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Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Wizards & Warlocks -- Hexblades, Raven Queens, and Lore Mastery!

Master of Hexes Starting at 14th level, you can use your Hexblade’s Curse again without resting, but when you apply it to a new target, the curse immediately ends on the previous target. Does this mean you can cast it one more time, or over and over again? And does the 1 minute duration reset upon a new target, or does it continue from the previous target?

Master of Hexes
Starting at 14th level, you can use your
Hexblade’s Curse again without resting, but
when you apply it to a new target, the curse
immediately ends on the previous target.


Does this mean you can cast it one more time, or over and over again? And does the 1 minute duration reset upon a new target, or does it continue from the previous target?
 

Leatherhead

Possibly a Idiot.
[sblock=Warlock]

The Hexblade
Because Katanas are magic.

This is a pact with an Artifact weapon, in case that wasn't clear. It's also heavily pact blade themed, but I think you got that already.

Expanded Spell List
Shield, which is totally rad given the warlocks short rest mechanics.
Wrathful Smite, which is worse than Hex in virtually every way, unless you also want to inflict fear for some reason.
Branding Smite, better than Wrathful, but still not worth picking.
Magic Weapon which I could see being used as a legitimate alternative to Hex for t1-t2 characters.
Blink Could save you some pain, but you are trying to be a melee character, so it can also backfire on you when there is a massive hole in the front line.
Elemental Weapon Upgrade to magic weapon, also a potential Hex replacement, if you don't mind the duration.
Phantasmal Killer Not something I would pick.
Staggering Smite Another smite not worth using over Elemental Weapon or Hex.
Cone of Cold Could be nice, to end the world in ice.
Destructive Wave Potentially harder to use than Cone of Cold, also don't scale, but has better damage coverage.

So like half of them are of dubious value, bleh.

Hex Warrior
The level one dip to end all level one dips. Make melee attacks using Charisma without using the Shillelagh cantrip. Of note, this will work on all one-handed weapons, including versatile ones to get a bypass on the two-handed restriction. Also gives you medium armor and shield proficiency so you can get away with skimping on Dex.

Hexblade’s Curse
Something to use your bonus action on once you drop Hex for Magical Weapon. Lets you land more crits and also boosts your damage in general. Once per rest, but it will come through when you need it.

Shadow Hound
This is, weird. You can track someone forever, and negate anything less than full cover for the times you want to use your Eldritch Blast. It's not un-useful, just a bit out of place. Still, it has some interesting exploration pillar potential if you use it to tail someone.

Armor of Hexes
Gives the target of your curse A 50% chance for any hit to instead miss you. It also stacks with disadvantage, which Warlocks have the ability to inflict quite easily. Could be enough to push them to the non-squishy side of the class spectrum. But you have to remember it only works on one target at a time.

Master of Hexes
At this level, you are flat out replacing the spell Hex with your subclass ability. a bit Ironic for something named Hexblade, but whatever.

Thoughts
A significant number of the spells are basically useless, and it doesn't want to stick with Hex despite being the Hexblade, which will cause confusion. Level 1 is the dip to end all dips for cha-based gish characters.

The Raven Queen
Because WotC wants to confuse me even more over the worshiper/pact-maker divide.

Spells
Not a bunch to write about, a few cold damage spells for flavor. Though sanctuary and spiritual weapon are kind of interesting.

Sentinel Raven
The best familiar ever. Also part of the set up for the character with the absolute best vision ever.

Soul of the Raven
You can become a raven. Unfortunately, you can't do awesome dogfights with Eldritch Blasts. However, you will still make for an excellent spy, at-will flight is always good, and being tiny could have some advantages in bypassing some barriers.

Raven’s Shield
It took ten levels to get a benefit that was explicitly about combat. And it's just ok. Immunity to the frightened condition (is that the same as immunity to fear?), resistance to necrotic will be welcome when it comes up, and advantage on death saving throws is going to be a lifesaver at times, but nothing really grabs you. Unlike being able to summon a conspiracy of ravens, or something like that.

Queen’s Right Hand
Finger of Death once per day. Time to start gathering your own zombie horde. Which is wierd, because the Raven Queen was anti-undeath iirc.

Thoughts
Somehow both cool and boring, possibly due to the dearth of passive powers and subtle pacifistic nature of them. The capstone is out of character for the Raven Queen. And I still have no clue what WotC are trying to do by making warlocks take powers from gods. A Solid Meh.

Eldritch Invocations
This is new! And quite a number of these are for one patron only, for reasons.

Aspect of the Moon (archfey)
Sadly, you don't get a magical tiara. Fortunately for the rest of the group, we don't have to picture your character in a mini-skirt.
Instead, you no longer have to sleep, and gain immunity to sleep effects. But you still have "rest" for 8 hours a day to recharge the batteries. Why not Great Old One? I dunno.

