The gish and the hex blade, what am I missing?

[Ancalagon]

Hello

So I’ve been thinking a lot about the character concept of the “gish” – the “fighter-mage” type. There are many ways of executing this concept in 5e, but the recent introduction of the Hexblade has made me wonder if I really understand the concept.


So a gish is a character who can fight (usually melee but not a must) and use magic. Clearly, she can’t be as good a warrior as a fighting-specialized class, or as good a caster as a casting-specialized class, that would be unbalanced. So she’s a second-rate warrior *and* a second rate caster… not great. So what does she do then to be useful?

1: She uses her magic to enhance her fighting

2: She uses her fighting to enhance her magic

3: There is no interaction between the two (jack of all trades)

# 3 will result in a versatile character, but one that is rather underwhelming – the fighters and barbarians will always be better at the actual fighting, and the pure casters will have much more firepower/utility magic than her.

#2 I don’t know how that works… I guess you could say that the sturdier frame of the gish (vs, say, a wizard) means that less spells have to be devoted to defence (no need to cast mage armor for example) and she can therefore focus solely on offensive and utility magic? You can’t sword a better fireball.

#1 is the classic gish – use magic to make yourself a better warrior. This is usually with spells that enhance mobility, survivability (defense spells) and offensive potential (things like haste, not magic missile). A gish therefore requires access to such spells.

I think that clearly, #1 is the way to go, although probably most people will also add a little bit of utility and offensive/control magic to the mix for variety/versatility.

So with that said… how does a single-class Hexblade fit in all this? … I’m not sure. The warlock has the advantage of being a sort-off full spellcaster, as in they have access to high level spells, but at the same time the number of slots is limited, so not really.

Clearly she has access to spells that can boost her defenses (shield I’m looking at you) but her spell slot pool is very shallow – those spells will run out very fast, and it’s a shame to waste one of these few (potentially high level slots) on shield. Ok then, she could *not* use her spell slots, relying on her armor and cha-enhanced swordfighting for combat damage (reserving the spell slots for utility or a “big” spell like hunger of hadar or fear). But then her performance is kinda meh – the curse does help, but… wouldn’t she simply be better off blasting away with eldritch blast from range?

Instead, the “best” use of the Hexblade becomes a dip, to give the curse, access to the shield spell and eldritch blast, shield and armor and especially that sweet cha-bonus to fighting, to *another class* (paladin and bard college of sword in particular). And that really bothers me :/

It's also worth noting that the hex blade will have to sink a lot of her invocations into "fighting " ones, losing a lot of the tricks and versatility of the class...

Am I wrong here? Did I miss mid-high level features of the hexblade that really make a difference? Is there an easy solution to fix the Hexblade?

Ancalagon

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I've been playing a Bard (College of Swords)/Warlock (Hexblade) for a little bit. I only dipped into Hexblade for 1 level and the rest will be Bard. It's a viable combat build, though not optimal. I just like the option of having a character that is competent in melee, can get to a decent armor class and is a full caster along with choosing some interesting spells via Magical Secrets.

 

[iamntbatman]

I feel you. At first I thought this would make a cool sort of anti-paladin type character. With Pact of the Blade, you can even use heavy and reach weapons with hex warrior, so you can effectively pump Con and Cha without worrying about Str or Dex as attack stats. The completely different spell list warlocks get vs. paladins is really neat, plus access to higher level spells as you said would be something that sets them apart and might make up for the lack of fighting styles, heavy armor and auras. Using the Eldritch Smite invocation, they get a super-powered smite that's an even better damage type and can prone creatures for advantage on follow-up hits. The curse and Lifedrinker can make up for Improved Divine Smite.

But then, the small number of slots means you'd feel even more restricted in burning them for combat things like Shield or the aforementioned Eldritch Smite, not having them for utility or out-of-combat spells. The real kicker for me is just how many invocations you need to dedicate to the fighting ones to stay competitive vs. martial classes, which really does take away from a lot of the customization and versatility of the warlock class. Thirsting Blade and Lifedrinker are totally essential, depending on how loot works out Improved Pact Weapon might be something you'd go with until you get a suitable magic weapon and/or Warcaster, Eldritch Smite is hard to pass up, Relentless Hex really adds a lot of mobility to the class. Not a lot of room left for utility stuff at all.

