Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
A few thoughts on the current arguments ongoing:
1). I personally would have been happy with an updated Hexblade - basic 2024 updates which would likely include at least a couple small buffs. I think a version could be done that would not make them the “best” bladelock but could compete with the PHB subclasses.
2) A 2024 bladelock is fine in T1 and T2 for dmg potential, but is behind other martial, with debatably worse defense (you can really only pour warlock resources into 1 or the other, AoA being a possible exception). Any argument saying they are better, especially without an armor dip, than other martials seems to be cherry-picking. I’ll reference Treantmonk’s class dmg comparisons (he made an armor dip bladelock his single target baseline for 2024 based on his math). You may not agree but he makes a great case that the other classes are better in T1/2. The 3rd attack is the difference maker and the big boost (as it is for the fighter)
3). This subclass as it exists is well underpowered. You do not get enough to make the hex use worthwhile; the opportunity cost of concentration is too high. I think it could be made to work, but I need to see more oomph. Currently an armor dip gets me more than this subclass when it matters in game, and I can take a different subclass with better or more flexible features instead.
hexblade has more built in defence than regular bladelock mostly due to the level 10 ability, but you are underestimating regular bladelocks defense. Hexblade can also use hex for offense, and pact slots for. defense. A big mistake people are making here is thinking because you cant concentrate on two spells there is no value. Fact is warlock gets 2 to 3 pact spells per SR, getting 5 free enhanced hex slots means you can be offensive and use pact slots on defense, or you can be more offensive.
treant monk never claimed he made exhaustive lists, or best builds, he just made some builds he would play or wanted to test out. He also was not going for overall anything, but was building for single target damage. Its also a fallacy to say its behind other martials in DPR. he literally chose warlock GWM as the baseline, meaning its in the middle. ranger, monk (without assuming 100% advantage) and rougue are behind it in damage.
He wasnt calculating based on defense or real play. I'd say hexblades overall defense is A teir. in terms of martials.
i just did this recently, and i'll add hexblade to the teir list
going by damage:surviability:support: control
hexblade A:A:B:S
monk B+:S:C:A
fighter A:A:C:A
Paladin S:S:S:S
barbarian S:A:B:C
Ranger B+:B:S:A
Rogue B:B:A:B
id say monk and paladin are most survivable, but not really due to superior AC, but rather other features. I never claimed hexblade is the best martialish class, but rather that its actually where it needs to be. Giving it medium shield would shift it to being fairly top teir martial. essentially increasing its offense, (because less need for defensive spells,) and defense.
and to be clear im not saying they should or have to do this hexblade, i am saying it is not a mechanically weak martial class. I think they could go other directions from a design standpoint.
perhaps it is not the best, i dont really deep dive into full caster power levels, but its powerlevel is on par with other martials, and i think as good as a pseudo martial should be at being a martial. A psuedo martial should never be the best martial, because it can still fall back on its non martial abilities. Its actually positioned fairly well, especially considering its greatest strengths are in t1 and 2 where most games occur. (actually beats most martials in these teirs)
(I snipped out some bits)
Treantmonk obviously wasn’t exhaustive, but he was trying to determine the best single target DPR for each class bs one another (both with and without subclass). The bladelock became baseline - which for him was ok damage (or minimum acceptable for the role). In T1 and T2 it was definitely not better than ranger (who was actually #1 in T1 with TWF and craters in T3). Monk and rogue were middle of the road. Bladelocks take off when they get 3rd attack and again with foresight.
Also, he may not have made perfect or builds to your taste, but he was full focusing all abilities (including spells) into damage when possible. TM also notes that he would absolutely take an armor dip to make it viable as a melee PC. You can disagree, but it’s super efficient (moreso than any other way to improve defense within the base class).
Hex is an ok spell for T1, less so as you progress - similar to Hunters Mark. This subclass doesn’t give enough to trade off other concentration spells overall.
