D&D 5E Xanathar's Guide to Everything: Hexblade Subclass

[Ancalagon]

I’ll be curious to read the full fluff on it. It Hex and Blade seems odd for the patron; it almost feels like a stealth fix for the Blade pact boon.

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I have that feeling too. I also have it about the college of swords vs valor...



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[briggart]

Part of the +1 philosophy is also that it allows them to design without worrying about every powergame combo conceivable, just PHB +1.

Not to mention the fact that if they find out that a combo from two different +1's it's not broken, they can always reprint it in a third +1.

 

[Jester David]

I liked the hexblade from UA a lot. I like the idea of the hero being bonded to an unnatural weapon. It'd be a really fun way of multiclassing as well, with the character taking levels in warlock after acquiring a cursed weapon.

 

[IchneumonWasp]

I think this is very interesting. But surely, you would always take the Pact of the Blade Pact Boon with this pact, so that you can take the invocations on later levels that give you more than 1 attack per turn?

Or actually, now I look at it, a ranged build might be possible too. It is an effective way to give your eldritch blast warlock proficiency with armour and shields.

 

[Li Shenron]

Is it just me or Mearls went off topic a bit too much in this video? He seemed to be rambling a lot about the Hexblade being sort of the evil-but-not-too-much PC option, as if this is the prerogative of this subclass... what about death clerics, oathbreaker or conquest paladins, assassin rogues, necromancer wizards, shadow sorcerers, fiendish warlocks... what about pretty much all tieflings and many half-orcs... what about every damn LE/NE/CE character then? Hexblade is just one of many, but from this video he makes it sound like being the shadowy type is the main thing of this subclass.

I thought the whole point of this archetype was that it gets his powers from a pact with an artifact. And not even necessarily an evil artifact.

 

[Mephista]

So.. hexblade.

"We got this idea of a shadowy paladin. Who's not really a paladin or anti paladin, but is totally a shadowy paladin." You know, Mike, I don't care about the shadows. I want HEXES. Is that too much to ask for? Gimme curses. That's all I wanted. I get it, you like evil charactres. So do I, but there's a lot of options already, and we don't need to know why they can be fun. We want ot hear about the class, not a rehash of the Evil is Sexy trope.

So, despite this being a whole Raven Queen thing, weren't stolen souls supposed to, you know, not be enslaved as undead? Didn't we just talk about the Grave Domain versus someone who made undead like Orcus? We dropping that angle?

I feel like we just watched all this .... and didn't learn much other than 1) CHA attack, and 2) you're a pseudo-necromancer. How does this interact with Book or Chain? Stuff like that. Eldritch Blasting - still going to be a default choice? So many questions, no answers. Is the blade going to be developing magic weapon features, like bursting into flames and stuff?

 

[Mephista]

I'm repeating myself, but those cantrips should have been in the PHB. They fundamentally change how an arcane gish operates.

We could also just fix the blade pact by making the Eldritch Strike cantrip that works like GFB or Booming Blade...

As things stand, sadly, if you go Blade Pact and want to use the attack cantrips and the new Invocations here, you're out of luck with the AL. Sadly. I hope there's some good things. *crosses fingers*

That said, about such cantrips in the PHB... honestly, the paladin and maybe cleric are the only gish class that was actually done well, imho. The others all have their issues with them. I get the feeling that the game needed time to mature before they figured out how to do the gish things right. Now, if we went back in time with all the things we learned, I'm sure things would be different.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Is it just me or Mearls went off topic a bit too much in this video? He seemed to be rambling a lot about the Hexblade being sort of the evil-but-not-too-much PC option, as if this is the prerogative of this subclass... what about death clerics, oathbreaker or conquest paladins, assassin rogues, necromancer wizards, shadow sorcerers, fiendish warlocks... what about pretty much all tieflings and many half-orcs... what about every damn LE/NE/CE character then? Hexblade is just one of many, but from this video he makes it sound like being the shadowy type is the main thing of this subclass.

Most Tieflings are CN, they were back in 2e, it was their stated alignment in the MC entry they got. And the 5e PHB entry tends to suggest this too... Most of the sort of evil but not options usually in up on CN characters, with the exception of the Conquest Paladin which would certainly be LN but almost LE PC's. But CN often gets problems from players who don't understand alignment at all, even though just plain Neutral should just be the alignment of choice for any player who doesn't care much for alignment at all or even understand it.

As for Shadowy, it's definitely a reference to the "Shadow Power Source" of 4e and the plane of Shadowfell that's settled into the D&D canon since then.

 

[Mephista]

Most Tieflings are CN

I think you missed the point. Alignment is ultimately meaningless- you can be a CG tiefling fiend warlock criminal; that's going to raise no small amount of eyebrows from others, no matter if you use your dark magics and thievery for feeding starving orphans or not.

The point is that Mike talked about the whole evil-powers, good person drama in this little preview a lot. Core book alone has at least five anti-hero sub-classes that synergize with the less-known-to-be-goodly races. We get it. It can be fun. But did spend a LOT of time on it, when its something we already know. Its not groundbreaking or new or a revelation of any kind.

 

[hejtmane]

He mentioned that a physically weak character can be a hexblade. I do hate it. Really much. Except when it is somehow implemented more elegantly than in the playtest. Just allowing weak characters to wield any one handed weapon with charisma is wrong.
If however you have to do a special ritual to bond with your special weapon, I could live with that.
Otherwise it just screems powergamer pala/hexblade... and I would hate that.

Kind of funny if you stick to the multiclass rules they still need a 13 str for pally and if you want heavy armor aka plate you need 16str to wear plate so people once again screaming about power but ignore the things in place to make it harder then they realize. Plus using a paladin to abuse stuff with multiclass is already easy with smite knights. I laugh at the smite knights as while as the gwm whine on the forum dpr is the easiest thing to counter as a DM.