So, unfortunately, the Hexblade is broken. In a very bad, sad way. I've done tons of analysis on it (looked at mathematical damage output for every level from 1-20 for Hexblade, Fiend, Archfey, Celestial, Eldritch Knight (Fighter), and Assassins (Rogue)) and there is one, single conclusion:
Hexblades primary role is an 'arcane' warrior. They have limited armor, and no real healing skills to speak of, and despite access to spells like shield, their highly limited spell slots make this virtually useless in all but extreme cases. This leaves them one real role as a 'warrior' and that is... damage.
Hexblades never (ever) do more damage than other Warlocks with Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast (EB+AB), from levels 2-20 (at level 1, Hexblades do about double EB damage)
Hexblades 'tie' with EB + AB at most levels, but at several levels, EB+AB outperforms them (including levels 17-20) all told, Hexblades have about 90% of the average or maximum baseline damage than EB+AB.
Hexblades must invest half of their available class features, at any given level, to achieve 90% of the effectiveness of what all other Warlocks do with 1 class feature invested.
When a Hexblade invests the same amount as a EB+AB warlock (1 class feature), at BEST they deal about 25-50% of the damage as an EB+AB
For anyone still doubting, you can create an astronomically better Faux-Hexblade by creating, for example:
A Fiend (for damaging spells and lifesteal) or Celestial (for healing) Warlock (but works for any patron), boosting CHA and DEX
Taking Eldritch Blast, Agonizing Blast, and Armor of Shadows. Ditch your light armor for robes, and Cast Armor of Shadows, at will, for free, to get a higher than/equal AC to most Hexblades.
You now have equal protection, better base damage, more spell options, and better heals. You also can choose any Pact Boon, and have 1 extra invocation slot compared to what a Hexblade would (when optimized/maxed out).
Last, ask your DM to 'reskin' your Eldritch Blast to be an arcane bow you 'conjure' (totally legal). And Poof! You have any other type of warlock, much better at a Hexblade's role in every measurable way + with more patron, boon, invocation, and spell flexibility.
What this means is... the best way to by an arcane warrior with a Hexbladeis to play another subclass and 'reskin' it to be a 'warrior.' If you're shadowrealm-bent on playing a Hexblade proper though, then your best damage option is still to completely forego the primary class concept of wielding weapons and just use EB+AB! As a Hexblade, you'll also need need to invest up to 4x more of your class features just to always do less which is an enormous opportunity cost/penalty.
Remember, these same invocations slots can be used to turn invisible at will, breathe underwater, see perfectly in normal/magical darkness, cast disguise self or alter self at will for free. Invocations are CRITICAL for Warlocks, and Hexblades ultimately get less of them... and have absolutely no extra damage to show for it! This is noootgood. Stacking Improved Pact Weapon, Thirsting Blade, and Lifedrinker only narrow the gap with EB+AB. They never surpass it. Period. This is simply what the math shows.
For those fellow scientists out there wondering how I tested, I compared average and maximum Damage Per Round (DPR) of a Hexblade using a Longbow (ranged) and Longsword in one hand (melee), assumed the Hexblade took every weapon-boosting invocation/upgrade as soon as it was available, and compared it with any other Warlock with EB+AB and their damage per round, at that level.
This is sad. Hexblades are awesome. Hexblades need love. Hexblades should be able to do more damage than a Cantrip paired with a single, level 2 invocation. Period.
I present to you, the Krieghexe: A Lite re-balance of the Hexblade.
Krieghexe Lite:
(Hex Warrior Improvement) Fell Smite: Any weapon you use as your Hex Weapon deal's 1d10 base damage (Eldritch Blast's base damage). If you wield a weapon with theVersatile property in 2 hands, the damage of your Hex Weapon is increased to 1d12. If you later gain the Pact of the Blade feature, Fell Smite's benefits extend to every pact weapon you conjure with that feature, no matter the weapon's type.
(Improved Pact Weapon Enhancement): You may now conjure your Pact Weapon as a Bonus Action, instead of an Action. If you already have a weapon conjured, you may mold it into a new weapon for a Free Action, once per turn.
This still actually requires more of an investment than a 'normal' weapon which can be drawn for free, despite popular belief: "You [can] draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack." (PHB Chapter 9 > Order of Combat > Other Activities On Your Turn)
(Thirsting Blade Enhancement): In addition, this invocation allows you to take a 3rd attack at level 11, and a 4th attack at level 17 (matching Eldritch Blast's freeextra attack bonuses)
With these changes, you will do slightly more damage (like 5-10% or 1 point per hit) than EB+AB from levels 3-11. Then, when taking Lifedrinker at 12, you will start to do a moderate bit more damage (like, 25-30% or 6 points per hit). This also keeps your average damage per round below a Rogue's Sneak Attack (which only seems fair as Rogues have less armor, and should have higher payoff in terms of damage.
This does mean you have to invest a little bit more for a Hexblade in levels 1-12 for only a tiny improvement, but at least makes them viable and provides some benefit for that boost.
That said, if you like the idea of a Hexblade overhaul, stay tuned for my upcoming Krieghexe Full rebalance, that provides a more robust, better-rounded look at Hexblades, and provides better damage scaling with level (instead of a slight boost followed by a big boost at 12). :)
Now we have a classification for why our swords do more damage than normal. Also, that makes the class a killer ranged attacker as well.
So essentially the hexblade is becoming the Warlock's version of assassin, but with better armor and less damage. That's a good way to think of it.