Trust me, I’m well aware that a bladelock is already a good martial option; that’s part of the warlock base when you take the right invocations. I don’t agree their defense is “good” - yes you can use your limited resources to supplement. I would argue that is still just part of the base bladelock. Hexblade makes it “easier” with free castings of a minor damage spell with some mostly minor perks, but it feels more of a trap than good feature in this iteration.
Old Hexblade wasn’t OP because it got medium armor and shield prof; it was OP because it got them at lvl 1 with CHA for attacks. Beyond that, I don’t think the subclass was great over a career (maybe good). The subclass now won’t be front-loaded, so getting at least medium armor at level 3 still won’t make them OP, especially compared to other martials.
If this was the future of the Hexblade, my High Elf Charlatan Hexblade would become a High Elf Charlatan Celestial Warlock. With the ability to choose Fire Bolt as their Wizard cantrip, they can use Radiant Soul on it. It would also work with True Strike. They can heal themselves with a bonus action until their pool of Healing Light dice is depleted.
I would start with 8/17/13/10/10/16 stats, taking Polearm Master at level 4 to bump dexterity to 18, using a spear, +2 to charisma at 8, and Resilient: Con at level 12.
Since starting with 150 gold, and not needing to spend gold on weapons, it's easy to afford studded leather as the starting option. It's not worth spending an invocation on Armor of Shadows.
Armor of Agathys and False Life are not specific to Hexblade, so if they confer bonus survival to Hexblade, they confer it to any Warlock.
The four "must take" invocations for a Blade Pact Warlock in my opinion are Pact of the Blade, Thirsting Blade, Lifedrinker, and Devouring Blade. Eldritch Smite should probably be left until you have three Pact Slots, level 15 say. Lessons of the First Ones: Magic Initiate [Wizard] can give you a free casting of Shield each long rest, while still being able to cast it with Pact Slots if you must, along with two Wizard cantrips.
I don't suppose it's unreasonable to have obtained some +1, or even +2 studded leather at level 12.
Purely on offense, the level 12 PotB Warlock, just using Hex, neglecting more powerful options like Spirit Shroud, is rolling 0.65 (3(d8+4) + (d4+4) + 4(d6) + (d6)) damage, for 30 damge per round, regaining an average of 6.5HP if you expend a hit die. Would potentially healing 78 damage (12 dice) over the course of the fight justify using an invocation on Lifedrinker.
Actually, belay that statement about Lifedrinker being a must-take invocation. I was thinking that it still worked like the Paladin's Radiant Strikes, working on every hit the Warlock inflicted. It's only once per turn, and I'm not sure an extra 3.5 damage a turn is worth sacrificing something as valuable as an invocation. Replacing Hex with Spirit Shroud, assuming Tasha's is an accepted sourcebook, would add 0.65(4(2d8)) damage per round, or 23 damage. That's a much better investment.
A GWM Fighter (str 20) with PAM and a d10 weapon is doing 0.65(3(d10+5)+(d4+5)+4) is doing 28 average, neglecting other damage sources like maneuvers.
A high AC gives you a reducation in damage taken, but it also reduces the number of concentration checks you have to make. You can take Resilient: Con and the Eldritch Mind invocation to help maintain concentration though.
At level 12 Warlocks have 8 invocations. If four are taken for Pact of the Blade, Thirsting Blade, Lifedrinker, and Devouring Blade, what should the other four invocations be?
Eldritch Mind gives us advantage on Concentration checks. That's often useful in a fight, especially if you only have 16AC and 87HP.
Lessons of the First Ones: Magic Initiate (Wizard) for the Shield spell.
One With Shadows: On demand Invisibility, so long as you're able to find a patch of shadows to cast the spell in.
Mask of Many Faces: On demand Disguise Self. My favorite invocation. Just make yourself look like someone wearing heavy armor, and maybe people won't try to hit you.
