree rather than multiclassing. Another is that you can only move hex if your target dies, so you wouldn't be able to dart from shop to shop pulling the same scam. Either way you'd get a couple of lock cantrips to use whenever you want which would be a nice addition to any class.
The warlock hexblade multi class is one of my pet peeves - too easy. Compare this with Eldritch Knight Which would need strength and Intelligence, so relatively MAD. Now a Hexblade warlock multi class can tank all stats to the minimum and go off Charisma. You sacrifice nothing and get a relatively large gain.
I've made 3 warlocks so far. Two were multiclasses.
1: Tiefling Celestial Warlock Tomelock, straight class. I took both Tiefling Feats at 4 & 8 from XgtE. I'm a Tomelock, so I use shillelagh and wade into combat using Green Flame Blade. I'm then surrounded by Flames of Phlegethos, and Infernal Constitution means I resist: Fire, Radiant, Cold, and Poison. His main weakness is a low AC for a combat character, but I generally use all my Warlock spells on Armor of Agaythis. He is also the party Wizard, because he is a ritual caster.
2: Shadow Monk/Warlock Tomelock. 8 levels of Shadow Monk, and 4 levels of Outer Gods Tomelock. He was a Shadowmonk who got a collection of Illithid books and made a deal with them. Chaotic Neutral became Chaotic Evil and helped the Drow overthrow the Elves in exchange for his own kingdom.
3: Shadow Sorcerer/Hexblade Pactblade. 1 level of Shadow Sorcerer to be trained in Con, get 2 spell a day and 4 cantrips. Have Absorb Elements and Thunderwave. The rest of the character will be pure Hexblade, but it's been really clutch having those spare cantrips and spell uses. Hexblade gave me medium armor so until 4th level I was weapon and shield, now I'm wielding a maul and found a suit of halfplate. So, I'm in combat next to our Paladin, being melee oriented has made Thunderwave very useful.
I will say I do think Hexblade feels a little OP. I can use Cha for my spells and melee attack and damage, but on the otherhand. It only applies to one weapon. Hexblades can't competently duel wield. My spells currently still do more then my weapon.
I've kind of already got a Hexblade murder hobo... she's a criminal, and enjoys taking murder contracts. She sticks around in town after the job is done, only leaving when the sketchiest tavern stops serving her. Then it's on to the next job. Might as well double down, right?
So, makes sense to multi- into Rogue, at least for a bit. for RP reasons, not just more damage. Big problem I have with that is that her spells will be stuck at Warlock 5 until I get some real goodies out of Rogue. I'm thinking 3 levels of Rogue, because gaining Accursed Specter at Hexblade 6 is tasty. Or, stick with Rogue 4 to get a Feat, or ASI.
Her intelligence is only 10, so it may not make sense to go into Arcane Trickster, but the spell list is really nice there. Just not sure if enemies would easily make their saves. And, she's already a caster.
I feel like Assassin and Swashbuckler would be the best fits. She's way melee - so either of Swashbuckler's level 3 features would be nice. Assassinate feature would pile up nicely with 2d6 Sneak Attack, and crit on surprised enemies. She'll have 14 DEX, +4 Stealth at this point.
Has anyone played a Hexblade / Swashbuckler, or Hexblade / Assassin? Pros and cons would be great.
Half elf (drow) 3 Hexblade levels off the bat, taking Devil's Sight and Improved Pact Weapon.
The rest is rogue assassin. At level 7 (3 W + 4 R) you can pick up Elven Accuracy and if youre properly abusing Devil's Sight + Darkness, you should have constant advantage and sneak attack with a pretty high chance to hit.
And you can focus on char instead of dex on a rogue. So you can use all kinds of deception and persuasion tactics mixed with the ability to turn invisible use the magical darkness for being sneaky.
Being a drow half elf allows you to have an extra darkness cast too so bonus there.
From there you can either dump into rogue which means at level 9 you get another attr bump or feat (cross bow expert is a good choice, so is sharpshooter if you're ranged)
The hexblade curse really plays to the assassin theme too.
I just thought of taking my lvl 4 warlock of the great old one into 2 levels of rogue to create a psychic super-spy, but looking into it, I'm kind of bummed that I didn't take the rogue levels first. It seems like I could've ended up with more skill proficiencies without much compromise to the warlock skills. The path I took gave me stronger magic sooner, but it seems like those same abilities could've still been eventually attained with a much stronger base character to use them with. My bad, but the rp kind of evolved over the first few sessions to where I had this much more complete character concept, just a little too late for maximum benefit, I guess.