TANGENT: Should we consider reworking the 6th level Accursed Specter feature? That feature just seems totally useless and odd for the class to me. I'm trying to figure out ways to rework that.
The question I would ask is whether or not this Krieghexe rework is in line with all the classes that only ever get two swipes per turn. Monk, Barbarian, Palladalladingdong, Ranger, variations of the Bard or Artificer. How's the damage line up, with light investment in damagey Invocations and full investment in damagey Invocations?
Agonizing Doink is well understood to be easily the best/strongest at-will damage option in the entire game, bar none. It is *stupid good*, well outside the curve of most forms of weaponry, and any typical martial weapon user only keeps up if they have a pretty ballin' magical weapon. That's not a unique-to-Hexblade problem, that's a problem of Agonizing Doink being the best at-will attack option in the game by a wide margin.
Considering Hexblade's Curse and regular Hex, as well as numerous damagey Invocations for Hexblades that want to focus on sticking their tool in things, does the hexblade underperform compared to every other dual-swing attacker in the game? Or only compared to literally-the-best-at-will-damage-in-5e? Because that's a problem for ERRYBUDDY.
Anyways. I actually like the idea of Improved Pact Weapon allowing you to transform your conjured Pact weapon, though I'd probably make it a bonus rather than a free. Also obviously does not work on a bound Pact weapon instead, but it'd give some thought to whether you want to bind a Pact weapon at all, or if you instead enjoy the benefits of being able to switch it around.
(Hex Warrior Improvement) Fell Smite: Any weapon you use as your Hex Weapon deal's 1d10 base damage (Eldritch Blast's base damage). If you wield a weapon with theVersatile property in 2 hands, the damage of your Hex Weapon is increased to 1d12. If you later gain the Pact of the Blade feature, Fell Smite's benefits extend to every pact weapon you conjure with that feature, no matter the weapon's type.
(Improved Pact Weapon Enhancement): You may now conjure your Pact Weapon as a Bonus Action, instead of an Action. If you already have a weapon conjured, you may mold it into a new weapon for a Free Action, once per turn.
This still actually requires more of an investment than a 'normal' weapon which can be drawn for free, despite popular belief: "You [can] draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack." (PHB Chapter 9 > Order of Combat > Other Activities On Your Turn)
(Thirsting Blade Enhancement): In addition, this invocation allows you to take a 3rd attack at level 11, and a 4th attack at level 17 (matching Eldritch Blast's freeextra attack bonuses)
Uhh... Couple few points.
Fell Smite. You give all Hex weapons a flat 1d10, except versatile when used two-handed goes to1d12. That would make it pointless to ever use a two-handed weapon, because versatile wold be objectively far superior. This also gives the Longbow the same damage as a heavy crossbow at a vastly superior range, 30 ft. better than regular EB, anda long range out to 600 ft.
Improved Pact Weapon Enhancement. This makes it so they could switch from quarterstaff to longbow or back again in the proverbial blink of an eye.
Thirsting Blade Enhancement. This gives the Hexblade 4 Weapon-Attacks per Action 3 entire levels before Fighters!
Hello, I've been watching Kell_Swiftfire rework this. He has come a long way.
Here's the issue... without this overhaul... EB + AB + RB does more damage BY FAR than base Hexblade. EB + AB + RB is ALSO does 4 attacks three levels before the Fighter.
Get the spell sniper feat and EB + AB + RB + ES is at 600 ft range as well. Multi-class into Sorcerer and now that damage has a range of 1200 ft.
6 levels in Warlock, 2 levels in Sorcerer. Now you have the a cantrip that has the best range and the best at will damage. You are level 8 and you do 2d10 + 10 at 1200 ft away. That's 1280 damage on average you can do to a fighter who doesn't have a ranged weapon from a half a mile away before he can touch you. If anyone has magic, their only option is to teleport away or run or else they'll take a bunch of damage as well.
Get far enough away and an 8th level Sorlock can EASILY kill all level 20 non-magic characters and any magic character who can't teleport away as well as MOST MONSTERS IN ALL SOURCEBOOKS OF ALMOST ALL CHALLENGE RATINGS INCLUDING EVERY SINGLE DRAGON by himself except for a couple that are immune to force damage.
What have I just demonstrated? Well... The Sorlock multiclass is broken and should be banned... or Distant Spell shouldn't stack with Spell Sniper or Eldritch Spear... probably.
As Kell_Swiftfire said earlier, You could just flavor an eldritch blast to look like a longbow and you'd have the exact same thing as this balance, he's literally only asking that the Hexblade, the main pull of the entire subclass, gets 6 more points of damage per hit. The assassin, still outpaces this class in damage.
Here's the math on the abosolute highest average damage output attainable with magic items for Hexblade's with his overhaul.
(4d12(24) + 4d6(12) + 4d8(16) + 80)
132 on average. Kell_Swiftfire (While I agree with your reasoning, I still think this is broken)
Weapon attacks. Hex. Hexblade's Curse. Improved Pact Weapon Eldritch Smite. Charisma Mod. +3 Longsword. Lifedrinker. Tome of Leadership.
This takes a ton of magic items, 3 invocations, it takes an entire turn to set up (Hexes), lasts only three turns after that, it is only available to level 20s, and it uses up ALL of your Pact Spell Slots, for a grand total of 396 damage on average over three turns IF all of the attacks hit.