When I first heard that there was a hexblade coming out, I was really excited. I was thinking of all the things they could do, like make it so you can gain weapon mastery with your pact weapon, and maybe make it so that if you take an attack action as a hexblade with thirsting blade make it so one the first attack can be a cantrip. Maybe have a way to add charisma to armor instead of the medium armor proficiency.
But we got none of that. The hexblade we received was just a major disappointment.
hexblade is no longer the melee warlock, all warlocks can melee if they want, hexblade is an attack based warlock who gets greater utility and use from the hex spell. If you arent interested in that, its not going to be that appealing.
but most of that was already in place with the 2024 warlock changes.
There’s a feat for Weapon Masteries, which is a better option because any gish can take it and it also keeps the Masteries as a mostly martial feature as they’re intended to be.
Hexblade's curse using concentration? No thank you. The changes to armor of hexes? Hard pass. And what part of the new hexblade has anything to do with BLADES?
So i proposed to instead make the 2024 hexblade the ultimate warlock-gish and up the ante on his/her ability to curse.
First the 2014 master of hexes is now just part of the base hexblade's curse.
Second the hexblade still gets a hexweapon that (s)he can use as an arcane focus and can use his/her cha bonus for attack and damage with, but if they have the pact of the blade invocation then the hexweapon also counts as a pact weapon.
Third, at warlock 3, the hexblade gets 2 weapon masteries and a fighting style, so if a bladelock wants to dual wield then hexblade is the way to do it but this also makes him/her a better gish of any stripe.
Fourth, replace accursed spectre with the ability to replace one attack, that would otherwise have been made with the hexweapon as part of an attack action with a cantrip that normall costs an attack action to cast. So it cqn be used in place of one dual 2i3lding attack (e.g. if one of the weapon materies was nick), it applies to thorsting hlade, or if 6ouv3 got 5 levels of fighter it'd work with that too.
Fifth, replace armor of hexes with "jinx" when the target of your hexblade's curse makes a d20 check, you can use you4 reaction to jinx them causing them to roll another d20 and take the worse result. You can us3 the jinx reaction proficiency bonus times per short or long rest.
Sixth, here are 2 options for replacing th3 old armor of hexes. Option 1: "jinx again" after you use the jinx reaction, the target of your hexblade's curse also has disadvantage on the next d20 check they make. Option 2: a new "Master of hexes': you can simultaneously affect 2 targets with your hexblade's curse. A single bonus action can be used to apply the curse to 2 targets on the same round or the hexblade can apply their curse to 2 separate targets on 2 separate rounds using 2 separate bonus actions. Im leaning towards the updated master of hexes because I think jinx again would be to punishing/abuseable.
Making it the ultimate Warlock Gish is exactly what they don’t want from it. The entire point of all the tune-ups to Pact of the Blade is so any subclass can use it effectively. Giving one subclass a ton of extra advantages mostly just brings us right back to where we were with 2014.
1) Ultimate warlock-gish is right there in the name "hexblade." If the "new hexblade" isn't going to focus on hexes and weapons then they need to change the name/release a *different* subclass. In 2014 if you wanted to dual wield, hexblade pact of the blade was the way to go (because hexweapon and pact weapon), I don't see taking that away as an option, doubling down on it is.
2) allowing *any* subclass to be a *good* gish is not negated by designing one subclass to be a *BETTER* gish. It's a sliding scale of focus/specialization.
3) any given 2024 warlock subclass with pact of the blade and follow on invocations is a *worse* gish than the 2014 hexblade with pact of the blade etc. If they go with the UA hexblade warlock becomes a worse/more mediocre (less potential as a) gish than under 2014, it'd be taking away gishyness from the class, meaning it'd be better to just leave hexblade alone than go with the UA update.
