D&D 5E Should the Hexblade Patron be Banned?

[Xeviat]

I think a couple of the level 1 features need to be shifted to the 3rd level Blade Pact. This reduces 1-level dips, and makes Blade Pact more viable for non-Hexblades.

I came here to say this.

Also, to address the OP's friends' points, or at least the few I thought were important:

Hexblade can't "dump" Str and Dex if they want to go with their Medium Armor. Medium Armor requires some Dex to have decent AC, and since it has weight you're going to want some Strength. "Dump", to me, means an 8 or 10, since baseline stats are typically around 16, 14, 14, 12, 10, 8.

I don't think the spells are super great. Shield is rough as a Warlock spell. It doesn't scale with level, so you're going to be hard pressed to justify spending a 5th level spell slot to cast a 1st level spell. Kinda rough. I wouldn't call their spell list "the best". The smites are nice and really help pact of the blade warlocks though.

The hexblade curse is, in my opinion, something that should have been worked into the Warlock class progression to begin with. It was kind of the warlock's thing in 4th edition, and to have that just become a spell was ... Weird.

 

[Helldritch]

Why not just ban multiclassing when it's obviously only for CharOp purposes?

Because I no longer need to to that. When you change classes you can't go back and if you abandon a divine class without the accord of your god, patron, you lose all powers associated with the class. This prevents one level dips or just starting one level then switch. It works remarkably well and all muticlassing is now done via RP and not via power gaming.

 

[Phazonfish]

Why not just ban multiclassing when it's obviously only for CharOp purposes?

Probably because...

1. Multiclassing isn't only for CharOp purposes
2. Optimization isn't inherently bad
3. The Warlock being super frontloaded is biggest source of such eyerolling

 

[Guest User]

Why not just ban multiclassing when it's obviously only for CharOp purposes?

Is all CharOP necessarily something to be avoided?
An Evoker that grabs HBC for some extra damage, essentially just traded their soul for a SR recharging, situational bonus to damage.

Just asking a player to think about what that means, often is enough to dissuade people. I would also point out the author Jim Butcher, has a very popular Wizard character that in 5e terms has a Hexblade Dip.

Sometimes, the dip is exactly what people want thematically.

I have a player that has a Hexblade/Paladin character. The player also has a 1 year old and a 5 year old, so she built a Single Attribute Dependent character, not to be more powerful...but for ease of play.

Mechanically, as others have indicated, a Hexblade is easy to play.

 

[Xeviat]

Complaining about single attribute characters when most classes are (and aren't) single attribute dependent is ... Interesting. I think only the Monk, Paladin, and Ranger stress too much about ability scores more than everyone else. Everyone worries about their primary stat, worries about Con, and worries about Dex if they're not heavy armor. Considering 2 or 3 stats is pretty normal.

Hexblade still needs moderate Dex and Con to be effective.

My simple solution is to have pact weapons use Cha for attack and damage. But I use a wildly houseruled pact of the blade anyway.

 

[shadowoflameth]

Lots of good feedback. I'm looking forward to the final result and I'm heartened that everyone doesn't think it's drek because I've played the class for months now. My character knows who made the hexblade. His ancestor took a merchant voyage to a far away land and disappeared for years. He returned with a sword from the far away land and his knowledge of the pact. His ancestors (specters now haunting his house) at some point found out that this long sword was the Black Blade of Fu Leng. They were cursed when they failed him and the character survived because he was a baby and raised in an orphanage, found out about his family later and discovered their secret altar.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

No. Not broken in any way.
If your charisma is higher than your strength, then eldritch blast is still very hard to compete with. The best you get is being on par with it, and maybe better scaling with magic items.
Also if you want to make best use of medium armor, you need 14 dex anyway and it is not easy to be better than just using mage armor (of shadows). Or you want to be hit anyway.
So all pact of the blade does is giving you a very powerful single target curse that you need to hold on if you want to make best use of it, while pact of the fiend generates temp hp over and over again.

 

[Azuresun]

Probably because...

1. Multiclassing isn't only for CharOp purposes
2. Optimization isn't inherently bad
3. The Warlock being super frontloaded is biggest source of such eyerolling

Sorry, that wasn't very clear, I'll try and rephrase. Why not ban multiclassing only when it's clearly just for CharOp purposes instead of something reasonably powered that makes sense for the chararacter?

And thinking on it, I think one of the reason I dislike the Hexblade dip is that it makes optimising discussions feel very dull and repetitive. I was never into 3e optimisation culture, but it was fun to spectate on just for the crazy stuff that came out of it. Now, nearly every discussion seems to go back to "Just take Hexblade 1" sooner or later.

 

[MiraMels]

I don't allow the Hexblade as an option when i run games, but not because it's OP or mechanically imbalanced or anything like that.

I don't allow it because I find the story of the patron to be agonizingly dull. The Hexblade's description doesn't tell you anything about who they are, what they want, or why they take warlocks. What's the point of a warlock if not for the pact between them and their patron? It'd be like allowing a paladin with no oath or tenets. Hard pass.

Besides, you can play a fun and effective Pact of the Blade warlock with any of the Player's Handbook patrons. I personally find the Fiend to give the most bang for your buck (and prefer it over Hexblade if i'm playing in a game where both are available), but I've seen all of them used by players who had fun with them.

 

[Iry]

Why not ban multiclassing only when it's clearly just for CharOp purposes instead of something reasonably powered that makes sense for the chararacter?

Optimization is quite fun for many people. If my player is having fun, and not making things uncomfortable for anyone else, I'm going to let her do it. As a bonus prize, most optimization can make sense for the character.