Sorcerer Melee Build with Warlock/Fighter

[Lucian Astaroth]

I couldn't find anything on this on the forum, so here's my idea? I'm fairly new to builds so bear with.

2 Levels in fighter to start for the heavy armour, decent health at low levels, second wind and action surge. If your DM says GWF works on the smites, all the better, else take defensive or duelist.
If you're hexblade, take these 2 levels in sorcerer later, (for Wish) as you get medium armour and martial weapons anyway, which is good enough.

3 into Warlock with the Hexblade, Great Old One, or Fiend, (All Pact of the Blade) as they have the pseudo-smite invocations, Curse Bringer, Claw of Acamar and Mace of Dispater which allow trading of spell slots for 2d8 slashing, (Greatsword only) necrotic, (Flail only) or Force, (Mace only) per level respectively, (Also take Eldritch Blast and either agonizing or repelling blast for when you're low on HP & Spell slots).
Also, take EB & BB as cantrips. Hexblade gives use of the curse & multiple targets for it throughout the invocation, whereas Great Old One gives telepathy, (meh) and Fiend gives temporary hit points on a kill, (better, especially since your HP isn't great); flail and mace both allow use of a shield, which is good because...

The rest will go into sorcerer which means d6 HD so you're a little squishy, however you now can spend SP for twinned and quicken on BB. Along with action surge, (if fighter) for another Twinned BB, this makes for a reasonable nova round with the smites.
Take stone sorcerer for extra HP and reasonable buffs to melee damage with Aegis, Efficient use of BB or GFB are basically the reason this can work at lower levels, and then focus on stronger smites at higher levels, (quicken hold person & then burn through high slots - thanks to borg286)

This would allow 3, (5 with nova if fighter) melee attacks each round at lower levels that each do extra thunder and slashing/necrotic/force, and still allows 8th level spells.

Now, I'm wondering what the best level progression order would be, or if there are better ways to achieve a similar build? As I'm aware that this build only allows 3 ASIs, which isn't great. However, even with point buy:

15, 10, 14, 8, 8, 15 or 15, 11, 14, 8, 9, 14, (Var. Human, Half Elf or Mountain Dwarf and maybe others?)
still allows 20 Str, 10/12 Dex, 16 Con, 16/14 Cha and 1 Feats/ASIs, which should be war caster, (BB as a reaction for a escaping foe is solid, not to mention the strength of the feat in general).

If you know you will have access to a set of Gauntlets of Ogre Strength early on considering they're uncommon, (Thanks again to borg286) then dump strength, (8) and max Charisma, keeping everything else the same - this just lets you cast spells more effectively, (save DCs and stuff) and can free up another ASI for more Dex/Con or a feat.

The main issue is you only really come online as a solid melee at level 8, (if fighter included) or level 6 otherwise, which will be painful. Maybe take the Sorcerer levels first, (till 3rd level spells) then MC into the warlock/fighter levels to start melee when BB is better anyway?

Any feedback or improvements would be greatly appreciated!

[Maxilian]

Ermmm

-Curse Bringer doesn't let you attack with CHA instead of STR, cause its a 2 handed weapon and Hex Warrior points out that it doesn't work with 2 handed weapons

-How do you get 3 attacks (You get the ability to cast EB twice while quickened but i still don't see 3 attacks -Unless you count each beam, in that case, there are more than 3 attacks)

[Lucian Astaroth]

Ermmm

-Curse Bringer doesn't let you attack with CHA instead of STR, cause its a 2 handed weapon and Hex Warrior points out that it doesn't work with 2 handed weapons

-How do you get 3 attacks (You get the ability to cast EB twice while quickened but i still don't see 3 attacks -Unless you count each beam, in that case, there are more than 3 attacks)

Ah you're right, that's annoying. Well then I guess there's no need to take more than 2 levels in warlock. Actually then the 9th level slots aren't as nice. Probably sorcerer 15 for 8th levels spells.