Burning Hex (Hexblade)
Automatic Damage to the target of your Hexblade's Curse. Gives you a use for your bonus action, I guess. I still wouldn't pick it due to action economy.

Caiphon’s Beacon (great old one)
Some skills and an incredibly situational advantage to attack rolls VS charmed targets. Not really all that interesting for something known as the Purple Star of Doom.

Chilling Hex (hexblade)
Like Burning Hex, but useful. A liberal interpretation of the rules could find that the target of the curse also receives the damage.

Chronicle of the Raven Queen (You shouldn't need me to point this out. However, only for Tome Pacts.)
An at-will Speak with Dead. Only much less powerful, and true to the knowledge of whatever dead thing you just asked, instead of cryptic. Will it break a murder mystery? Only if you let it.

Claw of Acamar (goo-blades)
Tentacle-Smite. Like the Paladin's Divine Smite, only with Warlock spell slots, meaning it's beefy and frequent. Who needs multiclass rules anymore?

Cloak of Baalzebul (fiend)
Poison damage aura with a side of intimidation advantage. Not going to be most useful thing.

Curse Bringer (hexblade-blade)
Better than Claw of Acamar, it gives you a rider that is arguably better than your level 14 ability. Also a Silver Greatsword so that Githyanki want to kill you more.

Kiss of Mephistopheles (level 5 fiend with eldritch blast)
Gives you Fireball as a bonus action when you cast Eldritch Blast. Not only is it a free spell learned, but it significantly improves your burst potential, and extends the range on Fireball if you make some other picks. It's deadly as heck.

Frost Lance ( Fey with eldritch blast)
Gives your eldritch blast the ray of frost rider, but not the damage. Some combos with repelling blast.

Gaze of Khirad (7th level goo)
x-ray vision, keen!

Grasp of Hadar (goo with eldritch blast)
The opposite of Repelling blast, only worse.

Green Lord’s Gift (fey)
Maximum healing on yourself. IF you are in a game without a healer, maybe?

Improved Pact Weapon (blade pact level 5)
Your pact weapon is a +1 weapon now. Handy, but of marginal use in most games.

Mace of Dispater (fiend blade)
The obligatory fiend pact variation, it does force damage, but turns your weapon into a mace and knocks prone.

Moon Bow (fey blade)
It's a bow, does that even work right with a pact weapon? I suppose it does, also does smite radiant, which makes this one potentially the best of the invocations like it.

Path of the Seeker (seeker, wow they remembered)
You get ranger travel powers and advantage on checks to let you move again. a bit meh.

Raven Queen’s Blessing (raven queen with eldritch blast)
Finally, a way for warlocks to heal people without a tome. It has the 4e thing where you spend HD, but something has to counter the at-will nature of the ability.

Relentless Hex (level 5 hexblade)
You can teleport to the target of your curse, but only if you are within 30'. Interesting, but I dunno if I would pick it over other things.

Sea Twins’ Gift (fey)
The ability to swim and breathe underwater. Also cast water breathing, solid.

Seeker’s Speech (seeker)
You get two floating language proficiencies that you can swap out every long rest. a bit mundane.

Shroud of Ulban (goo 18)
invisibility as an action at will with no spell slot cost cool beens.

Superior Pact Weapon (level 9 blade)
A +2 weapon now, but only if it wasn't magic, so it's less likely to be useful.

Tomb of Levistus (fiend)
This just sucks. It leaves you vulnerable for an entire turn in order to gain some temp hps against one attack per rest. Needs lots of work.

Ultimate Pact Weapon (15 blade)
+3 weapon, but if you don't have a magic weapon by now I wonder how you survived this long.

thoughts
Some chaff, also some of the restrictions are a bit much for pact weapons. But also some needed things.
[/sblock]

[sblock=Wizard!]
Lore Mastery
The Generalist wizard, at last.

Lore Master
Expertise in lore checks, also INT for your initiative. Something from 4e, but you are still going to want lots of Dex at this point unless you are a dwarf.

Spell Secrets
The first bit is nice, swapping energy damage on the fly every time you use a spell slot lets you bypass some of the more annoying resistances, or target some choice vulnerabilities when combined with Lore Master.
The second bit is BRUTAL. You can clutch target the weak save, which lets you bring on the pain at a lower level than other wizards, and humiliate monsters in ways that they aren't used to. The Short rest recharge is possibly the perfect frequency to do something like this.

Alchemical Casting
Metamagic, for Wizards. but on a much more limited scope. Which is fair, but you should be able to nail anything that doesn't have resistance to spells with whatever you want now.

