My Version of the New HEXBLADE

Even though I like a lot of the stuff in the new version of Hexblade. Its focus is too much on concentration and not enough on weapons. There is only one feat that actually benefits weapons and thats at level 6, where you can attack with a weapon as a bonus action when you cast a +1 spell. And because there's no need to actually use a weapon, we can just keep using eldritch blast instead of investing in 5 pact of the blade invocations. So I made my own version of Hexblade based off of the new version. Would love to hear some feedback on it. (It might be a little OP, but I was just having fun it, I kept some of the new features of the Hexblade subclass, modified others, and then made some new ones)

I kept the new Spell List the same. Even though I was tempted to replace some of the spells.

LEVEL 3: Hexblade's Curse

When using your Pact Weapon as your spellcasting focus, you can curse a creature that you can see within 30 feet of yourself with your Hexblade's Curse by casting the spell Hex on them. (Edited: Without expending a Pact Spell slot.) When you cast Hex this way it lasts 1 minute with no CONCENTRATION and you can choose between Necrotic, Psychic, or Radiant damage for the 1d6 damage (You choose when you curse a creature). You can do this a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1). If the cursed creature dies within the 1 minute, you can take a Bonus Action to move it and curse another creature. You regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

Hungering Hex: When the target cursed by your Hexblade's Curse drops to 0 Hit Points, you gain Temporary Hit Points equal to 1d8 plus your Warlock Level.

Accursed Shield: While you aren't wearing armor or wielding a shield, you gain a +2 bonus to your AC while you are within 10 feet of the target cursed by your Hexblade's Curse.

HEX WARRIOR:
You gain the Invocation The Pact of the Blade if you already have this Invocation, you can choose your own, you can now also choose to have a Bow as your Pact Weapon. In addition you gain 1 Fighting Style and 1 Weapon Mastery. (Every time you gain a new Warlock Level you can change your Fighting Style and Weapon Mastery.)

LEVEL 6: Masterful Hex

Accursed Critical: While attacking with your Pact Weapon any attack roll you make against the target cursed by your Hexblade's Curse or against any creature that's within 15 feet of the cursed creature scores a Critical Hit on a roll of 19 or 20.

Hindering Curse: When you hit the target cursed by your Hexblade's Curse with an attack roll, the target has Disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes before the start of your next turn.

Inescapable Hex: When the target of your Hexblade's Curse ends its turn 30 feet or further from you, you can move up to your speed straight toward the target, without provoking Opportunity Attacks.

LEVEL 10: Armor of Hexes

While wielding your Pact Weapon and you take damage from the target cursed by your Hexblade's Curse, you can take a Reaction to reduce the damage taken by an amount equal to your Warlock Level plus your Charisma modifier. The cursed creature must then make a Wisdom Saving Throw against your DC on a fail the creature takes half of the damage (rounded up) that you took. The damage type is the damage type of your Pact Weapon.

LEVEL 14: Wrathful Hex

Cursed Smite: When you deal damage to the target cursed by your Hexblade's Curse with your Pact Weapon you can deal a total damage of 8d8 force damage. Each creature of your choice in a 30-foot Emanation originating from the target takes 4d4 Force damage, and must make a wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save the creatures are frightened of you and their Speed is reduced by 10 feet until the start of your next turn. In addition if the target cursed by your Hexblade dies from this attack you can then move your Hexblade's Curse to another creature as a Free Action, the Hexblade's Curse then lasts an extra minute. Once you use this benefit, you can't use it again until you finish a Long Rest unless you expend a Pact Magic slot (no action required) to restore your use of it.

Improved Accursed Shield: You now gain the benefits of the Accursed Shield feature while you are within 30 feet of the target cursed by your Hexblade's Curse. You can now add your Charisma modifier to your AC when your wearing no armor or wielding a shield.