The three attacks come from twinning the first BB and quickening a second one as a bonus action, so 2 attacks to one target and 1 to another, or 1 for 3 different targets, (sorry, that wasn't very clear)

Now thinking about it, probably better to do a strength version with 2 in fighter, 3 in warlock and the rest in sorcerer. Then you can really nova.

[Foxhound438]

I dunno, 5 levels off of a full caster build is pretty taxing- that's 3 spell levels behind. I'm not saying don't do it, just be wary that you're stuck with measly little fireballs when you could have had disintegrates and sunbeams.

[Lucian Astaroth]

I dunno, 5 levels off of a full caster build is pretty taxing- that's 3 spell levels behind. I'm not saying don't do it, just be wary that you're stuck with measly little fireballs when you could have had disintegrates and sunbeams.

Currently rewriting the build to be more melee focused with the pseudo-smite available from 3 levels in warlock, with spells as more of a backup/utility. I can probably live with the delayed spell access, though maybe it'll be a different story when I play-test this :L

EDIT: Have now changed it to a smiting sorcerer with reasonable access to spells, (albeit much later).

[borg286]

If you're going to use BB you'll be able to use it in conjunction with the swashbuckler hit-n-run tactics only once per foe. Because after you've sheathed them and ran away they will either already be next to your ally(in which case they have no reason to move), or they are about to engage with your team (in which case they will soon fall into the first category). Thus you'll only get your bonus damage once per lone foe.

Booming Blade is a defender spell. It becomes offensive when the team is playing along (cleric 1 or paladin 2 gives command, bard 1 gives dissonant whispers, whole team takes Warlock 2 giving Devil's sight for fun in darkness). GFB is offensive but can't be twinned.
Curse Bringer goes against a CHA-only build, as was mentioned. This could be fixed by buying/making the uncommon item Gauntlets of Ogre power. Unlike the belt of X giants it is cheap and not rare. Still curse Bringer goes against Sneak attack.
Try to switch out swashbuckler for paladin or more sorcerer.

Focus on the twin being a defender and making effecient use of twin BB at low level, then when you don't have enough bonus actions per round focus on higher octane smites from hexblade. You can either make your spell points translate to higher damage by using up your main attack, or go out with a bang by quickening a hold person, and blowing some high level spells through a hexblade smite when you want to frontload damage.

[CaptainSarathai]

If you're going Fighter, why even bother with Booming Blade? IIRC, you can't Twin+Quicken at the same time. Only 1 Metamagic per turn, unless specified otherwise.
Even before the HexBlade came out, I built a dual-wielding Fighter/Lock, and it was awesome.
Hex(spell) gives you +d6 per hit. Doesn't matter which hand. Grab two-weapon as your style, and now all your attacks are Weap+Stat.
At L5, you're getting:
2d8+1d6+Stat(3) with BB. +2 for Duellist with a Rapier = 17.5
I was getting 4d6+2Stat(3) = 20 with two weapons.

At 7th level, when you start burning spells to Metamagic and get 35dam average, I was netting 6d6+3Stat(4) = 33dam average. I'm down 2pts of damage (go VHuman and take Dual Wielder at L1 for dual rapiers, and now you average 36dam, if that matters).
The difference is that I get more attack rolls, so I lose less of my attack damage on a miss. I can also do this all day because the only resource burned is Hex.

The HexBlade makes this even better. The curse is a flat +Dam per hit, so more hits = more +Dam. More attacks also means more chances to Crit, means more chances for doubling up that sexy Smite-style damage.

At higher levels, yes. Twinning/Quickening BB will deal out more damage. However, at very low levels (before people get their second attack) Dual-Wielding is filthy, and Metamagic isn't even online. In the mid-levels, they're both quite evenly paced. So you spend more time, dealing more damage by going with a dual-wielder. Plus it's just cool, because it's something that few other classes can do as well as the Warlock, especially now that we've got the HexBlade in play.