EB + AB + RB
(4d10(20) + 8d6(24) + 48)
92 on average.
80 on average if your dm thinks fall damage is stupid.
Only two invocations. You can do this as many times as you want within the range of Hexes. 4d6 of this is based on fall damage, but flying ten feet through the air does that to you, it's in the rules.
Now I have an alternative rework for Hexblade as well. It's based on an earlier version that of the Larger Overhaul he is about to send out.
Here's my rework.
(3d10(15) + 4d6(12) + 4d8(16) + 60)
103 on average. (Edit: Sorry, messed up the math a bit on the first try.)
You get three attacks with Thirsting Blade. Eldritch Smite is an ability based on Proficiency (Kell_Swiftfire's idea, it was brilliant, look for it in his larger overhaul.). Lifedrinker now heals you 4 (Kell also came up with this feature, but he had 6 instead.) Weapons do regular damage.
Now just for comparison, the average damage of a full equipped optimized assassin. I've added a belt of Storm Giant Strength, a defenders rapier, and A 20 Dex Score and a 20 Charisma Score as well as a cloak of invisibility so that nearly all of the enemies that this assassin attacks are surprised.
1d8(4) + 40d6(120) + 12
136 on average.
At. No. Cost. (The creature does have to fail a save, so this won't work on legendary resistance monsters until you use up their three saves. That average is 76, less than EB + AB + RB but that balances out when you realize that this is just ONE attack and the Hexblade/Eldritch blast combo can miss a lot easier than this can with all the feats you plug into the Assassin rogue. You almost always have advantage with the Assassin, and you do not with the Hexblade.)
Another rework is on the way with Kell, and that one is much closer to my rework in terms of damage output if not a little lower. I'll let him rework it and show you. If you want to see the entire discussion that lead to this, check out the comment section below the Warlock class in the rules.
Kell, I do think you need to revise the Lite version a bit, it's very close to being as powerful as an assassin.
And Yurei... this is definitely not scaled to other two hit caster type people. But here's something to take in mind....
ALL of your invocations are used up besides maybe two in this rework, in my rework, and in the rework that Kell is working on, in order to get more damage. Instead of investing in damage, you could get some awesome invocations that make a huge difference in roleplay. This is for people who want Hexblade to actually be used for the Warlock when attacking. It is not meant to scale with other classes.
No classes scale with other classes. They are all incredibly different and some are just way better than others. This one is so close to being good, which is why it is salvageable, but there are many classes that are hopelessly underpowered... and then classes like The Lore Bard is an impossible class to beat. How do you scale to the Lore Bard Class which can just take any spell from anywhere? It's impossible.
All this is trying to do is make the class enjoyable and give you motivation to use the damn Hexblade instead of Eldritch Blast.
So your argument is that the Hexblade is underpowered compared to a build that is sooo overpowered that it “is broken and should be banned....” (your words) so that means we should overtune the Hexblade and get rid of any semblance of game balance with the other 12 classes?
With two invocations (enhances Improved Pact Weapon, and enhanced Thirsting Blade) this rework does everything that a “regular” Warlock would get with: Improved Pact Weapon+Thirsting Blade+Agonizing Blast+Eldritch Spear+11 levels of fighter+a magic weapon+Rod of the Pact Keeper
Is the Hexblade out of wack compared to the other Warlock subclasses? Debatably. Is that more to do with the Warlock being out of wack? Probably.
My claim is that if you are looking for balance, that is not and never was in fifth edition.
Ranger is objectively worse than the other classes since the first publication of fifth edition, and Lore Bard has the best and most broken ability, cutting words, since the first publication.
Wizards of the Coast has never been concerned with balancing this edition of this game.
Take one peak at the Tempest and Grave Cleric and you will see what I mean.
This buff is not concerned with balancing so much as it is concerned with motivating a Hexblade Warlock to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING, besides eldritch blast.
We want to swing our magical sword and do more damage than our magical machine gun but not more damage than an assassin (without taking 11 levels in fighter, gross). Balance is not within that goal nor is it a concern of mine nor the people that make this game, in my opinion.
So your argument is that the Hexblade is underpowered compared to a build that is sooo overpowered that it “is broken and should be banned....” (your words) so that means we should overtune the Hexblade and get rid of any semblance of game balance with the other 12 classes?
With two invocations (enhances Improved Pact Weapon, and enhanced Thirsting Blade) this rework does everything that a “regular” Warlock would get with: Improved Pact Weapon+Thirsting Blade+Agonizing Blast+Eldritch Spear+11 levels of fighter+a magic weapon+Rod of the Pact Keeper
Is the Hexblade out of wack compared to the other Warlock subclasses? Debatably. Is that more to do with the Warlock being out of wack? Probably.
I never thought the classes were balanced to begin with. Tempest Cleric gets all their spells all the time, they can do max damage 3 times a day for lightning damage, and they can heal. Compare that to an Evocation Wizard who gets max damage much later, only once a day and it hurts them, has to spend gold to learn spells, and can never heal or wear the armor that clerics can.
Okay, it’s your party. Do what you want. But at the very least balance the “Versatile when wielded with two-hands” damage with actual two-handed weapons.
Your completely stepping on the fighter's toes by giving them 4 attacks then for 1 level investment your increasing damage die size. You shouldn't use other warlocks as your comparison you should be looking at how it stacks up against other melee classes.
