Variant Concept: Hex Ranger

A variant I've been kicking around for the 5.5 Ranger. In essence a way to turn it into a sort of Hexblade.  How balanced would this be, and is it something that you yourself would either play or allow at your table?


Level 1: Accursed Enemy (Optional)
This 1st level feature replaces the Favored Enemy feature. You always have the Hex spell prepared. You can cast it twice without expending a spell slot, and you regain all expended uses of this ability when you finish a Long Rest. The number of times you can cast the spell without a spell slot increases when you reach certain Ranger Levels, as shown in the Favored Enemy column of the Ranger Features table. Any Ranger feature that expends uses of Favored Enemy expends use of this feature instead. Any Ranger feature that requires you to be concentrating on Hunter's Mark requires you to be concentrating on Hex instead.

Level 2: Fighting Style
You gain a Fighting Style feat of your choice (see chapter 5). If you took the Accursed Enemy feature, you can choose the option below instead of taking one of those feats.

Eldritch Warrior. You gain the Eldritch Adept feat in place of a fighting style feat. 

I'm curious what the motivation is for Accursed Enemy. Hex is very similar to Hunter's Mark, but with a less desirable damage type and an extra feature (imposing disadvantage on ability checks with one specific ability) that rarely comes up in practice. What's the goal in changing one for the other?

Eldritch Adept is interesting, but it has a pretty severe limitation baked into it, in that if you're not also a Warlock you can't take any of the invocations that have any kind of prerequisite on them at all, which if you're using the 5.5e list doesn't give you very many options. That might be okay since it's taking the place of a Fighting Style feat, but you miss out on things like Agonizing Blast or Fiendish Vigor that might be really desirable.

I wonder if it might be better to ditch any connection to the Eldritch Adept feat and just give a class-specific Fighting Style option that's not a feat (similar to Druidic Warrior) that provides an invocation directly, and set some looser limits on which ones you can take.

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

I'm curious what the motivation is for Accursed Enemy. Hex is very similar to Hunter's Mark, but with a less desirable damage type and an extra feature (imposing disadvantage on ability checks with one specific ability) that rarely comes up in practice. What's the goal in changing one for the other?

Eldritch Adept is interesting, but it has a pretty severe limitation baked into it, in that if you're not also a Warlock you can't take any of the invocations that have any kind of prerequisite on them at all, which if you're using the 5.5e list doesn't give you very many options. That might be okay since it's taking the place of a Fighting Style feat, but you miss out on things like Agonizing Blast or Fiendish Vigor that might be really desirable.

I wonder if it might be better to ditch any connection to the Eldritch Adept feat and just give a class-specific Fighting Style option that's not a feat (similar to Druidic Warrior) that provides an invocation directly, and set some looser limits on which ones you can take.

 
To address, and thank you for bringing this up:

-While Hex is absolutely arguably a less desirable Hunter's Mark, it brings a different flavor with it. The original idea that brought me to this is, if one simply made the swap would Ranger make a decent way to approach making a Hexblade.

-I had actually first making it explicitly just Pact of the Blade but using Wisdom, then I considered Eldritch Adept but adding text to make it so you could treat your Ranger level as your Warlock level for the purposes of Invocations.  What I settled on above was just the feat for a starting point, interested in seeing what people suggested. As it stands it would give the choice of: Armor of Shadows, Eldritch Mind, Pact of the Blade, Pact of the Chain, or  Pact of the Tome.

Admittedly I also tossed around the thought of tacking on the choice for additional Invocations instead of the Expertise granting features, but I was hesitant to make too many changes from the start.

So, based on feedback so far, how about for the fighting style instead.

Eldritch Warrior. You gain an Eldritch Invocation of your choice. Any spells gained through this invocation are Ranger spells, Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for them, and you may use Wisdom instead of Charisma for any invocation that refers to Charisma. You may treat your Ranger level as your Warlock level for the purposes of qualifying for Eldritch Invocations. When you gain a Ranger level, you may replace this invocation with another one for which you qualify.

I just have to raise the point wagnarok did. What's the point? You could simply build regular Ranger, flavour your hunter's mark as cursing the target, and take the Eldritch Adept feat at level 4 and have a better character than this. Alternatively, you could build a Pact of the Blade Warlock and dip one level into Fighter at level 6 and have a better character than this.

What is it that you are trying to achieve? What features of Ranger do you think benefit the Hexblade concept?