Xanathar's Hexblade + Pact of the blade (Curse archer)

[tetracarbon]

Hello my fellow adventurers.
Anyone have any suggestion as to what to do to maximize my character?

Im a lvl 5 Tiefling Warlock
Charisma 20 (5)
The other stats I never really use, but compared to cha they are bad.

Spells: Hex, Invisibility, Fly, Major Image, Comprehend Languajes and Thunder Step
Invocations: Maddening Hex, Improved Weapon and Thirsting Blade
Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Mage Hand, Poison Spray

Hexblade: Hexblade's Curse, Hew Warrior
Pact of the blade

(Infernal) Tiefling: Thaumaturgy, Hellish Rebuke and Darkness.

My attack rolls have a +6

So for a boss fight, I usually go(heavy crossbow summoned):
turn #1- Hex, Maddening Hex (5+ 1d6)
turn #2- Hexblade's Curse, Two crossbow hits (2d10+16+ 2d6)

The stage is set
turn #3- Maddening Hex, Two crossbow hits (5+1d6, 2d10+16+2d6)

The last session ended with a level up, my Character is now lvl 6 but I dont know if I should multiclass, or keep going with pure warlock.

All the dmg and rule bending where done with my DM's knowledge he is being lax with some of the rules, he is new to DMing and all of us are new to D&D

Anyone have any ideas of how to do more dmg in the following lvls?

[Chugger]

At your next invo you can get devils sight and shoot from darkness, quite often having advantage on the roll and hurting badguys in all sorts of ways. In small room/tunnel fighting it can hurt the party, too.

What about feats - xbow master and sharpshooter?

[Spacehamster]

1 level fighter for that juicy archery style perhaps?

[Malifice]

Hello my fellow adventurers.
Anyone have any suggestion as to what to do to maximize my character?

Im a lvl 5 Tiefling Warlock
Charisma 20 (5)
The other stats I never really use, but compared to cha they are bad.

Spells: Hex, Invisibility, Fly, Major Image, Comprehend Languajes and Thunder Step
Invocations: Maddening Hex, Improved Weapon and Thirsting Blade
Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Mage Hand, Poison Spray

Hexblade: Hexblade's Curse, Hew Warrior
Pact of the blade

Ditch Maddening Hex invocation and take Eldritch smite in its place.


My attack rolls have a +6

With +5 Cha at 5th level, prof of +3 and Improved pact weapon invocations +1, you should have +9 to hit.


So for a boss fight, I usually go(heavy crossbow summoned):
turn #1- Hex, Maddening Hex (5+ 1d6)

Both Hex and Madening Hex use bonus actions. You cant do both on the same turn. You only have one bonus action per turn.


turn #2- Hexblade's Curse, Two crossbow hits (2d10+16+ 2d6)

Damage should be 1d10 (bow) +1d6 (hex) +5 (Cha) + 3 (Proficiency from Hexblades curse) +1 from Improved pact weapon. (2d10+18+2d6).

You should really take the Sharpshooter feat. I'd also recomend 1-3 levels in Fighter for Archery F/S, action surge and sup dice (precise attack and others).

[Khrysaes]

10 levels of sword or valor bard for swift quiver and extra attack that doesnt take invocation.

10 levels of other type of bard for other bard stuff, swift quiver, and keep the thirsting blade.

[Dblitz]

Just of note raw does not allow for multiple attacks unless you have Crossbow expert feat as your weapon posses the loading property

[Squeeq]

Oh, I just now noticed that improved pact weapon lets you pull ranged weapons, nice! And you can use the hex warrior ability on them even if they're two handed! You should use a hand crossbow - it lets you use your bonus action to fire a third time, which is much more powerful than maddening hex. Once you get thirsting blade, you reapply your charisma bonus to damage dealt, meaning your +1 crossbow now deals +11 damage on hit. If you snag sharpshooter too and use devil's sight and darkness to roll with advantage (consider taking at some point a two level dip in fighter to get the archery style for accuracy and an action surge) that jumps up to 21. You'd be missing hex if you're concentrating on darkness, but if you have your hexblade's curse up and have a +3 proficiency bonus and all three attacks hit you're rolling 3d6+72 damage. That's not half bad for a level 12 character to do essentially at will.