Hex Restoration: You regain one expended use of Hexblade's Curse when you finish a Short Rest or use your Magical Cunning feature

The 3rd level feature does that require a pact magic slot to use the ability?  Alsoaccursed shield is pretty rubbish even with light armour it’s a maximum of 19 ac with a condition. Level 14 feature seems bad because at that level I’m already making 3x 2d6+d6+5+4+Gwm damage damage so maybe allow it as a bonus?  I do like armour of hexes, the fighting style/weapon mastery and masterful hex/malign brutality mash though

The 3rd level feature doesn't require a pact magic slot. It's just connected to your cha mod on how many times you can use it. I hear you on the accursed shield, that was a feature in the new hexblade subclass so i kept it. But how I read it and wrote it out, you can use Mage Armor on yourself that gives you a AC of 13 +2 + Dex and then at lvl 14 you can add your cha to your AC so now its 13 +2 +Dex +Cha, which can get anyone over 20+. Lvl 14 I wrote it with the intent of it being a free modified Eldritch Smite. So your 3 attacks can be, Atttack 1: Cursed Smite - 8d8 (4d4 dmg on any creature 30 feet around the cursed target) And then you have your 2nd and 3rd attack still. But yes Level 14 could be a little stronger with more damage 

See the way I read 14th level is it is instead of your attack. The accursed shield is a bit odd because it either burns a slot or an invocation slot which is a big deal

Thats true about the accursed shield. I had thoughts to give the Armor of Shadows Invocation as part of the Hex Warrior feat, but I thought giving out 2 free invocations would be too much. But I also thought most ppl would just take the mage armor invocation anyways when they play as a bladelock or just multiclass into fighter (which i try not to do, but playing as a bladelock its sometimes hard not to multiclass) But yeah the accursed shield is a weird feat 

I just think that a subclass should be as invocation tax free as possible(why I like the free pact) and should only have minor tax 

You said it yourself: It might be a little OP.

The level 3 feature grants:
- Free Pact of the Blade / +1 Invocation
- Weapon Mastery (exclusive to martial classes),
- Fighting Style (exclusive to Fighter, Paladin, Ranger) with swap (exclusive to Fighter),
- it gives you 3-5x free-casts of Concentration-free Hex per Long Rest that is improved with your Hexblade's Curse.
- The Curse grants [ 1d8 + Warlock lvl ~ 7.5 at lvl 3 ] Temp HP on kill. For reference the Fiend subclass grants [ CHA + Warlock lvl ~ 6 ]. Fiend does count on any nearby kill, but other than the subclass spell list, that's all the subclass does.
- and a +2 bonus to Unarmored AC when in 10 ft. of Curse target.

That's... a lot. While I understand the inclination to add Weapon Mastery and Fighting Style I would refrain from adding them to the Hexblade. Leaving some reason for multiclassing is still a good thing. The subclass just have to carry itself as well and where it falters the most is on the defensive. Fighting Style would mainly add TWF, Dueling, and Archery (with the new option to make a ranged Pact Weapon) - ways to add damage, on top of free Hexes... not really needed.

Even though the Hex cast with this feature is Concentration free, I really don't like how the UA Hexblade have introduced this intermingling of Hexblade's Curse (an otherwise stand alone feature) with the Hex spell. Still, it dodges the issue of a melee Warlock getting hit in the nogging is somewhat prone to drop Concentration, and keeps your Concentration "slot" open for a defensive spell - I would have wished using this opportunity to revise the spell list to include some of those defenses like Blur, Haste, Shadow of Moil (please WotC, bring it back).

Still I would prefer to keep Hexblade's Curse as a stand alone feature. I would consider letting the Hexblade curse as part of an attack or as a BA - this you can also use as a hook for other features. Furthermore, when Hex is not a Concentration spell, how do you account for multiple castings of this feature at a time? It seems like you only want one curse active at a time, but then there should be a phrase about it.

The Unarmored Defense is also one I would like to see go - Warlocks already have Light Armor Training, so ditching armor entirely to instead rely on Armor of Shadows + this Unarmored Defense Bonus is backwards to me. Medium Armor Training as a substitute would secure a level 3 Warlock with 14 + 2 DEX (on par with most shield-less Martials) - it would limit the need to invest in DEX and give room to invest in CON. It would remove the reliance on Armor of Shadows, so +1 Invocation. It would open up the Armor slot for Magic items in the future. And you cap out at 15 + 2 DEX like most other Medium Armor users (Barbarian, Ranger) without accounting for magic items.
(Furthermore an Armor of Shadows with the +2 and +CHA to Unarmored Defense along with a Bracers of Defense would accrue 13 + 3 DEX + 2 UD + 5 CHA + 2 BoD = 25 AC. I do want to make the Hexblade more sturdy than your baseline Warlock, but it can go too far.)