You have only 2 Spell Slots until Level 11. Then you have 3 as well as one six. At maximum you have 4 (5 with Rod) Spell Slots of Level 5 and a level 6, 7, 8 and 9 Spell. Additionally the class gets the capability of a fighter earlier than the fighter and you get those Spell Slots back after a Short Rest. You become an ALMOST full caster at that point and then the damage of eldritch blast should be put on the weapon? I mean... that seems... a lot. The Hexblade is a Gish afterall. :/
"you should be looking at how it stacks up against other melee classes."
No. It should be compared to other DPS classes. How the damage is delivered means nothing. There are cantrips that are melee attacks that only casters can use.
Also, this is not a melee class. It is a DPS magic class. You are using magic to boost your melee damage. You literally signed a pact with an otherworldly power. The Fighter did not do that. The Fighter can wear heavy armor and has way more hit points. The Fighter has a much higher change to crit. That is the benefit of the Fighter. They are tanks + DPS, heavy on the tank side. Hexblade Warlocks are just DPS. And I'm sorry... didn't the gunslinger class do something like 140 damage during a livestreamed critical role one shot? The Gunslinger is also a DPS class... and it does similar damage at level 20.
Why not compare the assassin to other melee classes? It's technically a melee class according to you. Isn't the assassin broken? It does do more damage. Okay, and let's compare the capabilities of a level 20 fighter with math? Fully maxed out damage. Let's go.
Also, because you can crit so easily (10% chance), the averages are skewed upwards, as such, I will adjust for this by using 75% of the roll, not half like I did before.
2 actions surges, this gives you 12 attacks. Each has a change to crit at 10%. That's 120% chance of criting. (I know that's not how math works. Humor) So I am going to act as if one attack was a crit. This IS two adjustments for crits, yes, but take in mind that you have a roughly 60% chance of criting twice.
I chose the centaur race. He is using a +3 Greatsword and has the Greatsword Master feat. He has a belt of Storm Giant Strength as well. I maxed out Dex with ability scores.
(14d6(61) + 3d4(8) + 228)
297 damage for one round. And then add another five rounds at...
(4d6(18) + 1d4(3) + 76)
97 damage for one round. So in six rounds, my unit of measurement for overall power, a fully decked out fighter does...
782 damage.
The Kriegehexe lite does 792 damage in 6 rounds.
That's actually really close... With my nerf, which I posted earlier, it comes down to
618 damage in six rounds.
So it is very close to being balanced... but not quite. So there is the comparison you asked for even though technically it isn't a valid comparison.
OH AND LETS DO A WIZARD FOR FUN JUST SO WE CAN REALLY BREAK EVERYTHING.
Ist round 10d6 at max damage (60)X2 = 120 for simulacrum.
2nd round 80d6(240 + 10) = 250 (metoer swarm and int modifier feature)
It's really not, it's just giving you an interesting way to do a little more damage with fewer invocations available for other abilities you could have instead.
What I have convinced my DM to let me do is, swap the Accursed Specter for the first tier of War Magic.
What this does for Hexblade is:
- makes you almost independent from Pact of the Blade if you want to take another pact and still melee(you only lose Lifedrinker and Eldritch Smite now)
- If you do take Pact of the Blade, it frees up your invocation slot for something more fun or situational than extra attack
- Increases your scaling melee damage thanks to melee cantrips, at the cost of bonus action
- It's a little bit more fun and flavourful? At least in my opinion
Negative of this approach is you get this one level later than Thirsting Blade... And I guess it slightly infringes on Eldritch Knight (and now Blood Hunter as well) uniqueness I guess? Not that I am overly broken up over that, since they have other things going for them.
123 x infinity. 738 damage in 6 rounds. And without consequences or need for rest.
111 x infinity. 666 damage in 6 rounds. And without consequences or need for rest.
You also get thirsting blade back as an invocation.
You'd still be a blastlock warlock.
The biggest negative is that you'd have to use two turns before you attacked with Hexblade in order to set up hexes. And then when someone dies you'd have to wait a whole turn before slapping someone with Hexblade. Plus, there is the problem that you'd have to close in on your target and choose different targets for eldritch blast on the next turn. Which does nothing for you if you hexed the dude right in front of you. That adjustment sounds great for damage and incorporation but is littered with excuses not to use your bonus action to swing your hexblade and nerfs your Hex because ranged spells are at disadvantage at five feet. Improved Pact Weapon makes this a lot better, but I like swords not bows, so I won't be going with this rework.
With my build you slap with the hexblade a bunch straight out the gate and it feels more like a Paladin than an Eldritch Knight. Eldritch Knights are terrible. That was the first character I played. Awful. My username is based on an Eldritch Knight character actually. lol.
The idea was to get to play around with the melee Cantrips, since normally you wouldn't be able to both attack and cantrip in a single turn. I will freely admit I haven't calculated with it particularly hard, and that the solution was primarily made for me having fun with it, so it's not an optimised solution or anything, and getting play out of them was the primary idea behind the change.
...plus I saw it was added to Order of the Profane Soul in the Blood Hunter revision and went "why the heck not"
If you really want to make it semi-Blast proof, add a caveat that the bonus attack can only be melee, so you can't use it in conjunction with a pact bow. This way, you either melee cantrip, risk AoO for Eldritch Blast, or use Eldritch Blast with disadvantage.
Only having one attack (or an Eldritch Blast) on the two turns where you hex up is, I think, a worthwhile tradeoff.
And it not stacking with Thirsting Blade is intentional, otherwise it would be just too much.
