How well does a Sword and board hexblade hold up?

[Spacehamster]

Think 1 level fighter for either +1AC or dueling style, picks warcaster, shield master, maxes CHA and puts a bump to STR and CON, considering point buy half elf with these stats after racials: 15/8/16/8/10/17 first bump gets STR and CHA to 16/18, then take warcaster and shield master and proceed to up abilities with the late game ASI's if the game goes on that long.

This is just a brainstorm and not really a char I am considering, just all talk about the hexblade seems to be about GWM style so curious if a sword and board version would work out.

[samcifer]

I'm curious about this too. I created a Fighter 1 (for con saves and Dueling fighting style) / HB (*) and want to now how well they do as far as damage goes.

[Tanarii]

Doesn't starting Fighter defeat the entire purpose of why the Hexblade was introduced in the first place? Because people kept complaining they were physically forced to felt compelled to to dip Fighter? :smallconfused:

[Howl]

Doesn't starting Fighter defeat the entire purpose of why the Hexblade was introduced in the first place? Because people kept complaining they were physically forced to felt compelled to to dip Fighter? :smallconfused:

It's no longer mandatory to dip fighter since the hexblade changes but with constitution/heavy armor proficiency and fighting style the benefit remains.

[Scyrner]

I'm running a S&B pure hexblade. It's overshadowed by the very optimized Sentinel/Polearm Master/Tunnel Fighter Sorcadin, but otherwise it's a lot of fun.

I rolled stats, so I've got a 20 in CHA, and a 14 in Con and Dex. I'm playing Variant Human for War Caster. I would personally *not* recommend Shield Master since the shove bonus action is already competing for your bonus action with basically everything else that the hexblade wants to do.

[Spiritchaser]

I think F1 is still a good choice, but before it was clearly the optimal choice. Now?

Well now it’s not at all clear.

With all the ASIs saved with +CHA to attack, it’s fairly easy to fit in res con and keep your spell progression... but starting with a con save is pretty appealing too... then again you’ll probably have to take res WIS eventually...

Heavy armor was nearly a must have when compared to light armor, at least with strength weapons... but medium armor is pretty close...

Really tough call...

For the record, the hexblade at my table started F1, and when I get to play this winter I’m going to start hex-blade... but both are GWM builds, not sword and board.