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So my advice: Ditch the Weapon Mastery and Fighting Style. I would change the bonus AC to just Medium Armor Training (higher floor, lower ceiling). Consider changing the spell list to accommodate you have Concentration that can be used for defenses rather than being locked to Hex like the UA would have you do. I would consider to make the Hexblade's Curse it's own thing again, which also means no free damage from Hex, especially considering how much free stuff you give the Warlock at level 3 compared to their other subclasses.

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Lvl 6 feature: It's almost the same as the UA. You replaced the "casting a leveled spell comes with a BA-attack" with increased critical hit range... I think that's a loss.

I would bring back the BA-attack with a spell casting instead of the increased crit range. Personally I would love for it to be triggered with any spell casting, but Eldritch Blast always looms, so you need a caveat to only work with leveled spells, or with cantrips with a range of self or touch (this includes Sword-cantrips like Booming Blade but excludes EB).
This also functionally allows the Sword-cantrip + weapon attack that other gishes are allowed at this level - at the expense of a BA. It technically also makes Thirsting Blade superfluous if you don't need that BA.

One additional thing that could be considered is under the Hex Warrior to add;
"If you later acquire the capabilities to attack more than once when taking the Attack action, you may replace two of those attacks with a casting of a spell with a casting time of an action."

This essentially only affects you when you get Devouring Blade (3x attacks) at lvl 12, to allow you to cast a spell and get 1 weapon attack alongside it + 1 weapon attack as a BA (if the spell you cast is not a cantrip with a range that isn't self or touch).
You don't have many spell slots, so you're not flinging Fireballs and attacking twice that many times. But that spell cast could be used to cast Blade Ward, Fiendish Vigor or another resource free spell that otherwise is super awkward to give up 3x attacks for. You can also upgrade your usual 3x attack to 1 Sword-cantrip + 2x attacks at the cost of a BA - same baseline as level 14 Valor Bard/Bladesinger.

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Lvl 10 feature: Still consider this a worse version of Monk's Deflect Attack (1d10 + DEX + Monk lvl). The retaliation thing is neat, but I don't think damage is what the Hexblade require.

I keep coming back to wanting to do something with Hit Dice. To spitball something:

Level 10: Borrow from Tomorrow

Whenever you would take damage, you may expend a Hit Die, roll it and add your Constitution modifier to the roll. Reduce the damage you would take by that amount, down to a minimum of 0. You may repeat as many times as you want.

Not everything the Hexblade does has to be tied to the Hexblade's Curse. This feature might quickly run you out of Hit Dice, so perhaps the lvl 3 Hungering Hex can also regain a spent Hit Die in addition to the Temp HP on-kill, providing a bit of bonus out-of-combat healing in the earlier levels. This feature can also function to manage damage you take so Concentration breaks are less likely to happen. With your d8 Hit Die, this effectively grants an avg. of 45 + CON * 10 extra HP when you get it. With Medium Armor you can likely afford a +3 CON, so in total 75 as a form of superior Temp HP on average.

I find the Armor of Hexes to be a very limiting feature. It requires the HB's Curse on the damage dealing target, it requires your Reaction, and then the damage reduction is mediocre at 15 HP. At level 10, this is somewhat equivalent to getting a bit more than Resistance to the damage. While the effective amount of HP that AoH can provide over an adventuring day can become a lot higher than 75, it is far from consistent. Again a case of raising the floor, lower the ceiling. Although this might be lowering the ceiling a bit much. Perhaps a conversion of Pact Magic and/or Mystic Arcanum into regaining up to 5 spent Hit Dice per slot is needed to keep it going.

To add a bit more to this level, you could add a rider-effect to when you curse a target with the HB's Curse, like;

• You may Teleport within 5 ft. of the cursed target (consider removing the chase from the lvl 6 feature)
• Gain a +2 to attack rolls against the cursed target until the end of your turn.
• Critical hits on 18, 19 or 20 on attack rolls against the cursed target until the end of your turn.