Is there a reason you aren't accounting for feats (which benefit melee far more than Eldritch Blast), how easy melee advantage is to get compared to ranged advantage, or the availability of magic weapons?
Giving Hexblade a Fighter's attack progression is extremely misguided. There's a reason only Fighters get that many attacks, why should a Warlock get it + all their spellcasting?
The answer for people who hate how domineering Agonizing Doink is on their warlocks is very simple.
Disallow the "Agonizing Blast" Invocation.
Bang: problem solved. Eldritch Blast is simply very good instead of overwhelmingly superior to all other at-will options; warlocks who wish to customize their Blast can still do so via the other Eldritch Bonk invocations, with the overall damage of the spell being comparable to typical high-end damage cantrips rather than favorably comparable to the best resource-free martial damage output in the entire game.
I want the action economy to sync up nicely. I really like it when things combo off of one another.
I would make this alteration.
You empower your weapon with Eldritch Blast... it would be called Hexblade War Magic.
You make a pact to destroy your target. You empower your weapon with Eldritch Power. When you cast Eldritch blast, you may use a no action to make one attack with your Hexblade/Pact Weapon.
Eldritch Blast does not have disadvantage when you use this feature in melee range, however, all of the bolts of eldritch blast only can go to one target. Eldritch Smite does not work with this power because your weapon is already imbued with magic. Each blast is a swing of your sword with a beam of energy emanating from your sword. The last swing, the fifth one, is the final move in the combination and has to make contact with your target. This feature can only be used if you have enough movement left to move to them for the last strike. If the final move misses or you attempt to smite, you take 1d6 damage as your sword explodes with magic. Any creature within 5 feet of you also takes 1d6 damage when this happens. If your sword explodes, you must use an action to resummon it.
If your target dies before the last strike, you may strike it's body to avoid the damage. You MUST remember to do so or will still take the damage.
You can use this feature your charisma modifier. Once you run out of slots, you regenerate them on a short rest.
That way, you can use your bonus action for hex.
It's not War Magic, but in all honesty, the Eldritch Knight should have this feature changed in this way as well, except he should be able to use any melee or ranged cantrip but it recharges only on a long rest. Call it Eldritch War Magic.
The result? First turn, one hex, fling them back 10 feet, run up, hit with sword for final move. Second turn, two hexes, fling them back ten feet again, hit with sword for final move. If you miss, your sword explodes. High risk, high reward. What do you think?
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Hey all!
So, unfortunately, the Hexblade is broken. In a very bad, sad way. I've done tons of analysis on it (looked at mathematical damage output for every level from 1-20 for Hexblade, Fiend, Archfey, Celestial, Eldritch Knight (Fighter), and Assassins (Rogue)) and there is one, single conclusion:
For anyone still doubting, you can create an astronomically better Faux-Hexblade by creating, for example:
What this means is... the best way to by an arcane warrior with a Hexblade is to play another subclass and 'reskin' it to be a 'warrior.' If you're shadowrealm-bent on playing a Hexblade proper though, then your best damage option is still to completely forego the primary class concept of wielding weapons and just use EB+AB! As a Hexblade, you'll also need need to invest up to 4x more of your class features just to always do less which is an enormous opportunity cost/penalty.
This is sad. Hexblades are awesome. Hexblades need love. Hexblades should be able to do more damage than a Cantrip paired with a single, level 2 invocation. Period.
I present to you, the Krieghexe: A Lite re-balance of the Hexblade.
Krieghexe Lite:
With these changes, you will do slightly more damage (like 5-10% or 1 point per hit) than EB+AB from levels 3-11. Then, when taking Lifedrinker at 12, you will start to do a moderate bit more damage (like, 25-30% or 6 points per hit). This also keeps your average damage per round below a Rogue's Sneak Attack (which only seems fair as Rogues have less armor, and should have higher payoff in terms of damage.
This does mean you have to invest a little bit more for a Hexblade in levels 1-12 for only a tiny improvement, but at least makes them viable and provides some benefit for that boost.
That said, if you like the idea of a Hexblade overhaul, stay tuned for my upcoming Krieghexe Full rebalance, that provides a more robust, better-rounded look at Hexblades, and provides better damage scaling with level (instead of a slight boost followed by a big boost at 12). :)
Awesome rework of Fell Smite.
Now we have a classification for why our swords do more damage than normal. Also, that makes the class a killer ranged attacker as well.
So essentially the hexblade is becoming the Warlock's version of assassin, but with better armor and less damage. That's a good way to think of it.
TANGENT: Should we consider reworking the 6th level Accursed Specter feature? That feature just seems totally useless and odd for the class to me. I'm trying to figure out ways to rework that.
The question I would ask is whether or not this Krieghexe rework is in line with all the classes that only ever get two swipes per turn. Monk, Barbarian, Palladalladingdong, Ranger, variations of the Bard or Artificer. How's the damage line up, with light investment in damagey Invocations and full investment in damagey Invocations?
Agonizing Doink is well understood to be easily the best/strongest at-will damage option in the entire game, bar none. It is *stupid good*, well outside the curve of most forms of weaponry, and any typical martial weapon user only keeps up if they have a pretty ballin' magical weapon. That's not a unique-to-Hexblade problem, that's a problem of Agonizing Doink being the best at-will attack option in the game by a wide margin.
