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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Very nice to hear that the dev are listening to our feedback as they said in the video.
We want Sword and Sorcerer meele style as Hexblade like old version fresh to new core rules. Look foward for the next UA for testing.
Because Warlock is very modular Hexblade becomes harder to balance against other warlock subclasses. Glad the devs are taking notes and maybe will come up with something acceptable by the majority of the community.
Ideas:
1) Hexblade hexes a target for 1 minute. When Hexblade hits target that is hexed. The target has disadvantage on next hit against Hexblade.
2) Hits do extra damage against hexed target.
3) target's with multi attack only get one attack till the end of their next turn if they are hexed and hit by hexblade.
If republish a massively reworked hexblade is problematic, just don't republish it. The original still provides valuable capability (e.g. if you want to dual wield, get cha on a hexweapon scimitar and a pact weapon shortsword, yes a 1 level fighter dip is pretty much required for fighting style and weapon masteries, and if you start fighter you get armor proficiency and con), and became subclass is at warlock 3 the 1 level dip for armor proficiency isn't a problem. Leaving it as is is fine for me.
for 2 weapon fighting can go 3-4 levels Devout Paladin and rest Warlock
Devout Paladin uses Channel Divinity to use CHA for weapon attack. This is 2 fights. Three if there is a short rest and 4 if there is a short rest and Amulet of the Devout.
Multiclassing should not be considered part of core class design; it should never be treated as a complementary design option.
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.
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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.