Hexblade Dual Hand Crossbows -Dumb?

[Raktus]

I've been trying to come up with fun little ideas for the new Hexblade material and everything from Hexblade/Swashbuckler to Hexblade/College of Swords has crossed my mind. I was having the thought of the old Dual Hand Crossbow builds, but with a Hexblade using Charisma when I remembered that a warlock already has Eldritch Blast in their arsenal. Would specing towards Dual Crossbows be useless or suboptimal in the face of Eldritch Blast or a Sorcerer MC with Hexblade?

[nickl_2000]

I've been trying to come up with fun little ideas for the new Hexblade material and everything from Hexblade/Swashbuckler to Hexblade/College of Swords has crossed my mind. I was having the thought of the old Dual Hand Crossbow builds, but with a Hexblade using Charisma when I remembered that a warlock already has Eldritch Blast in their arsenal. Would specing towards Dual Crossbows be useless or suboptimal in the face of Eldritch Blast or a Sorcerer MC with Hexblade?

One issue with specing two hand crossbows is that you are no longer as SAD. You can only use your Cha mods on a single weapon, so the second will be based on your dex. Would it be useless, nah since Crossbow Expert would still be decent, but it still wouldn't be as good as EB can offer. If you think it would be fun though, I bet you could make it work.

[Raktus]

Well, you'd need to go Pact of the blade and find a magic hand crossbow to extend the charisma benefit to the second hand crossbow. Which, I guess, increases the difficulty of making this idea work.

[smcmike]

One issue with specing two hand crossbows is that you are no longer as SAD. You can only use your Cha mods on a single weapon, so the second will be based on your dex.

Fortunately, there has never been any point in carrying a second crossbow, since it doesn’t help, and makes it awfully hard to load either crossbow. The real question here is whether it’s worth building around a single hand crossbow.

[clash]

Having 2 hand crossbows doesnt actually gain you anything. Just use Crossbow expert with 1 hand crossbow and it all works. As a hand crossbow is a 1-handed weapon, whenever you attack with it you can make a another attack with it as a bonus action.

[Raktus]

I'm assuming a non-human variant (so level 4) with 18 Cha as an example...
So with a Hexblade and Crossbow Expert, you'd get basically two shots of d20+6/d6+4
Versus an Eldritch Blast with say... Twinned Spell and Agonizing Blast. Two shots of d20+6/d10+4

The only upside of the Crossbow would be that you could spend gold on Bolts to refresh your shots, whereas Twinned spell has a more limited pool of resources with a more inconvenient method of renewal?

[nickl_2000]

I'm assuming a non-human variant (so level 4) with 18 Cha as an example...
So with a Hexblade and Crossbow Expert, you'd get basically two shots of d20+6/d6+4
Versus an Eldritch Blast with say... Twinned Spell and Agonizing Blast. Two shots of d20+6/d10+4

The only upside of the Crossbow would be that you could spend gold on Bolts to refresh your shots, whereas Twinned spell has a more limited pool of resources with a more inconvenient method of renewal?

Well with a Hexblade you also get the advantage of being a level 4 Warlock, so you get the additional advantages of that.
The second example assumes a 2 Warlock/2 Sorcerer.

Getting Warlock to level 3+ gets you your pact, which can be huge.

[clash]

There is other advantages to the crossbow approach.

Usable in silence/anti-magic
Compatible with sharpshooter
Can get magic weapon bonuses

[Joe the Rat]

Without twinned (which is a limited resource), the crossbow does slightly better (15 on two hits vs 9.5 on 1; Warlock 5 + Thirsting Blade: 22.5 on 3 hits vs. 19 on 2 hits)
after Character level 11, EB+Agonizing will outstrip crossbow damage (three crossbow shots, using bonus action, vs. 3 eldritch blast on a single action). You will have to keep pumping invocations and feats into it to try and match up (though 1-3 in Rogue does get you extra d6 to play with).

It's not unplayable by any means, but it would take more work to keep pace with that potential. But this is true of most bladelocks. Hexblade just makes it easier.

[Easy_Lee]

It wouldn't be useful on a Sorcerer MC, but on a rogue MC it might be. That said, what are you trying to do with this build? Dexterity is a stronger attribute than charisma for a rogue, and on a rogue you can do more with a Gloom Stalker / Scout multiclass than a warlock multiclass.

[Raktus]

It wouldn't be useful on a Sorcerer MC, but on a rogue MC it might be. That said, what are you trying to do with this build? Dexterity is a stronger attribute than charisma for a rogue, and on a rogue you can do more with a Gloom Stalker / Scout multiclass than a warlock multiclass.

Really trying to make the most out of Hex Warrior, I guess. As I said, I've considered the Swashbuckler and College of Swords MC's as well. It just seemed like a Hand Crossbow, with Extra Attacks, Sharpshooter and Crossbow experts through any combo of MC might accomplish that. But then, looking at the numbers of the age old Sorc/Lock Twinned Spell EB makes this all a dumb and useless idea, lol.