Considering Hexblade's Curse and regular Hex, as well as numerous damagey Invocations for Hexblades that want to focus on sticking their tool in things, does the hexblade underperform compared to every other dual-swing attacker in the game? Or only compared to literally-the-best-at-will-damage-in-5e? Because that's a problem for ERRYBUDDY.
Anyways. I actually like the idea of Improved Pact Weapon allowing you to transform your conjured Pact weapon, though I'd probably make it a bonus rather than a free. Also obviously does not work on a bound Pact weapon instead, but it'd give some thought to whether you want to bind a Pact weapon at all, or if you instead enjoy the benefits of being able to switch it around.
Please do not contact or message me.
Uhh... Couple few points.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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IamSposta
Hello, I've been watching Kell_Swiftfire rework this. He has come a long way.
Here's the issue... without this overhaul... EB + AB + RB does more damage BY FAR than base Hexblade. EB + AB + RB is ALSO does 4 attacks three levels before the Fighter.
Get the spell sniper feat and EB + AB + RB + ES is at 600 ft range as well. Multi-class into Sorcerer and now that damage has a range of 1200 ft.
6 levels in Warlock, 2 levels in Sorcerer. Now you have the a cantrip that has the best range and the best at will damage. You are level 8 and you do 2d10 + 10 at 1200 ft away. That's 1280 damage on average you can do to a fighter who doesn't have a ranged weapon from a half a mile away before he can touch you. If anyone has magic, their only option is to teleport away or run or else they'll take a bunch of damage as well.
Get far enough away and an 8th level Sorlock can EASILY kill all level 20 non-magic characters and any magic character who can't teleport away as well as MOST MONSTERS IN ALL SOURCEBOOKS OF ALMOST ALL CHALLENGE RATINGS INCLUDING EVERY SINGLE DRAGON by himself except for a couple that are immune to force damage.
What have I just demonstrated? Well... The Sorlock multiclass is broken and should be banned... or Distant Spell shouldn't stack with Spell Sniper or Eldritch Spear... probably.
As Kell_Swiftfire said earlier, You could just flavor an eldritch blast to look like a longbow and you'd have the exact same thing as this balance, he's literally only asking that the Hexblade, the main pull of the entire subclass, gets 6 more points of damage per hit. The assassin, still outpaces this class in damage.
Here's the math on the abosolute highest average damage output attainable with magic items for Hexblade's with his overhaul.
(4d12(24) + 4d6(12) + 4d8(16) + 80)
132 on average. Kell_Swiftfire (While I agree with your reasoning, I still think this is broken)
Weapon attacks. Hex. Hexblade's Curse. Improved Pact Weapon Eldritch Smite. Charisma Mod. +3 Longsword. Lifedrinker. Tome of Leadership.
This takes a ton of magic items, 3 invocations, it takes an entire turn to set up (Hexes), lasts only three turns after that, it is only available to level 20s, and it uses up ALL of your Pact Spell Slots, for a grand total of 396 damage on average over three turns IF all of the attacks hit.
EB + AB + RB
(4d10(20) + 8d6(24) + 48)
92 on average.
80 on average if your dm thinks fall damage is stupid.
Only two invocations. You can do this as many times as you want within the range of Hexes. 4d6 of this is based on fall damage, but flying ten feet through the air does that to you, it's in the rules.
Now I have an alternative rework for Hexblade as well. It's based on an earlier version that of the Larger Overhaul he is about to send out.
Here's my rework.
(3d10(15) + 4d6(12) + 4d8(16) + 60)
103 on average. (Edit: Sorry, messed up the math a bit on the first try.)
You get three attacks with Thirsting Blade. Eldritch Smite is an ability based on Proficiency (Kell_Swiftfire's idea, it was brilliant, look for it in his larger overhaul.). Lifedrinker now heals you 4 (Kell also came up with this feature, but he had 6 instead.) Weapons do regular damage.
Now just for comparison, the average damage of a full equipped optimized assassin. I've added a belt of Storm Giant Strength, a defenders rapier, and A 20 Dex Score and a 20 Charisma Score as well as a cloak of invisibility so that nearly all of the enemies that this assassin attacks are surprised.
1d8(4) + 40d6(120) + 12
136 on average.
At. No. Cost. (The creature does have to fail a save, so this won't work on legendary resistance monsters until you use up their three saves. That average is 76, less than EB + AB + RB but that balances out when you realize that this is just ONE attack and the Hexblade/Eldritch blast combo can miss a lot easier than this can with all the feats you plug into the Assassin rogue. You almost always have advantage with the Assassin, and you do not with the Hexblade.)
Another rework is on the way with Kell, and that one is much closer to my rework in terms of damage output if not a little lower. I'll let him rework it and show you. If you want to see the entire discussion that lead to this, check out the comment section below the Warlock class in the rules.
Kell, I do think you need to revise the Lite version a bit, it's very close to being as powerful as an assassin.
And Yurei... this is definitely not scaled to other two hit caster type people. But here's something to take in mind....
ALL of your invocations are used up besides maybe two in this rework, in my rework, and in the rework that Kell is working on, in order to get more damage. Instead of investing in damage, you could get some awesome invocations that make a huge difference in roleplay. This is for people who want Hexblade to actually be used for the Warlock when attacking. It is not meant to scale with other classes.
No classes scale with other classes. They are all incredibly different and some are just way better than others. This one is so close to being good, which is why it is salvageable, but there are many classes that are hopelessly underpowered... and then classes like The Lore Bard is an impossible class to beat. How do you scale to the Lore Bard Class which can just take any spell from anywhere? It's impossible.