[LeonBH]

Charisma 20 (5)

Invocations: Maddening Hex, Improved Weapon and Thirsting Blade

My attack rolls have a +6

You should be rolling with a +9 due to proficiency (+3), Charisma (+5), and improved pact weapon (+1)


The last session ended with a level up, my Character is now lvl 6 but I dont know if I should multiclass, or keep going with pure warlock.

All the dmg and rule bending where done with my DM's knowledge he is being lax with some of the rules, he is new to DMing and all of us are new to D&D

Anyone have any ideas of how to do more dmg in the following lvls?

You can multiclass into Sorcerer, but that turns you into a caster rather than a gish.

You could also dip Paladin to take advantage of double smites by level 7. An Eldritch Smite and a Divine Smite in the same hit is very, very satisfying, especially on a crit.

[Zene]

If you stay warlock, life drinker invocation boosts your damage at L12. But that’s a long wait, so only do that if you like the other things you get as a warlock.

If you just wanna kill things with arrows/bolts, yeah you can’t beat 3 levels in Battlemaster Fighter. After that, if you want damage to keep scaling, Swashbuckler Rogue could be a good route.

Paladin unfortunately won’t help much as Divine smite doesn’t work on ranged attacks.

[Malifice]

You could also dip Paladin to take advantage of double smites by level 7. An Eldritch Smite and a Divine Smite in the same hit is very, very satisfying, especially on a crit.

Is it really worth it though?

As a SC Warlock, your Smite damage increases by +1d8 at 7th level anyway (when 4th level slots come online). An average of (assuming 2 short rests) 30d8 smite damage per long rest.

Factoring in 2 short rests per day, thats an extra +6d8 damage from smites per long rest (more damage than a Paladin 2/ Lock 5 deals spamming double smites, barring beating down undead). The Paladin 2/ Warlock 5 only gets 24d8 from eldritch smite, and +4d8 from divine smite.

At 9th level it increases by another +1d8 per smite for the single classed lock.

At 11th level, you get another smite per short rest (so 3-4 more per long rest, on average).

[LeonBH]

Is it really worth it though?

As a SC Warlock, your Smite damage increases by +1d8 at 7th level anyway (when 4th level slots come online). An average of (assuming 2 short rests) 30d8 smite damage per long rest.

Factoring in 2 short rests per day, thats an extra +6d8 damage from smites per long rest (more damage than a Paladin 2/ Lock 5 deals spamming double smites, barring beating down undead). The Paladin 2/ Warlock 5 only gets 24d8 from eldritch smite, and +4d8 from divine smite.

At 9th level it increases by another +1d8 per smite for the single classed lock.

At 11th level, you get another smite per short rest (so 3-4 more per long rest, on average).

Right, it would have to be a bigger investment on the Paladin side of the MC to earn more spell slots and smite spells.

[Vogie]

I don't know if you want to juggle 2 separate sets of spell slots. If not...

If you have enough Strength, you could multiclass 3 levels into Fighter. That'd give a flat +2 to ranged damage, an action surge and:

Brute: 1d4 additional damage per shot
Sharpshooter: Steady Aim (ignore up to 3/4 cover and 3 damage per shot, up to 3x/rest)
Monster Hunter: 1d8 to add to either attack or damage roll (4x/rest)
Arcane Archer: 2 arcane shot options (2x/Rest)
Battle Master: 3 maneuvers giving various abilities or 1d8 damage (4x/rest)


Alternatively, if your Dex & Wisdom are high enough, you could go 3 levels into Ranger. You still get the +2 to ranged damage, a favored enemy, the Natural Explorer bonuses, and:

Hunter: Additional Attacks when multiple enemies present or 1d8 damage per round on a single target
Deep Stalker: A full additional attack on the first turn, free darkvision and anti-darkvision for your enemies
Planar: 1d6 damage and surpass damage resistance on attacks w/in 30 feet
Monster Slayer: 1d6 damage on the first attack and ability to learn a target’s vulnerabilities, immunities, and resistances (w/in 120 ft)
Primeval Guardian: 1d6 piercing damage to one creature hit per turn

[Talionis]

3 levels of Devotion Paladin can use Channel Divinity to offset the penalty from sharpshooter feat. This makes sense if you were planning on usi g Heavy Armor and the strength requirement for Paladin isn't such a waste.

