Refitting Hexblade to Pact of the Blade

[Mith]

Hello Playground,

I know that Hexblade was released to provide a Patron that boosts the Pact of the Blade option to be more on par with other melee type options. However, I am not a big fan of the Hexblade concept. Is there suggested homebrew that works to fit the two together so that they become a single Pact Boon with the remaining Patrons?

-Mith

[Nifft]

I suspect the reason that Hexblade was made into a Patron was so you could weapon attack with Charisma right at 1st level.

If you don't mind delaying access to that feature, then there's not much lost by just giving Pact of the Blade the option of attacking with Charisma at 3rd level, as part of the Pact Boon.

[Vogie]

Not necessarily. The big improvement that Hexblade gave were to allow access to armor & shields without dipping fighter. Yes, the ability to have Cha-based scaling was nice, but it has spawned just as much interest in Paladins as it was in warlocks - 1 level dip for both SAD AND expanded crit? Yes please!

If you wanted to adjust the supposed MADness from non-hexblades, you could just lower the level restrictions on Lifedrinker to give +charisma to damage at a level earlier than 12.

In fact, if you were to remove the blade pact requirement from Lifedrinker, you could open it up to have chain warlocks have the Arcane Trickster/Eldritch Knight playstyle of "Sword and Familiar".

[Crgaston]

Honestly I think just giving Blade Pact warlocks access to medium armor and shields is enough. Melee warlocks aren’t typically going to need maxed CHA as quickly as caster warlocks,

You could even include making CHA the Attack stat as an invocation, maybe added to Improved Pact Weapon or Thirsting Blade, and still not break anything.

[DevilMcam]

I don't like the fluff for the hexblade either, but rather than bothering redo the class how about :

"My patron is balargbkal, 3rd pit fiend in Zariel legion, but rather than granting me the power of fireballs he guide my hand to strike my ennemies with the mighty sword"

You don't really need the sentient/cursed sword thingy

[Sception]

Fix is easy. Open hexblade. Highlight hex warrior. Cut. Open pact of the blade. Paste. You can even leave hexblade as a patron without automatic hex warrior.

First few levels are still tri ky for a bladelock, maybe mores o than they should be. But doable, and after level 3 bladelock works fine, regardless of patron.


Better fix is to remove bladelock from warlock entirely and rewrite it as a separate class entirely, a half-caster version of warlock similar to paladin to cleric or ranger to druid. Or, less good but still an option, run it as a one third caster fighter or rogue subclass. Either way, something with actual melee combat proficiencies, but one with short rest slots and invocations just like the warlock, but on a slower progression and with a different list to choose from. But that's a dramatically more hasslesome solution.

[Spiritchaser]

I don't like the fluff for the hexblade either, but rather than bothering redo the class how about :

"My patron is balargbkal, 3rd pit fiend in Zariel legion, but rather than granting me the power of fireballs he guide my hand to strike my ennemies with the mighty sword"

You don't really need the sentient/cursed sword thingy

I’ve done something of the sort in one of my campaigns, although I did it with a pair of competing archfey wardens, and refluffed acursed spectre into a fey spirit...

It works well enough.

In another campaign I’m using hexblade by the book.

Of the two I find the former more natural and easier to write in to things, but even by the book it’s not awful.

[Daithi]

What is the thing that bothers you about the concept? If it is having a sentient weapon as a patron, I think that's a bit hokey too. Maybe just go with the Raven Queen as a patron, and she considers you one of her weapons, so she requires her Pact of Blade warlocks to specialize in weapon related fighting that goes beyond what other patrons require of the Pact of Blade warlocks, which results in Hexblades.

Actually, you don't have to limit this to the Raven Queen. Other patrons might just expect some of their warlocks to make a special commitment to the Pact of the Blade that is beyond normal and results in a hexblade.

[igor140]

Before XGE, I rolled a Fighter 1/ Warlock X blade pacter with great success. Heavy armor and greatsword backed by GWF, invocations, and EB for some consistent ranged damage... it was a great character.

I rerolled when we started a new campaign, this time with a straight Hexblade blade pacter... and honestly, he's overpowered. We're level 11 now, so I don't have Lifedrinker yet, and even without it, he could could easily take on any member of our party (the others being Rogue, Druid, Barbarian, Cleric) in a duel. He picked up Blackrazor, and it's quite possible he could solo the entire team if he started with some solid tHP (which he normally has because he kills everything). Running the numbers, he could easily solo a young dragon, and could conceivably take it out in one turn with a crit and some [REALLY] lucky damage rolls. Granted, if you can survive 3 turns with him (totaling 6d10+54+18d8 damage), he doesn't hit any harder than the barbarian... but he has MUCH better defense with 21 AC from his armor and trinkets, before the 50% dodge rate from Armor of Hexes.