Question. I have a level 4 Lore Bard. I may pick up Warlock for Eldritch Blast. If I do this, does it scale based on total character level? Meaning, can I shoot 2 blasts as a 5th level character even though I only have 1 level of Warlock?
Question. I have a level 4 Lore Bard. I may pick up Warlock for Eldritch Blast. If I do this, does it scale based on total character level? Meaning, can I shoot 2 blasts as a 5th level character even though I only have 1 level of Warlock?
The Sage advice compendium indicates that cantrips scale with total level and not warlock level.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
May the gentle moonlinght guide you to greater wisdom
That sounds good to me, but I just read through the Sage Advice and can't find that ruling. Can someone please point me in the right direction?
Sage advice compendium, version 1.03:
"Cantrips - If a character has levels in more than one class, do the character’s cantrips scale with character level or with the level in a spellcasting class? Cantrips scale with character level. For example, a barbarian 2 / cleric 3 casts sacred flame as a 5th-level character."
I have a character that, when finished, will be Warlock/Fighter/Rogue. Still got about 5 levels to go, but the general plan is...
Warlock (Undying Light) 9: I know it's not typical, but Mage Armor Invocation means you're always protected. And as a human, being able to match all my non-human dark vision was definitely worth the investment. And the boost to fire damage? Very useful. So is recharging 2 spell slots every short rest.
Fighter (Eldrich Knight) 8: For the cantrip + attack, plus always able to summon my weapons as needed. With the melee fighting skill and War Caster Feat, I could cast Protection from Good & Evil and be nigh untouchable in some situations. Then SCAG came out with Green Flame Blade and yup, perfect melee magical assault!
Rogue (Inquisitive) 3: Mostly for RP reasons. His closest friend, confidant, and adventurer is a rogue, so the secret language is a big bonus. And he's made a big deal of sussing out truth from fey and demons. It fits. Plus a bonus action to add 2d6 to one attack a turn? That means that bonus attack after a cantrip during battle? Hits a WHOLE lot harder than enemies expect.
If you are playing a character that tries to deceive or trick people often or get away with things without someone noticing, you could take a lvl of lock or the magic initiate feat and grab hex. It gives the target of your hex disadvantage on one stat's ability checks so goodbye insight/perception to the target if you choose wis. Hex has no saving throw, they're just affected by it automatically. If you stack that with expertise in whatever you're trying to get away with or advantage, it would be incredibly op. One problem with using the feat would be that you only get to use it once per long rest rather than once per short rest like locks normally do, but for your uncharismatic pickpocket thief, it may be more handy to stay in the rogue tree rather than multiclassing. Another is that you can only move hex if your target dies, so you wouldn't be able to dart from shop to shop pulling the same scam. Either way you'd get a couple of lock cantrips to use whenever you want which would be a nice addition to any class.
The warlock hexblade multi class is one of my pet peeves - too easy. Compare this with Eldritch Knight Which would need strength and Intelligence, so relatively MAD. Now a Hexblade warlock multi class can tank all stats to the minimum and go off Charisma. You sacrifice nothing and get a relatively large gain.
I've made 3 warlocks so far. Two were multiclasses.
1: Tiefling Celestial Warlock Tomelock, straight class. I took both Tiefling Feats at 4 & 8 from XgtE. I'm a Tomelock, so I use shillelagh and wade into combat using Green Flame Blade. I'm then surrounded by Flames of Phlegethos, and Infernal Constitution means I resist: Fire, Radiant, Cold, and Poison. His main weakness is a low AC for a combat character, but I generally use all my Warlock spells on Armor of Agaythis. He is also the party Wizard, because he is a ritual caster.
2: Shadow Monk/Warlock Tomelock. 8 levels of Shadow Monk, and 4 levels of Outer Gods Tomelock. He was a Shadowmonk who got a collection of Illithid books and made a deal with them. Chaotic Neutral became Chaotic Evil and helped the Drow overthrow the Elves in exchange for his own kingdom.