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Lvl 14 feature: I assume this is a bonus damage situation, ala Smite? So on average +36 damage to main target, 10 damage AoE and a WIS-save to Frighten for a round. Paladins at lvl 9 get a Channel Divinity to do a WIS-save Frighten to up to CHA-amount creatures until those creatures take damage. Frighten is a very powerful control tool, but there's also a lot of tier 3+ monsters who are WIS-save proficient and/or Frighten-immune.

Compared to a Divine Smite at 5th lvl (6d8) this (8d8) is better by a bit. Seems decent, a tad overtuned on the main target - could lower the bonus damage to 4d8 (avg. 18) and let the AoE be the same. Better AoE clear (something the Hexblade don't do well) with less burst damage (less overshadowing Smite spells and you have 3x Attacks; you have good single-target damage).

The +CHA to Unarmored Defense I would remove as per the lvl 3 comments to go for armored defenses. Seeing how we're mostly running a 15 Half Plate + 2 DEX + likely 1 from magic items for 17-18 AC at this point, it could be considered to add a flat +2 to AC as long as you don't wield a shield. Basically you get a hands-free shield.

With HB's Curse having a duration of 1 minute and you can transfer it after the curse target is dead, means I don't think you'll run out of them - but if you do the rider-effects on cursing it gives you a reason to reapply the curse even on a target that is already cursed. It's a resource; use it. I think it's worth considering this angle and then a replenishment of HB's Curse charges is a good thing and not superfluous.

Quote from EagerestSnow207 >>

The 3rd level feature does that require a pact magic slot to use the ability?  Alsoaccursed shield is pretty rubbish even with light armour it’s a maximum of 19 ac with a condition. Level 14 feature seems bad because at that level I’m already making 3x 2d6+d6+5+4+Gwm damage damage so maybe allow it as a bonus?  I do like armour of hexes, the fighting style/weapon mastery and masterful hex/malign brutality mash though

Are you really investing 13 STR to get Greatsword and GWM? If you are, there's no reason not to start level 1 Fighter for Heavy Armor, CON-save prof., Weapon Mastery and Fighting Style + a later lvl 2 dip for Action Surge. I don't even know how your stat spread would look like if you attempted 13 STR with a pure Warlock build.

If I would go pure Warlock it would not be as glamourous, as I would just be picking up a Versatile weapon and invest CHA > CON and leave DEX at 14. Granted if Hexblade provides Medium Armor Training like in 2014. It would look more like 3x [ 1d10 + 5 + 1d6 ] for avg. 42 damage. But I would have fairly decent survivability with 17 AC + magic bonuses and a +4 to CON.

I Would remove the fighting style, Add Cha to your base armor class without armor or shields (like monks, sorcs and gennie pallys), Allow it to use 2 handers without dissavantage, no weapon masterys.

You can build full Cha, and go melee without dying with 17AC level 3 +2Ac if hexing, at level 8 you can max your Cha and get a nice 18+2 AC.

Atlevel 12 yku can either flex for Feats or go for Dex Score +2.

This still makes you a melee lock Cha focused, unique as the only lock with heavy weapons and not a strong caster as it does not have Fiend Fire spells.

I think you get the best of all worlds, can even grab Fey Touched feat or Shadowmor Hexer for extra uses if required.

For Level 3 you can only curse one creature at a time. I didn't realize that I didn't write that in (thanks for pointing that out). And yeah the Hexblade curse probably should be it's own thing. (just thought for the most part in the later levels no one usually uses Hex spell anymore, so i figured that extra 1d6 bonus is always nice to have) Now to address all of the fighting style, masteries and ac bonus. What about making it like this. I drop the accursed shield feat and change the Hex Warrior feat to: 

Hex Warrior: You gain proficiency in Medium Armor. You gain the Invocation The Pact of the Blade if you already have this Invocation, you can choose your own, you can now also choose to have a Bow as your Pact Weapon. In addition you gain 1 of the following Fighting Style of your choice, Two Weapon Fighting, Dueling, Archery.