A couple of the Smite spells from Paladin doo work ranged. BRANDING Smite I think works, but I also think you can add them from the Hexblades added spells.

Don't forget life drinker inspiration at level 12 Warlock.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Ditch hex and maddening hex for Eldritch smite and another spell.

Keep going warlock. Idk what level you’ll end at but if it’s not higher than 10 than I think warlock is just better for you.

Splitting into 5 levels of another class might not be worth it, select classes (fighter, rogue, Sorcerer) not with standing.

[Malifice]

Right, it would have to be a bigger investment on the Paladin side of the MC to earn more spell slots and smite spells.

Not so sure if it works. Presuming 2.5 short rests at 11th level:

Warlock 11 [3.5 x 3 smites, each smite deals 6d8 force damage) = 63d8 smite damage/ long rest. Max smite damage +6d8.

Warlock 5/ Paladin 6 [ 3.5 x 2 smites, each smite deals 4d8 force damage) = 28d8 force damage/ long rest from Warlock + 4 x 1st level slots, and 2 x 2nd level slots = 14d8 radiant. Total = 42d8 smite damage/ long rest. Maximum smite damage = +7d8 (Warlock slot and Paladin 2nd level slot expended).

63d8 total, max smite damage +6d8 (Warlock)
42d8 total (absolute max of 48d8 if used on undead/ fiends) max smite damage +7d8 (Paladin/ Lock)

On a zero short rest adventuring day its still 18d8 smite damage (Warlock) VS 22d8 (Paladin-lock) so the difference isnt that great on the shorter days, where the Paladin can nova more.

The Warlock is also only 1 level away from +Cha to damage/ hit. The Pal-i-lock is still 5 levels away from Improved divine smite (+4.5 to damage)/ hit.
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Cant be bothered with the maths, but pretty sure by the time the Pal-i-lock comes close to catching up with smite damage/ long rest of the Warlock, the Warlock leaps ahead again at 17th level when he gets 4/ slots long rest.

The Pal-i-lock does get to deal +9d8 smites though (4d8 force, and 5d8 radiant) and smites as low as +2d8 (allowing him to ration smites more from 2-9d8) as opposed to being locked into +6d8 smites. And has the better nova potential on shorter adventuring days.

That said, he also lacks 9th level spell slots, instead being limited to 4ths.

[Talionis]

I'm not sure this build gets anything after Warlock 12 getting lifedrinker invocation. So that gives you 8 open levels to multiclass. Fighter 1 grants archery. Fighter 2 grants Action Surge. Fighter can key off Dexterity or Strength. Devotion Paladin 3 grants you Charisma a second time to accuracy. So that could be 5 of your 8 class levels.

If you have got Wisdom and Dex 13, you could look at a three level ranger dip, This can get you an extra ranged attack. But one of the nice things about Hexblade is an archer that doesn't require Dex.

Other options for the 3 levels:

3 Rogue Assassin
6 Paladin for Extra Attack and the Aura
5 Fighter for Extra Attack and features such as Battlemaster

[Zene]

Not sure if you're looking for accuracy boosts, but one thing to consider is a 1-level dip in Divine Soul. The first level feature gives you +2d4 to an attack or save --which you can declare after the roll, turning a miss into a hit--once per short rest. And for that 1-level dip, you also get 4 cantrips (which can include guidance), 3 spells (which can include absorb elements and bless), and another full caster level's worth of (non-warlock) spell slot progression.

[jankow28]

I'm still trying to figure out how you have a CHA of 20 at level 5?

[Eragon123]

I'm still trying to figure out how you have a CHA of 20 at level 5?

Rolled an 18 and used first ASI to bump it up to 20.

Some people still roll for stats.

[MeeposFire]

Rolled an 18 and used first ASI to bump it up to 20.

Some people still roll for stats.

Tiefling so does not even have to be that high.