All this is trying to do is make the class enjoyable and give you motivation to use the damn Hexblade instead of Eldritch Blast.
So your argument is that the Hexblade is underpowered compared to a build that is sooo overpowered that it “is broken and should be banned....” (your words) so that means we should overtune the Hexblade and get rid of any semblance of game balance with the other 12 classes?
With two invocations (enhances Improved Pact Weapon, and enhanced Thirsting Blade) this rework does everything that a “regular” Warlock would get with: Improved Pact Weapon+Thirsting Blade+Agonizing Blast+Eldritch Spear+11 levels of fighter+a magic weapon+Rod of the Pact Keeper
Is the Hexblade out of wack compared to the other Warlock subclasses? Debatably. Is that more to do with the Warlock being out of wack? Probably.
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No.
My claim is that if you are looking for balance, that is not and never was in fifth edition.
Ranger is objectively worse than the other classes since the first publication of fifth edition, and Lore Bard has the best and most broken ability, cutting words, since the first publication.
Wizards of the Coast has never been concerned with balancing this edition of this game.
Take one peak at the Tempest and Grave Cleric and you will see what I mean.
This buff is not concerned with balancing so much as it is concerned with motivating a Hexblade Warlock to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING, besides eldritch blast.
We want to swing our magical sword and do more damage than our magical machine gun but not more damage than an assassin (without taking 11 levels in fighter, gross). Balance is not within that goal nor is it a concern of mine nor the people that make this game, in my opinion.
I never thought the classes were balanced to begin with. Tempest Cleric gets all their spells all the time, they can do max damage 3 times a day for lightning damage, and they can heal. Compare that to an Evocation Wizard who gets max damage much later, only once a day and it hurts them, has to spend gold to learn spells, and can never heal or wear the armor that clerics can.
This game is not about balance my friend.
Okay, it’s your party. Do what you want. But at the very least balance the “Versatile when wielded with two-hands” damage with actual two-handed weapons.
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Sorry this just way too OP.
Your completely stepping on the fighter's toes by giving them 4 attacks then for 1 level investment your increasing damage die size. You shouldn't use other warlocks as your comparison you should be looking at how it stacks up against other melee classes.
You have only 2 Spell Slots until Level 11. Then you have 3 as well as one six. At maximum you have 4 (5 with Rod) Spell Slots of Level 5 and a level 6, 7, 8 and 9 Spell. Additionally the class gets the capability of a fighter earlier than the fighter and you get those Spell Slots back after a Short Rest. You become an ALMOST full caster at that point and then the damage of eldritch blast should be put on the weapon? I mean... that seems... a lot. The Hexblade is a Gish afterall. :/
My rework actually does do that. I just forgot to mention it.
"you should be looking at how it stacks up against other melee classes."
No. It should be compared to other DPS classes. How the damage is delivered means nothing. There are cantrips that are melee attacks that only casters can use.
Also, this is not a melee class. It is a DPS magic class. You are using magic to boost your melee damage. You literally signed a pact with an otherworldly power. The Fighter did not do that. The Fighter can wear heavy armor and has way more hit points. The Fighter has a much higher change to crit. That is the benefit of the Fighter. They are tanks + DPS, heavy on the tank side. Hexblade Warlocks are just DPS. And I'm sorry... didn't the gunslinger class do something like 140 damage during a livestreamed critical role one shot? The Gunslinger is also a DPS class... and it does similar damage at level 20.
Why not compare the assassin to other melee classes? It's technically a melee class according to you. Isn't the assassin broken? It does do more damage. Okay, and let's compare the capabilities of a level 20 fighter with math? Fully maxed out damage. Let's go.
Also, because you can crit so easily (10% chance), the averages are skewed upwards, as such, I will adjust for this by using 75% of the roll, not half like I did before.
2 actions surges, this gives you 12 attacks. Each has a change to crit at 10%. That's 120% chance of criting. (I know that's not how math works. Humor) So I am going to act as if one attack was a crit. This IS two adjustments for crits, yes, but take in mind that you have a roughly 60% chance of criting twice.
I chose the centaur race. He is using a +3 Greatsword and has the Greatsword Master feat. He has a belt of Storm Giant Strength as well. I maxed out Dex with ability scores.
(14d6(61) + 3d4(8) + 228)
297 damage for one round. And then add another five rounds at...
(4d6(18) + 1d4(3) + 76)
97 damage for one round. So in six rounds, my unit of measurement for overall power, a fully decked out fighter does...
782 damage.
The Kriegehexe lite does 792 damage in 6 rounds.
That's actually really close... With my nerf, which I posted earlier, it comes down to
618 damage in six rounds.
So it is very close to being balanced... but not quite. So there is the comparison you asked for even though technically it isn't a valid comparison.
OH AND LETS DO A WIZARD FOR FUN JUST SO WE CAN REALLY BREAK EVERYTHING.
Ist round 10d6 at max damage (60)X2 = 120 for simulacrum.
2nd round 80d6(240 + 10) = 250 (metoer swarm and int modifier feature)
3rd round (16d6(42) + 40)X2 = 164 (Disentigrate)
4th round (13d6(39) + 40)X2 = 158
5th round (same as above) = 158
6th round (10d6(30) + 40)X2 = 140
Total damage in 6 rounds? 990!!
So nothing is balanced. That's all I have to say.
Edit: Math Correction.
It's really not, it's just giving you an interesting way to do a little more damage with fewer invocations available for other abilities you could have instead.