Also, in the end, I'm building toward a Battlemaster Fighter3-4, AT Rogue 5, Fiend BladeLock5+ build, running Sentinel.
The whole build is designed for dealing as much round damage as I can. Hit me, and you swallow Armor of Agathys damage. I can use my reactions to:
1. Halve incoming damage if you hit me (Rogue, uncanny dodge)
2. Hit you if you miss me (BatMaster, Riposte)
3. Hit you if you hit my friend (Sentinel)
4. Hit you if you move away (OA)

My DM and party hate the crunch of this character, because he's d*** hard to kill, and he gets a Reaction every round and/or deals damage even when it's not his turn.

Also: Warlocks get access to Booming Blade as much as they want. I personally use it with Warcaster to make the absolute most out of my Reaction attacks. It's fun rolling BB+Hex+SA+SupDie just because someone missed me with an attack that would have dealt maybe half that damage if it had connected.

[Drackolus]

When it comes to full casters, delaying levels hurts. A lot. I just made a 1 fighter/4 life theurge and I was seriously missing those 3rd level spells, even with my high stats and tough+warcaster making me basically a full fighter (more or less).
I'd recommend full hexblade or draconic sorc. With high stats, a sorcerer with a dagger can do piles of damage with two (norm+quickened) gfb's at level 6, even on one target (1d4+1d8+cha+dex on a hit, avg 14 assuming 16 and 18 in dex and cha.) They also have almost cleric health and decent ac. Downside is that you MUST stack up your cha and dex and have decent con. Leaves little space for feats. Half-elf is the obvious choice here with point-buy (3 16's).
Sorcadin is a classic choice too. There's a build for that somewhere around here.

[Rysto]

If you're going Fighter, why even bother with Booming Blade? IIRC, you can't Twin+Quicken at the same time. Only 1 Metamagic per turn, unless specified otherwise.
Even before the HexBlade came out, I built a dual-wielding Fighter/Lock, and it was awesome.

Only one metamagic per spell. You can quicken a Booming Blade to cast it as a bonus action and then twin a second Booming Blade as your action.

[joaber]

3 attacks in one turn that consume 3 SP, as sorcerer 3/ warlock of fighter x, all your SP in the day was gone. And with the smite invocations, you can go out of resources fast (kill one BBEG fast too).

I don't think this build will work really nice if you start as lvl 1. To get full plate, the build start to work as fighter 1/sorcerer 3/warlock 3, and you don't have none ASI until lvl 8, only lvl 2 spell slots and only 3 sp/day.

If you roll instead of point buy, with lucky, a sor/lock would be nice, hexblade or old favored soul could give you medium armor, or stone sorcerer Con armor, solving the MAD problem.

some weeks ago I post that build:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?515637-Oshikuru-Demon-Samurai-Hexblade-Samurai-Fallen-Aasimar

Don't have metamagic, but I think is more consistent

[Lucian Astaroth]

3 attacks in one turn that consume 3 SP, as sorcerer 3/ warlock of fighter x, all your SP in the day was gone. And with the smite invocations, you can go out of resources fast (kill one BBEG fast too).

I don't think this build will work really nice if you start as lvl 1. To get full plate, the build start to work as fighter 1/sorcerer 3/warlock 3, and you don't have none ASI until lvl 8, only lvl 2 spell slots and only 3 sp/day.

If you roll instead of point buy, with lucky, a sor/lock would be nice, hexblade or old favored soul could give you medium armor, or stone sorcerer Con armor, solving the MAD problem.

some weeks ago I post that build:

ww.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?515637-Oshikuru-Demon-Samurai-Hexblade-Samurai-Fallen-Aasimar

Don't have metamagic, but I think is more consistent

Yeah I'm seeing how this build only really starts working at the later levels - it's currently a backup character for my current campaign so I'm expecting to start fairly high anyway, but I'm trying to make it work at lower levels.

I think you may be facing more eldritch blasting with maybe some Hex, (spell) early on unless your DM is generous with short rests, (mine happens to be exactly that, which is good) as both the hex curse and smiting slots refresh, so this build works better for me than it may for others...