D&D 5E Hexblade vs Other Warlocks

Stalker0

Legend
I made this rework of hexblade to my games trying to just fix problems.

Pact of the Blade (revised)
You can use your action to create a pact weapon in your empty hand. You can choose the form that this melee weapon takes each time you create it (see chapter 5 for weapon options). You are proficient with it while you wield it. This weapon counts as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

Your pact weapon disappears if it is more than 5 feet away from you for 1 minute or more. It also disappears if you use this feature again, if you dismiss the weapon (no action required), or if you die.

You can transform one magic weapon into your pact weapon by performing a special ritual while you hold the weapon. You perform the ritual over the course of 1 hour, which can be done during a short rest. You can then dismiss the weapon, shunting it into an extradimensional space, and it appears whenever you create your pact weapon thereafter. You can’t affect an artifact or a sentient weapon in this way. The weapon ceases being your pact weapon if you die, if you perform the 1-hour ritual on a different weapon, or if you use a 1-hour ritual to break your bond to it. The weapon appears at your feet if it is in the extradimensional space when the bond breaks.

Also, when you made pact you acquired the training necessary to effectively arm yourself for battle. You gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons.

Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch one weapon that you are proficient with and that lacks the two-handed property. When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls. This benefit lasts until you finish a long rest. This benefit extends to every pact weapon you conjure with that feature, no matter the weapon’s type.

Also, you can learn additional spells.

Pact of Blade additional spells
Spell LevelSpells
1stshield, wrathful smite
2ndblur, branding smite
3rdblink, elemental weapon
4thphantasmal killer, staggering smites
5thbanishing smites, cone of cold
Also, Pact of the Blade create next disadvantage to warlock – his maximum damage of eldritch blast will become 1d8 and nothing can add bonus damage to it.

Invocations
  • Hexblade’s Curse
  • improved Pact Weapon
  • Eldritch Smite
  • Extra attack
  • Lifedrinker
  • Shielding steel
  • Wind of Steel
Hexblade’s Curse
Prerequisite:6th level, Pact of the Blade feature

You gain the ability to place a baleful curse on someone. As a bonus action, choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The target is cursed for 1 minute. The curse ends early if the target dies, you die, or you are incapacitated. Until the curse ends, you gain the following benefits:

You gain a bonus to damage rolls against the cursed target. The bonus equals your proficiency bonus.

Any attack roll you make against the cursed target is a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20 on the d20.

If the cursed target dies, you regain hit points equal to your warlock level + your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1 hit point).

You can’t use this feature again until you finish a short or long rest.

Eldritch Smite
Prerequisite: 5th level, Pact of the Blade feature

Once per turn when you hit a creature with your pact weapon, you can expend a warlock spell slot to deal an extra 1d8 force damage to the target, plus another 1d8 per level of the spell slot, and you can knock the target prone if it is Huge or smaller.

Improved Pact Weapon
Prerequisite: Pact of the Blade feature

You can use any weapon you summon with your Pact of the Blade feature as a spellcasting focus for your warlock spells.

In addition, the weapon gains a +1 bonus to its attack and damage rolls, unless it is a magic weapon that already has a bonus to those rolls.

Finally, the weapon you conjure can be a shortbow, longbow, light crossbow, or heavy crossbow.

Extra attack
Prerequisite:5th level, Pact of the Blade feature

When you attack with your pact weapon or with weapon you enchanted using pact feature you attack twice.

Lifedrinker
Prerequisite: 12th level, Pact of the Blade feature, Hexblade’s Curse

When you hit a creature with your pact weapon, the creature takes extra necrotic damage equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1) and you gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier. These temporary hit-points stacks with temporary hit points received from Armor of Agathys, False Life spell.

Shielding steel
Prerequisite: Pact of the Blade feature

You can cast shield without components number of times equal to your proficiency modifier. You regain all uses of this feature after long rest.

Wind of steel
Prerequisite: Pact of the Blade feature, 10 level

You know steelwind strike spell and can cast it once. You will gain ability to do it again after long rest.

Ultimately I feel that a lot of this can be addressed by using the existing design space around Eldritch blast.

Pact of the Blade

Gain the Agonizing Blast invocation (or a different invocation if you already have it). Gain medium armor and shield proficiency.

