The big advantages of level 1 fighter are Full Armor prof, con saves, and a fighting style. The fighter level really opens up a strength based combatant allowing you to drop dex.
With a strengh based approach you are building towards spirit shroud at 6th. Improved pact weapon thirsting blade helps here. Getting to lifedrinker and upcasting spirit shroud is the long term goal. This approach gives you significant upgrades in your martial damage at: 4th (improved pact weapon), 6th (Thirsting blade/spirit shroud), 10th (upcasted spirit shroud), 13th (lifedrinker). I am not sure I would bother with more levels in fighter until you have lifedrinker under your belt.
Var human or custom lineage are nice here and grab polearm master. If your DM lets you use a double bladed scimitar that also works, but the reaction attack on PAM is still the best way to go, but if you want to go non human a DBS is a really nice way to not have to go PAM.
Ability scores for the str build require high scores in str/con/cha. You only need the str to 15 to accommodate heavy armor.
I would advise that you take benefit of spells that bolster your attacks, like any smites, as well as just adding Eldritch Invocations to your pact weapon, assuming you took that boon
I am going to disagree. Eldritch smite is very bad. You have very few spell slots and with pact of the blade spirit shroud can do more damage in a turn sometimes with PAM. Once you switch from Hex to single encounter length spells E-Smite just isn't worth it. When would it be? If it was the final boss and you had a spare slot and that meant the difference between winning and losing. But consider the opportunity cost of holding onto one of your 2 or 3 spell slots through multiple encounters just to use it as a smite. Meaning either your DM made it too easy on you, or you made previous encounters too hard by not using a spell slot.
As a Hexblade you even have Cone of Cold which does 8d8 to multiple targets. Esmite is at best 6d8 (12d8 on a crit). Spend your invocations on something better.
Eldritch smite is fantastic. it's 12d8 on a crit! 12! You can use the slot for a crit in that case! and if not, you can just use cone of cold. The beauty of a hexblade warlock is that you have the OPTION to crit smite or cast a spell. Besides, if you're a blade lock, what better invocations do you have? Clearly, a pact of the blade hexblade lock has melee and murder on their mind, let them play their fantasy out as such! Granted, this is a qualifier, but it's excellent on a paladin multiclass. It's easy to make a crit-fish build on one of those paladin mutlclasses too, so you can reliably pull off a crit eldritch smite+divine smite combo to quickly eliminate a key target from play. It's also good on it's own as well. If you turn your pact weapon into a bow, you can apply eldritch smite to an arrow. Imagine making a dragon go prone while it's high in the air! What a lot of fun that'll be!
Eldritch Smite is something I'm actually planning to take, because of how great it is. I'm not going to use my spell slots for much else, and when I get it, I'll be doing 4d8 Force damage, 1d8+5 piercing(From Rapier, I'm more of a Dexterity based Fighter), 1d8 from Booming Blade, and be knocking them Prone. Eldritch Smite, in my opinion is great, although you do have to limit your use.
With the right stats, it's entirely possible to build a Fighter Warlock who uses Eldritch Blast mostly for control. No Hexblade, but Pact of Tome or Pact of Chain. That way, you can change the circumstance of the fight with Ritual spells or with a "pet" super familiar while pulling them in with Grasp Invoc and Eldritch Blast. You become the tank that people literally have trouble running away from.
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I'm playing in a campaign where I'm a 1 fighter, 3 Hexblade, and I'm asking for two things,
1. Will this work in the long run?
2. Any advice on how to build the character
It works just fine.
The big advantages of level 1 fighter are Full Armor prof, con saves, and a fighting style. The fighter level really opens up a strength based combatant allowing you to drop dex.
With a strengh based approach you are building towards spirit shroud at 6th. Improved pact weapon thirsting blade helps here. Getting to lifedrinker and upcasting spirit shroud is the long term goal. This approach gives you significant upgrades in your martial damage at: 4th (improved pact weapon), 6th (Thirsting blade/spirit shroud), 10th (upcasted spirit shroud), 13th (lifedrinker). I am not sure I would bother with more levels in fighter until you have lifedrinker under your belt.
Var human or custom lineage are nice here and grab polearm master. If your DM lets you use a double bladed scimitar that also works, but the reaction attack on PAM is still the best way to go, but if you want to go non human a DBS is a really nice way to not have to go PAM.
Ability scores for the str build require high scores in str/con/cha. You only need the str to 15 to accommodate heavy armor.
I would advise that you take benefit of spells that bolster your attacks, like any smites, as well as just adding Eldritch Invocations to your pact weapon, assuming you took that boon
I wonder how plummeting hundreds of feet feels
I am going to disagree. Eldritch smite is very bad. You have very few spell slots and with pact of the blade spirit shroud can do more damage in a turn sometimes with PAM. Once you switch from Hex to single encounter length spells E-Smite just isn't worth it.
When would it be? If it was the final boss and you had a spare slot and that meant the difference between winning and losing.
But consider the opportunity cost of holding onto one of your 2 or 3 spell slots through multiple encounters just to use it as a smite. Meaning either your DM made it too easy on you, or you made previous encounters too hard by not using a spell slot.
As a Hexblade you even have Cone of Cold which does 8d8 to multiple targets. Esmite is at best 6d8 (12d8 on a crit). Spend your invocations on something better.
I disagree to your disagreement
I wonder how plummeting hundreds of feet feels
Eldritch smite is fantastic. it's 12d8 on a crit! 12! You can use the slot for a crit in that case! and if not, you can just use cone of cold. The beauty of a hexblade warlock is that you have the OPTION to crit smite or cast a spell. Besides, if you're a blade lock, what better invocations do you have? Clearly, a pact of the blade hexblade lock has melee and murder on their mind, let them play their fantasy out as such! Granted, this is a qualifier, but it's excellent on a paladin multiclass. It's easy to make a crit-fish build on one of those paladin mutlclasses too, so you can reliably pull off a crit eldritch smite+divine smite combo to quickly eliminate a key target from play. It's also good on it's own as well. If you turn your pact weapon into a bow, you can apply eldritch smite to an arrow. Imagine making a dragon go prone while it's high in the air! What a lot of fun that'll be!
Eldritch Smite is something I'm actually planning to take, because of how great it is. I'm not going to use my spell slots for much else, and when I get it, I'll be doing 4d8 Force damage, 1d8+5 piercing(From Rapier, I'm more of a Dexterity based Fighter), 1d8 from Booming Blade, and be knocking them Prone. Eldritch Smite, in my opinion is great, although you do have to limit your use.
With the right stats, it's entirely possible to build a Fighter Warlock who uses Eldritch Blast mostly for control. No Hexblade, but Pact of Tome or Pact of Chain. That way, you can change the circumstance of the fight with Ritual spells or with a "pet" super familiar while pulling them in with Grasp Invoc and Eldritch Blast. You become the tank that people literally have trouble running away from.