Prodigious Memory
You have exactly the right spell when you need it most. This is really evocative, I see a wizard digging in their book for the right page in the middle of combat.

Master of Magic
Once per long rest you can pull the ultimate hat trick, because sometimes you really need to cast raise dead.


Thoughts
This is probably a bit op in ways I can't think of at the moment, but I am a bit out of it after looking at all the warlock stuff. This is basically everything I ever wanted in a wizard.
[/sblock]
 
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BookBarbarian

Expert Long Rester
So, am I literally the only one who took one look at the Hexblade's fluff and figured out the justification for the Cha replaces Strength thing is because you're literally drawing upon the power of the magic weapon you derive your magic from and using it to guide your blade in battle? I mean, this is literally what Elric of Melnibone, the obvious inspiration for this warlock archetype, did with Stormbringer - without its magic bolstering him, he was an invalid.

The blade itself is doing the fighting, your Charisma score influences your control of the blade. This seems pretty straight forward to me. I can understand not liking it from a balance perspective, but I think the fiction is there to support the idea.
 
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RSIxidor

Adventurer
Well, its all about opportunity cost.
-If you ignore the awesome mix of Hexblade + Blade boon + Curse Bringer, you need to take another pact which doesnt give you armor prof, unless you're a mountain dwarf or multiclass. You also need to raise Dex or Str to wield your weapon.
-Then you need to spend 1 invocation to get the new pact-themed weapons, which arent as good as other weapon if you have access to feat.
-Then you have to take another invocation to get a second attack to keep up with the Paladin's extra attack.
-Then you need to spend one or two of your spell slots to ''smite'' your foes, keeping in mind that you're limited to 2 or 3 slots most of your career.

So, I guess it can be powerful, but to make a warlock compete with a paladin you need to give up a lot, and meanwhile your paladin has auras, other spells, figthing style etc.

What I foolishly wasn't considering was the fact that these are specific weapons you create with your pact and not just whatever weapon you wish to use, so that's true that you may not be able to use a feat that provides extra advantage like great weapon mastery or crossbow expert. There are the UA feats that do directly work with these but they aren't particulary great, anyway.
 

zaratan

First Post
So, Moon Bow, Mace of Dispater, Curse Bringer and Claw of Acamar can do 18d8 of damage for a 9th spell slot? By paladin, we have a new class for the new ultimate nova combo.
And Curse Bringer can critical with 19-20.

a hexblade/paladin with lance and mount looks interesting with his 1d12 weapon that only need Cha.
 

So, am I literally the only one who took one look at the Hexblade's fluff and figured out the justification for the Cha replaces Strength thing is because you're literally drawing upon the power of the magic weapon you derive your magic from and using it to guide your blade in battle? I mean, this is literally what Elric of Melnibone, the obvious inspiration for this warlock archetype, did with Stormbringer - without its magic bolstering him, he was an invalid.
Would Elric of Melnibone, the Doomed Albino of Curses, swing his magic sword any harder if he'd spent some time at the gym? I get the sense that he doesn't need to be any stronger, because he has an epic level artifact that can pretty much kill anything anyway by route of soul-drinking, but basic physics aren't actually ignored in the force equation.

If he was drawing energy from the sword, and using that to swing, then the sword would have the property that it sets his Strength to 20 while he swings it (or something along those lines). It wouldn't let him turn his own willpower into physical strength for the purposes of combat.
 

Lanliss

Explorer
Well, I got 2/3 of what I wanted. I was also hoping for some new pact boons, but this works quite well for me. I was not expecting nearly that many new Invocations. Altogether, I like this UA.
 

Rhylthar

Explorer
So, Moon Bow, Mace of Dispater, Curse Bringer and Claw of Acamar can do 18d8 of damage for a 9th spell slot? By paladin, we have a new class for the new ultimate nova combo.
And Curse Bringer can critical with 19-20.
Warlocks don´t have 9th Level Spell Slots, the maximum ist 5th Level.

Curse Bringer, as mentioned, can´t be used with the Hexblade´s CHA-Attack-Modifier, because you get a Greatsword.
 



Opposition01

First Post
So, Moon Bow, Mace of Dispater, Curse Bringer and Claw of Acamar can do 18d8 of damage for a 9th spell slot? By paladin, we have a new class for the new ultimate nova combo.
And Curse Bringer can critical with 19-20.

a hexblade/paladin with lance and mount looks interesting with his 1d12 weapon that only need Cha.


I don't think the Warlock's Mystic Arcanum would count as "spell slots" for the purpose of these new blade pact invocations. However, a multiclass Warlock/Paladin could stack these invocations with Divine Smite, or a Warlock/Sorc could burn their higher level sorcerer spell slots. Either strikes me as a grossly overpowered multiclass option.
 

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