Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Agreed. If the only way to "fix" a class or subclass is by multiclassing, then said (sub)class is badly designed.
Multiclassing should be a consideration as far as avoiding overly powerful combos. It shouldn't possible to make a multiclass of Class A and Class B that will always outperform the single class version of either.
They need to give a bit of feedback on what they're thinking and where they want to go and things that are simply off the table. For example, if medium armor is flat off the table, they need to say that up front so that feedback will reflect the fact that it's not going to happen.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Big agree here. If Devs feel that Hexblde=Gish, that’s valuable information. If they believe Hexblade=Cursing class, that’s helpful too. Both concepts can work but it helps to know the design intent when we provide feedback. I would prefer pure cursing focus but if it’s Gish, it’s Gish and that’s ok.
I agree with some of the above comments. If the theme of a Subclass hits your concept/Character idea you should not have to Multiclass out of the class in order to build it.
A sword swinging Hexblade being in the thick of melee combat should not have to multi class out of Warlock for the AC and Weapon skill to effectively be a Sword swinging Hexblade.
Multiclassing should be to bolster or customize the subclass but be the subclass if you know what I mean.
My 2 coppers.
Reword Armor of Shadows. It now gives proficiency with Medium Armor and Shields.
Problem solved, moving on.
It's not overpowering the Warlock any more than giving Clerics the heavy armor option, or Druids medium armor overpowers them. It's just an option that they have to expend a resource on, as Warlocks often have to do in this game.
Heck, you could even keep it as Armor of Shadows still giving you unlimited Mage Armor but also add Shield training with it and you’ve fixed it. As is, unlimited Mage Armor is basically never worth an invocation slot.
The original Hexblade was already a well-designed subclass. I don't understand why some people think medium armor and shield proficiency are somehow inappropriate for a melee-focused subclass with that fantasy and identity.
What we really need is a 2024 update that preserves the Hexblade's core mechanics, identity, and flavor while bringing it in line with the revised rules.
The two most well-received community updates both retain proficiency with medium armor and shields, you can check for yourself. That isn't a coincidence. Those proficiencies are a fundamental part of what makes the Hexblade feel unique and function effectively as a front-line warlock.
I haven't seen any other well-received version that removes medium armor and shield proficiency. It's not hard to see why.
As for the UA version, its community rating sits at -2. While that's not definitive proof of anything, it does suggest that players dont like this change.
It seems to me that the original Hexblade concept was supposed to be Elric of Melnibone, where your patron gives you some sort of dread weapon. That being the case, I'd focus the class on using their pact weapon (pact of the blade would have to be a prerequisite for the subclass). Give them weapon mastery for their pact weapon, and the ability to infuse additional powers into their pact weapon as they level up.
I agree. Medium Armor and Shield training and then focus on the cursing part of the subclass. Maybe require the curse to trigger on a melee attack hit if they are concerned about people taking Hexblade and then not taking the tradeoff of being in melee.
The issue with giving one Warlock subclass a serious passive boost to AC is that it would become a somewhat unbalanced and dominant pick, mostly Bladelocks but also in a more general sense. The current version already did that to 2014, which explains its popularity both as a power-gamer pick and because at the time it was one of the only viable Bladelock builds. Even setting that element aside, Warlocks are dependent enough on Concentration that a sizeable AC boost is pretty attractive. Ergo, if you throw shield and/or medium armor into a pick alongside an active power, you’re pretty well blowing right past the power level budget for the starting features of a subclass.
Yeah. I can see that. Unfortunately that problem already exists on warlock with Devouring Blade. Its such a dominant Tier 3 power boost that it feels bad to not take it as a warlock. And I think 2024e already did a decent job of mitigating that issue from 2014 because the subclass is locked behind 3 levels instead of 1. So you don't have the same multi-classing issues as before where you take 1 level of Hexblade and then x levels of Sorcerer or Bard. Maybe instead of medium armor + shields, its unarmored defense + shields so that you can't benefit from magic armor. 10+Dex+Charisma would be interesting. And less abusable while still being decent for a melee focused warlock subclass.
Invocations are a whole different thing- they work with any subclass rather than being a singular pick. And shifting from Meduim armor to a roughly equivalent Unarmored AC calculation doesn’t alter the point that so much passive AC is well outside the power budget for what should be the secondary feature of the subclass. Really it probably just needs to drop the shield, although at that point I expect it’ll get hammered for not being good when Armor of Shadows is a thing.
Agree that the Hexblade's Curse itself should be the primary power item at level 3. Which I get what they were going for by linking the AC boost to the cursed target but the execution was clunky. You raise the point about invocations- maybe the fix is simply a level 2+ warlock invocation that grants Shield Training. Then just put all of the power into the Hexblade's Curse and Hexblade doesn't have to be the "Melee Warlock" default subclass. The curse could have benefits that help melee like causing disadvantage on weapon attacks but honestly it would be better to not have a default melee warlock subclass. Unlinking Charisma to-hit from Hexblade was one of my favorite warlock changes in 2024e. Love my Fiend melee warlock.
Since Pact of the Blade is an invocation. The Hexblade can get maybe a name and concpet change.
Make it more a Self-Buffer and enemy De-Bufer
Have the Class feature boost the pacts
BLADE = Something to boost AC/HP and maybe add an effect when hitting cursed target.
TOME = Once per short rest a spell cast from tome can bypass damage resistance / give a disadvantage to save. (Maybe add a higher level ritual as a ribbon)
CHAIN = Reaction teleport to Warlock and intercept an attack against the Warlock made by a cursed target.
Proficiency with medium armor and shields is not the overpowered feature that some people seem to think it is. If it was, players would still be using the 5.0 hexblade with the 5.5 warlock.