The one way it really shines apart from the flavor and those few high level spell slots they get later, I think, is simply Eldritch Blast. Just getting Agonizing Blast alone basically makes them better ranged combatants than basically any other gish option, and some of the best steady ranged DPR in the game. I think that really gives them an edge over other gish classes who at worst will feel really useless against enemies they can't engage in melee (paladins) or stuck with worse cantrips or non-optimized ranged weapon setups (EK's). The level 6 hexblade in our campaign regularly zaps monsters with EB when he can't close the distance for greatsword work or doesn't have the hitpoints to keep in the thick of things, and the damage is still very good.

 

[Rossbert]

I dislike the implementation of the hexblade. It encourages bladelocks (which I think was the goal) less than it encourages bards or Paladins to dip so they only need one stat for everything. I would have rolled some of the curse into hex, changed the proficiency so for a something like add Cha to AC in light armor and the charisma for attacks into one of the blade invocations, if you want it you have to commit a little bit more to warlock (and get at least 3rd level slots).

As a dedicated hexblade, I think you are a bit of a mirror image cleric. Decent attack, decent armor, spells. Just instead of primarily focusing on buffs, healing and situational spells, you go more for damage and debuffs.
Think like an Eldritch Knight skewed a little heavier toward spells than swords. Other good inspirations are bladesingers and combat try bards. That is about your place, hanging out with the rogue trying not get hit and wrecking stuff when you see an opening.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I dislike the implementation of the hexblade. It encourages bladelocks (which I think was the goal) less than it encourages bards or Paladins to dip so they only need one stat for everything.....

Yeah, that's exactly what it does. I thought I'd try one PC and see how it goes. It gives me an opportunity to play a PC with lots of CHA-based skills, too. Not something I ordinarily do.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

The 1/3 melee thing hasn't worked out well in 5e. It might have been better if they had made an arcane 1/2 melee/1/2 caster class like the paladin and ranger, but with subclasses based on the full caster class each subclass was pulling from....

That being said, the warlock has a lot of options for sneaking up on people, so maybe it is better to think of the bladelock as "magical rogue" instead of "poor man's paladin" or "poor man's fighter." [Sometimes you want to kill somebody but disguise the fact that magic was involved--which really means the blade is just like the tome and the familiar, ultimately more of a utility thing than a combat thing] If a class isn't good at doing something, it seems to me that it is better to either change your goals to fit what the class is good at or pick another class.

Oh course, as I have said somewhat tongue in cheek in other threads, it seems like good resource management for the patrons if the warlock multiclasses: you get the full soul (or whatever) without having to pay the full 20 levels of power.

 

[Rossbert]

I find it frustrating but important for casting and combat to be different stats in most situations so you have to make those hard choices (I have a bladesinger who still can't decide between boosting Dex or Int). It is important to me that Eldritch Knights, Arcane Tricksters, Bladesingers, Bladelocks, Rangers and Paladins have to make that choice to some extent. Warlocks getting Cha for attacks breaks that choice which I would be fine with later in the progression (level 3 maybe, by 5 for sure), especially since bladelocks struggle as-is. I also think it would encourage bladelocks if it was a pact feature and not a patron (that still confuses me) and the commitment required would reduce the frequency of quick dips for the boost.

Paladin/warlock is frequent enough as is.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think single class Hexblades balance pretty well compared with, say, a hexblade 1/blade. However, hexblade/blade is very much better than a single class blade. I would say it's the blade that is broken.

As with all gish, some are more fighty and some are more casty, and they all differ in spell selections. And lets not forget that a standard cleric is, and always has been, gish.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The trick is to use your slots for casting cool stuff, not for boosting your melee. Your melee is fine without them. At most, use Hex to boost damage, but even that is optional.

 

[Wulffolk]

The point of a Gish is to be somebody that is a competent warrior that uses magic to temporarily surpass the abilities of a specialized warrior. The Gish should be able use magic to outshine other warriors temporarily, but not have the staying power needed for war.

This path is for the person that knows they lack the talent to be the best warrior, and uses magic to compensate. If magic could not grant you greater power than mundane work then what would be the point of learning magic?

So the Gish should be a powerful Nova that leans on the party to carry him to that point that he can make the big difference. This is why the Paladin is a nearly perfect Gish class. The best way to make an Arcane Gish would be to just modify the Paladin.