As a free action you can summon a single blade of force in your hand. The blade has the throwing property.

The blades attack roll, damage, and number of attacks are the same as Eldritch blast. In addition, the blade has a +1 enhancement bonus, +1 for every 5 warlock levels. Any abilities that effect Eldritch blast also affect your blade.

The blade disappears when you summon a new one.


This version is simplier, and allows better scaling with existing invocations and abilities.
 

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Weiley31

Legend
Ultimately I feel that a lot of this can be addressed by using the existing design space around Eldritch blast.

Pact of the Blade

Gain the Agonizing Blast invocation (or a different invocation if you already have it). Gain medium armor and shield proficiency.

As a free action you can summon a single blade of force in your hand. The blade has the throwing property.

The blades attack roll, damage, and number of attacks are the same as Eldritch blast. In addition, the blade has a +1 enhancement bonus, +1 for every 5 warlock levels. Any abilities that effect Eldritch blast also affect your blade.

The blade disappears when you summon a new one.


This version is simplier, and allows better scaling with existing invocations and abilities.
Sounds pretty good, but does that mean by the end of it all, the Pact Weapon ends up becoming a +4 weapon once you hit max level? lets just pretend the campaign reaches all the way up to level 20 in this example. I do like the fact that the Warlock pretty much has four attacks, making it a magic fighter
 

Stalker0

Legend
Sounds pretty good, but does that mean by the end of it all, the Pact Weapon ends up becoming a +4 weapon once you hit max level? lets just pretend the campaign reaches all the way up to level 20 in this example. I do like the fact that the Warlock pretty much has four attacks, making it a magic fighter

Its actually +5, they get +1 when they first get the blade, then +1 for every 5 levels.

So they effectively have the most magical blade out there...which since the blade is their whole schtick seemed reasonable to me.
 


Stalker0

Legend
Damn, that's almost like overshadowing almost everything else.

well you get no flexibility in your weapon choice, and compared to full on warriors you still don’t have the power they do.

but if the number is uncomfortable, you could always scale it on every 7 levels to bring it back down to a total of +3
 


well you get no flexibility in your weapon choice, and compared to full on warriors you still don’t have the power they do.
You get a d10 damage throwing-with-immediate-returning weapon that can be used in conjunction with a shield.
You have the attacks of a pure Fighter (their most iconic ability) while still having invocations and being a short rest-based full caster as well.

What ability does the weapon key off? You didn't mention Finesse, so is it only Strength?
 

Ancalagon

Dusty Dragon
You get a d10 damage throwing-with-immediate-returning weapon that can be used in conjunction with a shield.
You have the attacks of a pure Fighter (their most iconic ability) while still having invocations and being a short rest-based full caster as well.

What ability does the weapon key off? You didn't mention Finesse, so is it only Strength?

If it's a hexblade, charisma?
 

If it's a hexblade, charisma?
They were talking about Pact of the Blade there I think.

I heard things too but I don't have the book so I can't comment... I'll probably get it just for the alchemist ha.
Just a note: Artificer base class and Alchemist are in Rising from the Last War. Forge Adept is in Exploring Eberron. (Although Battlesmith from RftLW is also reasonably gishy.)
 

Kurotowa

Legend
I know that each warlock subclass is built to have a different use, Hexblades do damage, and Brightlocks are combat medics. Something that’s bugged me about Hexblade is that they get extra proficiencies. Should other warlock subclasses get extra proficiencies?

Counting the number of class features of extra proficiencies is the wrong way to look at things. You have to measure a subclass by how good it is at the things it wants to do. So yes, when you have a subclass that's intended to be highly transformative and make the class fill a role that doesn't come naturally, there's going to have to be a lot of bonus basic abilities to get them up to a reasonable threshold. This doesn't make them stronger because the entire point is that they don't synergize with many of the existing class abilities.

This is especially true for gish type subclasses. Because there's no baseline gish class in 5e, all the gish subclasses have to either tack spellcasting onto a martial class or dump a bunch of martial weapon and armor proficiency talents onto a caster class. If you're just abstractly counting the number of class features these subclasses offer you'll get a high number, but that's deceptive. Those class features are a rework, not an upgrade, and they exist only to enable a new style of play for the class. Once you see them in actual play it's obvious they're no stronger, or at least not stronger because of those extra basic proficiency elements.
 

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