It's not overpowered in a vacuum. But it does take up a large portion of a power budget for a class without significant armor training in comparison to what other subclasses get. I argue this is more a problem of the base Warlock subclasses being a bit undertuned but here we are. Medium Armor & Shields is going to boost AC by 4-5 on average vs a light armor user with no shield. That is a significant boost in survivability especially in Tier 1 & 2.
If every Warlock subclass got some sort of comparable skill or ribbon feature along with their active level 3 feature, it would be fine. But most don't which is why its problematic. It forces you to either really tone down the power of the Hexblade curse for balance or publish a blatantly power crept subclass in comparison to the base PHB subclasses. Personally I like every subclass to give a flavorful ribbon skill/tool/armor proficiency along with an active power/ability. Archfey should have gotten automatic persuasion proficiency and expertise in a charisma skill of their choice. Fiend should have given automatic intimidation proficiency and maybe poisoners tools proficiency. Etc Etc.
But since the baseline design is just one active ability feature at level 3 for the most part, this is why Hex Warrior + Hexblade's curse is frequently viewed as power creep.
There's a couple of issues with this kind of fix through invocations.
First of all is the invocations needed to succeed in the archetype, melee versus caster Warlock. They have vastly different requirements from invocations and also from attributes.
Caster Warlock basically just need Agonizing Blast and they are pretty much golden in terms of competent damage output comparable to Ranged weapon users (Fighter, Ranger, Rogue). Everything else is mostly just gravy but are not needed.
In comparison a melee Warlock really want Thirsting Blade for Extra Attack (2x) in order to have competent damage, and a prerequisite is having Pact of the Blade. Furthermore you really really want Devouring Blade for Extra Attack (3x) to keep up competent damage. That's 3 invocations that are basically required to fulfill the archetype.
Next up, you have given up the safety of damaging from range, so you are targeted a lot more and often suffer from AoE-style attacks. So to not just drop like a rock by being the weak spellcaster boy you are (D8 Hit Die, Light Armor, non-DEX-main), you need some defensive measures. Armor of Shadows is terrible because it's just a +1 AC upgrade over a Studded Leather Armor, but it's there so we often take it. Fiendish Vigor grants a resource free way to get 12 static Temp HP to boost our low Hit Die and usually suffering CON modifier as we need some DEX to boost our AC to avoid taking that much damage. Some may argue that these two are not needed to fulfill the melee archetype, but they assist a very crumbling survivability, so at least one of them feels necessary.
As such we have 4-5 invocations that are basically required in order to feel successful in the melee archetype. We have 3 available at lvls 2-4, where we can get Pact of the Blade, Armor of Shadows, and Fiendish Vigor. Lvl 5 we get 2 more, where one goes towards Thirsting Blade. This basically means we get our first flexible invocation pick at lvl 5, and the rest are just in order to make your melee archetype somewhat competent. We gain +3 invocations towards lvl 12 where we pick up Devouring Blade. Out of the 8 invocations we have available at that time, 5 of them goes towards making your melee archetype functional. Compared to the caster Warlock who just requires Agonizing Blast and everything else is just icing, because they get cantrip upgrade for free that scales with Agonizing Blast because it adds beams/extra attacks rather than more damage dice like every other cantrip. There's already a heavy favoritism towards the caster build. This means the melee Warlock have very few invocations to assist their class-limited spellcasting. Their signature class feature, that's unique to the Warlock is basically discarded in order to chase a martial build.
The second issue is that giving both caster and melee Warlocks an Invocation that grants access to Shield Training is a greater boon for the caster than the martial. A Caster requires a hand free to access a Spellcasting Focus and do Somatic components - a Component Pouch or a similarly ruled Crystal/other Focus fulfills this need while leaving the hand empty between casts. This means the caster always have their second hand free to grab a shield.
A Martial however have the option to go for Two-handed Weapons or to utilize a Versatile Weapon for much the same benefit of always keeping a hand free to access a Focus (which with Pact Blade is their weapon) or to make Somatic components if a spell doesn't require a Material one (to satisfy the rules that you can dual-purpose the same hand for Material and Somatic components, but only if the spell have both).
So for the Martial to carry a Shield and get this value, they would need to give up using a Two-Handed or Versatile weapon two-handed, and they would have some awkward moments for casting spells with a Somatic component but without a Material one or they would have to invest in the War Caster feat.
From my first point I would like to reiterate that between the caster Warlock build and the melee Warlock build, the melee build is already behind on points/power, especially from the Invocation system. In the test material leading up to the 2024 rules, WotC even tested letting Devouring Blade be a free inclusion to Thirsting Blade, that automatically activates at level 12 - I believe it was level 12 Warlock and not Character Level, but I would have to check up again. Alas it was not kept, likely to keep that invocation from being loaded in comparison to others.
As such, I believe it would be a greater help for the melee build to receive some love through subclass features. Though I would strive to make this subclass very heavily leaning into a melee build and dissuade a caster build from picking up the subclass without significant drawback (or rather wasted subclass features). This also serves to counter some of the complaints that some players have for the old '14 Hexblade, that it provided too much goodies for your general Warlock build in comparison to its brethren. Instead if the subclass significantly lifted the melee build but did much less for the caster build, it would help where help is needed. My best advocates is the Valor Bard and Bladesinger subclasses that does a significant amount for a melee build, and is not considered a must-pick for caster builds.
And if caster Warlocks really wanted better armors, they could always just multiclass rather than sinking into a melee-focused subclass.
To add on to the top comment, if you want a Gish type melee warlock, then all of your invocations need to support being a melee fighter. There is nothing left to be a a decent spellcaster.
Most Invocations don’t interact with your general spellcasting, though. AB just brings you in line with typical weapon damage, and most of the rest are just utility spells. Bladelock is a build that’s heavily committed to combat- they fill different niches.