And considering he has advantage on all attack rolls and expanded crit range (using Hexblade's Curse), crits are a legitimate strategy.

The crazy thing is, he's not done growing. I'm picking up Lifedrinker at level 12. We each got to pick one rule/ aspect to tweak, and mine was that Lifedrinker absorb the extra damage done as HP (I mean, it's called "Lifedrinker"...). With the tHP from Blackrazor, that's not really even an issue, but starting at level 13, he's going to be multiclassing into Mystic... which just gets crazy. By level 20, he will gain an additional 1d8 to both of his normal attacks, and as a bonus action can stack an ADDITIONAL 6d10 on top of Eldritch Smite. So, by level 20, his maximum output for a single turn would be (before considering criticals):
2d10+50 [2x versatile longsword+CHA+CHA (Lifedrinker)+PROF (Hexblade Curse)+3 (magic weapon)]
2d8 [Potent Psionics]
6d8 [Eldritch Smite]
6d10 [Psionic Weapon]

For an average of 130 damage... and he would have advantage on those attacks AND score a critical on a 19 or 20 roll.

So, if being underpowered is your concern with a Hexblade... it shouldn't be.

Even if you don't like the UA or multiclassing, you're still looking at ~90 dmg/ turn as a pure Hexblade at lvl 20. In fact, Banishing Smite allows you to use a bonus action to expel a spell slot to do 5d10 additional damage, with a nifty special effect. (And yes, Banishing Smite and Eldritch Smite DO stack because ES does not require a bonus action.) Of course, you'll have burned through your spell slots in two turns... but when you need the enemy dead, it will be dead. And after OHKO'ing two Mind Flayers, your party will probably let you take a short rest : )

EDIT: I forgot to mention: if it benefits the party more to have some support, he can (instead of doing the massive burst damage) raise five undead minions, call an undispel-able darkness (more powerful than the Darkness spell) that also does cold and acid damage, do solid psychic damage and debuff (Warlock spell, not Mystic), summon a demon, or convince up to 12 creatures to stand down or attack each other. And that's by level 11; I haven't really considered spells of higher level.

[Mith]

What is the thing that bothers you about the concept? If it is having a sentient weapon as a patron, I think that's a bit hokey too. Maybe just go with the Raven Queen as a patron, and she considers you one of her weapons, so she requires her Pact of Blade warlocks to specialize in weapon related fighting that goes beyond what other patrons require of the Pact of Blade warlocks, which results in Hexblades.

Actually, you don't have to limit this to the Raven Queen. Other patrons might just expect some of their warlocks to make a special commitment to the Pact of the Blade that is beyond normal and results in a hexblade.

What bothers me is the "Sentient Weapon" Patron, which I would probably take a different Patron and bind them to the weapon, and the favt that it was released as a "fix" of sorts to Pact of the Blade.

If I were to do nothing, I guess that refluffing Hexblade as the "weapon specialist" for a Warlock class could work.

[igor140]

That makes a lot of sense, and that's basically what I've done as well. If you read the fluff published for the Hexblade, they essentially provide this "out".

For my backstory, my guy is the [failed] successor to a small but successful mercenary group that sprung up in the aftermath of the Spellplague. Secretly (as in, not even known to my party), their source of power is having pledged themselves to the service of the Raven Queen as Warlocks. So the merc company has a disproportionate number of Warlocks of various types, and the Hexblades are the more martially oriented of these. My guy in particular made Blackrazor his "weapon of focus" (even before he attained it), but he isn't necessarily "enslaved" to it or anything.

Does something along those lines get you around your hangup? As far as I read it, the "twist" with Warlocks is they have to have given up some part of themselves and their free will to the service of something greater. In my case, I essentially honored my great grandfather's pact with the Raven Queen for the power to protect my family.

[Pex]

What is the thing that bothers you about the concept? If it is having a sentient weapon as a patron, I think that's a bit hokey too. Maybe just go with the Raven Queen as a patron, and she considers you one of her weapons, so she requires her Pact of Blade warlocks to specialize in weapon related fighting that goes beyond what other patrons require of the Pact of Blade warlocks, which results in Hexblades.

Actually, you don't have to limit this to the Raven Queen. Other patrons might just expect some of their warlocks to make a special commitment to the Pact of the Blade that is beyond normal and results in a hexblade.

Fluff is mutable. When I played a Hexblade my Patron was Ra, the fun Sun god. I was shadow's light. As to how to justify the undead spectre, by being the Hexblade's servant for one day Ra will take your soul onto his barge despite you not deserving it. Osiris will get to judge you rather than be ravaged by Apep.