3: Shadow Sorcerer/Hexblade Pactblade. 1 level of Shadow Sorcerer to be trained in Con, get 2 spell a day and 4 cantrips. Have Absorb Elements and Thunderwave. The rest of the character will be pure Hexblade, but it's been really clutch having those spare cantrips and spell uses. Hexblade gave me medium armor so until 4th level I was weapon and shield, now I'm wielding a maul and found a suit of halfplate. So, I'm in combat next to our Paladin, being melee oriented has made Thunderwave very useful.
I will say I do think Hexblade feels a little OP. I can use Cha for my spells and melee attack and damage, but on the otherhand. It only applies to one weapon. Hexblades can't competently duel wield. My spells currently still do more then my weapon.
I've kind of already got a Hexblade murder hobo... she's a criminal, and enjoys taking murder contracts. She sticks around in town after the job is done, only leaving when the sketchiest tavern stops serving her. Then it's on to the next job. Might as well double down, right?
So, makes sense to multi- into Rogue, at least for a bit. for RP reasons, not just more damage. Big problem I have with that is that her spells will be stuck at Warlock 5 until I get some real goodies out of Rogue. I'm thinking 3 levels of Rogue, because gaining Accursed Specter at Hexblade 6 is tasty. Or, stick with Rogue 4 to get a Feat, or ASI.
Her intelligence is only 10, so it may not make sense to go into Arcane Trickster, but the spell list is really nice there. Just not sure if enemies would easily make their saves. And, she's already a caster.
I feel like Assassin and Swashbuckler would be the best fits. She's way melee - so either of Swashbuckler's level 3 features would be nice. Assassinate feature would pile up nicely with 2d6 Sneak Attack, and crit on surprised enemies. She'll have 14 DEX, +4 Stealth at this point.
Has anyone played a Hexblade / Swashbuckler, or Hexblade / Assassin? Pros and cons would be great.
Thanks,
a 10/10 split works well with tome lock (7 cantrips) and Druid(land), cleric, wizard (5 cantrips) or sorcerer(6 cantrips).
Bear in mind you can still go spell sniper for more cantrip action!
the gimmick being you select all the utility cantrips you need plus a couple damage ones and you hardly need to touch those spell slots.
just a thought
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
Here is what I did,
Half elf (drow) 3 Hexblade levels off the bat, taking Devil's Sight and Improved Pact Weapon.
The rest is rogue assassin. At level 7 (3 W + 4 R) you can pick up Elven Accuracy and if youre properly abusing Devil's Sight + Darkness, you should have constant advantage and sneak attack with a pretty high chance to hit.
And you can focus on char instead of dex on a rogue. So you can use all kinds of deception and persuasion tactics mixed with the ability to turn invisible use the magical darkness for being sneaky.
Being a drow half elf allows you to have an extra darkness cast too so bonus there.
From there you can either dump into rogue which means at level 9 you get another attr bump or feat (cross bow expert is a good choice, so is sharpshooter if you're ranged)
The hexblade curse really plays to the assassin theme too.
My warlock follows the raven queen and its hella fun
I just thought of taking my lvl 4 warlock of the great old one into 2 levels of rogue to create a psychic super-spy, but looking into it, I'm kind of bummed that I didn't take the rogue levels first. It seems like I could've ended up with more skill proficiencies without much compromise to the warlock skills. The path I took gave me stronger magic sooner, but it seems like those same abilities could've still been eventually attained with a much stronger base character to use them with. My bad, but the rp kind of evolved over the first few sessions to where I had this much more complete character concept, just a little too late for maximum benefit, I guess.
Question. I have a level 4 Lore Bard. I may pick up Warlock for Eldritch Blast. If I do this, does it scale based on total character level? Meaning, can I shoot 2 blasts as a 5th level character even though I only have 1 level of Warlock?
The Sage advice compendium indicates that cantrips scale with total level and not warlock level.
May the gentle moonlinght guide you to greater wisdom
That sounds good to me, but I just read through the Sage Advice and can't find that ruling. Can someone please point me in the right direction?
it's in the player's handbook; chapter 6
"If a cantrip of yours increases in power at higher levels, the increase is based on your character level, not your level in a particular class."
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
Sage advice compendium, version 1.03:
"Cantrips - If a character has levels in more than one class, do the character’s cantrips scale with character level or with the level in a spellcasting class? Cantrips scale with character level. For example, a barbarian 2 / cleric 3 casts sacred flame as a 5th-level character."
May the gentle moonlinght guide you to greater wisdom