4) you can mostly do what I was proposed already through multiclassing, starting with a 1 level fighter dip gets you con proficiency, 3 weapon masteries, a fighting style, medium/heavy armor proficiency, etc. Then going pact of blade hexblade until at least warlock 12, is close to identical as what I recommended. The difference is leaning more heavily into the hex theme because every warlock can now gets the cha bonus and joining the blade singer and valor bard with the ability to substitute 1 cantrip for one attack made as part of an attack action. So it's not much of a power creep/just brings hexblade in line with other 2024 (sub)classes, because for the most part 2024 (sub)classes get at least a small bump in power level relatively to 2014 varieties. The UA hexblade 2.0 is quite a substantial nerf.
If the UA hexblade is a nerf, it probably means they think hexblade with the 2024 warlock chassis needed a nerf.
keep in mind the baseline class has devouring blade and an improved lifedrinker,'
and keep in mind that hexblade was seen as an OP dip for many classes, and some claimed the best martial class in the game.
So its highly possible that it was going to get nerfed in some aspects regardless.
and also, hexblade, though its not specifically limited to melee weapon use, is probably the subclass which is most synergistic with melee weapon use, due to its features essentially being weighted towards attacks and using hex.
no other subclasses has as much reason and opportunity to be making attacks.
could they have gone deeper on melee, sure, could they have built a different subclass sure.
is it weak by 2024 class standards when compared to other martials? not at all.
OK. So they tried again with the Arcane Subclasses released today in UA. And...it's better. Mostly. But seriously, Wotc - as a warlock, why would you think I would ever completely forgo all armor and a shield for a +2 bonus to AC ONLY on attacks coming from the target of my hexblade's curse?
It might be ok with it being +2 bonus to AC if you're not wearing armor or using a shield while hexblade's curse is active. But as it is in the UA? No.
So they dropped a new hexblade, i have to ponder it more, but i kinda dont like that its just one creature per cast. You can apply it via other spells that curse the target, but warlock only has 2 spells per SR for most of its career.
they get some new effects with it, but when i think of it being 3-5 creatures per day versus 3-5 possible hours per day, that seems like a lot of time where i either have spend spell slots or not have any benefits from your subclass.
on the plus side, it wont directly block any concentration uses,
they also improved your armorless/shieldless AC, which i doubt will satisfy the medium armor/shield wanting guys, but there it is, basically as good as monk AC with a lot less dependency on two different stats.
how do yall feel?
Seems like they wanted to focus the class more on melee than last UA, and thus they dont want as much benefit to being at far range as a hexblade.
i think being close to the target for the new hexblade is an issue, not inherently, but because this hexblade is per monster, not as long as you have hex spell targeted.
but the old hexblade was up even less often, so maybe its fine
Where did they improve armorless ac? Did I miss something other than the +2 you get when armorless, against attacks from just the target of your Hexblade curse? Cuz that's nowhere near s good as the constant bid to ac monk's gets from two different stats.
Read that ability again. It has nothing to do with attacks from your cursed target.
You get a +2 to AC when within 10ft of your cursed target.
While I agree it's a little weak, all they need to do is make it a static increase so long as a curse spell is active. It should not be as good as a Monk's or Barbarian's unarmored defense though. Not for a primary spellcaster.
Ha! So it does. Still, hate it... Lol
It's honestly still a crappy ability. There's no reason it doesn't work with armor. It's just a shield w/ prerequisites, on a class with an armor proficiency. As is, it's an additional invocation tax. And it STILL has the problem of losing the previous proficiencies that is going to make at least some current Hexblades unplayable by destroying their defense (like mine, for instance, currently running medium armor and a shield).
Yeah that should definitely not limit you from wearing light armor since light armor is a 2024 warlock armor training. I guess there is precedence for this sort of thing since dance bard has a feature that requires you not to wear armor, but that is a damage calculation and far better than a +2. I like it as a method to give incentive to playing a Hexblade in melee ranges, but it does become an invocation tax by dropping the armor training given by the base class. Maybe even if it read if not wearing heavy armor or a shield I could accept it as not just being bad. I’ll need more time with it to make a final verdict.