What I have convinced my DM to let me do is, swap the Accursed Specter for the first tier of War Magic.
What this does for Hexblade is:
- makes you almost independent from Pact of the Blade if you want to take another pact and still melee(you only lose Lifedrinker and Eldritch Smite now)
- If you do take Pact of the Blade, it frees up your invocation slot for something more fun or situational than extra attack
- Increases your scaling melee damage thanks to melee cantrips, at the cost of bonus action
- It's a little bit more fun and flavourful? At least in my opinion
Negative of this approach is you get this one level later than Thirsting Blade... And I guess it slightly infringes on Eldritch Knight (and now Blood Hunter as well) uniqueness I guess? Not that I am overly broken up over that, since they have other things going for them.
Alaerei
I mean that's not bad, but it wouldn't stack with thirsting blade.
Wait... That's more damage than my overhaul.
(4d10(20) + 8d6(24) + 48) + (1d10(5) + 1d6(6) + 20)
92 + 31 = 123pr for free at level 20?
111pr if your DM thinks fall damage is stupid.
123 x infinity. 738 damage in 6 rounds. And without consequences or need for rest.
111 x infinity. 666 damage in 6 rounds. And without consequences or need for rest.
You also get thirsting blade back as an invocation.
You'd still be a blastlock warlock.
The biggest negative is that you'd have to use two turns before you attacked with Hexblade in order to set up hexes. And then when someone dies you'd have to wait a whole turn before slapping someone with Hexblade. Plus, there is the problem that you'd have to close in on your target and choose different targets for eldritch blast on the next turn. Which does nothing for you if you hexed the dude right in front of you. That adjustment sounds great for damage and incorporation but is littered with excuses not to use your bonus action to swing your hexblade and nerfs your Hex because ranged spells are at disadvantage at five feet. Improved Pact Weapon makes this a lot better, but I like swords not bows, so I won't be going with this rework.
With my build you slap with the hexblade a bunch straight out the gate and it feels more like a Paladin than an Eldritch Knight. Eldritch Knights are terrible. That was the first character I played. Awful. My username is based on an Eldritch Knight character actually. lol.
The idea was to get to play around with the melee Cantrips, since normally you wouldn't be able to both attack and cantrip in a single turn. I will freely admit I haven't calculated with it particularly hard, and that the solution was primarily made for me having fun with it, so it's not an optimised solution or anything, and getting play out of them was the primary idea behind the change.
...plus I saw it was added to Order of the Profane Soul in the Blood Hunter revision and went "why the heck not"
If you really want to make it semi-Blast proof, add a caveat that the bonus attack can only be melee, so you can't use it in conjunction with a pact bow. This way, you either melee cantrip, risk AoO for Eldritch Blast, or use Eldritch Blast with disadvantage.
Only having one attack (or an Eldritch Blast) on the two turns where you hex up is, I think, a worthwhile tradeoff.
And it not stacking with Thirsting Blade is intentional, otherwise it would be just too much.
Is there a reason you aren't accounting for feats (which benefit melee far more than Eldritch Blast), how easy melee advantage is to get compared to ranged advantage, or the availability of magic weapons?
Giving Hexblade a Fighter's attack progression is extremely misguided. There's a reason only Fighters get that many attacks, why should a Warlock get it + all their spellcasting?
The answer for people who hate how domineering Agonizing Doink is on their warlocks is very simple.
Disallow the "Agonizing Blast" Invocation.
Bang: problem solved. Eldritch Blast is simply very good instead of overwhelmingly superior to all other at-will options; warlocks who wish to customize their Blast can still do so via the other Eldritch Bonk invocations, with the overall damage of the spell being comparable to typical high-end damage cantrips rather than favorably comparable to the best resource-free martial damage output in the entire game.
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Alaerei
I think you might have my intentions mixed up.
I want the action economy to sync up nicely. I really like it when things combo off of one another.
I would make this alteration.
You empower your weapon with Eldritch Blast... it would be called Hexblade War Magic.
You make a pact to destroy your target. You empower your weapon with Eldritch Power. When you cast Eldritch blast, you may use a no action to make one attack with your Hexblade/Pact Weapon.
Eldritch Blast does not have disadvantage when you use this feature in melee range, however, all of the bolts of eldritch blast only can go to one target. Eldritch Smite does not work with this power because your weapon is already imbued with magic. Each blast is a swing of your sword with a beam of energy emanating from your sword. The last swing, the fifth one, is the final move in the combination and has to make contact with your target. This feature can only be used if you have enough movement left to move to them for the last strike. If the final move misses or you attempt to smite, you take 1d6 damage as your sword explodes with magic. Any creature within 5 feet of you also takes 1d6 damage when this happens. If your sword explodes, you must use an action to resummon it.
If your target dies before the last strike, you may strike it's body to avoid the damage. You MUST remember to do so or will still take the damage.
You can use this feature your charisma modifier. Once you run out of slots, you regenerate them on a short rest.
That way, you can use your bonus action for hex.
It's not War Magic, but in all honesty, the Eldritch Knight should have this feature changed in this way as well, except he should be able to use any melee or ranged cantrip but it recharges only on a long rest. Call it Eldritch War Magic.
The result? First turn, one hex, fling them back 10 feet, run up, hit with sword for final move. Second turn, two hexes, fling them back ten feet again, hit with sword for final move. If you miss, your sword explodes. High risk, high reward. What do you think?