Hex Warrior

[Eragon123]

I've seen a lot of recommendations of moving hex warrior over to Pact of the Blade if you wanted to remove the dependency and make other patrons more viable blade locks.

I told my friend this fix and his first question was, what do Hexblades get in exchange?

I was of the opinion that Hexblade was already fairly good even without Hex Warrior; however, I am curious if people had any interesting ideas or fixes.

Could be as simple as Hexblade's Curse getting CHA uses but I want to see what people say.

[OldTrees1]

If it were not for Hex Warrior, I would not see myself using the Hexblade over a more interesting (mechanically and thematically) patron like GOO or a more practical patron like Fiend. Don't get me wrong, Shield is a nice spell and Curse is a less flexible combination of Hex & Dark One’s Blessing, but it is not impressive compared to my alternatives.

So if you were moving Hex Warrior into Blade Pact (good idea!), I suggest replacing it with an interesting or practical effect. Hex looks like a good place to innovate. You could increase its creative potential by making it a Lesser Bestow Curse.

[Brawnspear]

My response to this currently is, Hexblade doesn't exist. Pact of the Blade gets prof with medium armor and all melee weapons. I also changed improved pact weapon (Because I don't like straight +1 talents). It keeps the rest of it, but instead of +1 you get the option to use charisma for attack and damage with your pact weapon, the ability to make 2 light weapons (2 one-handed with the dual wield feat), and the ability to summon/change your pact blade as a bonus action. It opens up the gish options for people who wanted to play pure warlock with a melee bent. I had toyed with the idea of letting you make a one-hand and shield, but currently I think it's good the way it is.

Full disclosure, I only have 1 player using it currently and he wanted to be a dual wielder not sword and board. He uses the bonus action to swap to a bow at range which feels more thematic and fun than picking up agonizing blast on a weapon based character.

The one thing I was worried about is weapon cycling to get the +1 ac from dual wielder, but it hasn't been an issue yet.

[DarkKnightJin]

I like your fix for making Bladelock work with any patron. As for the AC boost from Dual Wielder: That would still only come into play if they're actually dual wielding.

The bonus action to change your weapon is a nice touch, but I do wonder how you would handle them making an already magical weapon their Pact weapon.
Let the weapon's effect take hold on any form? Because you might end up with stuff like Flame Tongue Longbows that way.
Not that I can see a huge problem with that considering a Warlock can reach a similar damage output, if not better, with a simple Agonizing Blast+Hex combo.

[Zanthy1]

Hex Warrior IS Hexblade. You remove that and there isn't enough to make it viable at all. Replacing it with something could work, but it fits so thematically with hexblade

[Vogie]

I would happily give all blade warlocks shield proficiency and access to medium armor... requiring other bladelocks to dip to get AC above 18 (via Armor of Shadows and 20 Dex) is a problem and isn't what I would want my players to bend over backwards to have access too.

I would NOT give them all Hex Warrior for Cha to physical damage - That Shillelagh effect should just be locked into a single patron.

[Sception]

Bologna. Hexblade's curse is perfectly on par with other first level warlock patron features. Compensation is not needed for moving hex warrior into pact of the blade, especially since a hexblade that takes pact of the blade is exactly where they would have been anyway. Giving them 'compensation' for the change is just a straight powerup to what is currently one of the stronger patron options from level 3+.

Hexblade wont be as strong relative to the other patrons - which is a good thing - but it still would work fine and would still be considerably stronger than undying.

As for thematics, if you think one of the other patrons is more interesting thematically, then you *shouldn't* want to play hexblade. Mechanics shouldn't be forcing you to play a character option that you aren't interested in narratively. I personally would still pick hexblade over othee options even with this change because i like the themes of shadow magic and curses built into it, as well as the more mysterious patron that, imo, leaves more room for narrative creativity.

But that's all subjective preference, which is exactly the sort of preference which should matter when choosing between character options. At the moment the free armor proficiency and cha melee on top of hexblade's curse is an out of step mechanical edge pushing warlock players, especially bladelock players, who dont actually like hexblade thematically to play it over other patrons anyway. Players who would prefer to play fiend or fey or star instead, but feel they cant because hexblade is obviously superior mechanically, and that's a problem.

[Dr. Cliché]

If Hexblade lost Hex Warrior, I think I'd seriously struggle to justify it over other patrons.

Hexblade's Curse is okay, but it's also only once per rest. It's a nice bonus, but you'll only be able to use it on 1 creature per 2-3 encounters. It also offers nothing to a melee character over a ranged character.

Accursed Spectre, to my mind, seems entirely out of place on the Hexblade. It doesn't seem to gel with anything the Hexblade does - either mechanically or in terms of fluff.

Armour of Hexes is nice in theory but it's also tied to the aforementioned once-per-rest ability. If the creature you want to Hex isn't attacking you (for whatever reason) then it's entirely worthless. And bear in mind that we're removing all of the Hexblade's ties to melee weapons, so there's literally no reason to not just stand 60+ft away and use Eldritch Blast on a Cursed target.

Master of Hexes finally allows you to use your Curse on extra creatures, though using it strips you of the Curse's sustain ability on all but the last creature. No explanation is given for why this would is the case. :smallconfused:


To my mind, with Hex Warrior gone, too many of its features are tied to Hexblade's Curse. And the one feature that isn't tied to it seems very out of place.

In terms of spells, Shield would normally be good... except that it's on a Warlock. The reason Shield is good is because it's a Lv1 spell. But before long you'll be forced to cast it using not only a 4th or 5th level spell slot but one of just 2 spell slots you get per short rest. It seems like it will be a very short-term investment.

[CheddarChampion]

I think it works best for other patrons as an invocation that requires Pact of the Blade.

Hexblades still get it at level one and don't need to use an invocation slot for it that way.

[Man_Over_Game]

Compare what hex warrior gets to what fiend gets at level 1. How often are you going to get those fiend temp hit points more than once per short rest and use them?

Even after the change, hexblade is still better

[Dr. Cliché]

Compare what hex warrior gets to what fiend gets at level 1. How often are you going to get those fiend temp hit points more than once per short rest and use them?

Me personally? You might be surprised. :smallwink:


Even after the change, hexblade is still better

Except that you're only looking at the Lv1 ability and ignoring everything else.

Yes, Hexblade's Curse is good. I don't deny that. The issue is that the Hexblade really doesn't get much else. I could maybe see them as a 2-3 level dip, but beyond that their abilities are pretty awful.

[Ganymede]

Hexblade's Curse, in and of itself, is enough to make the Hexblade patron comparable to other patrons. The Great Old One only gets a ribbon at first level, after all.

[Man_Over_Game]

Even after the change, there's still valid reasons to go Hexblade. Stupidly good crit range at level 1, bonus damage on hits, smite spells that scale with critical hits, defensive spells, summoning specters.

The only weaknesses they have are at level 10 (effectively a 1/3 chance to avoid an attack completely) and level 14 (can move their hex).

The level 10 feature is still better than the GOO feature at the same level; how often are you going to be targeted with Psychic damage?

The level 14 feature doesn't seem like much, but don't forget that the Undying Warlock gets Second Wind as its capstone.


When I look at the changes before, as a melee Warlock, I'd go Hexblade.

After the change, would I do anything different? Probably not really. I could go Undying for more defense, or Fiend for a mixture of damage and defense, but I'd probably just go Hexblade since it comes with Shield a buttload of melee Smite spells.

As of right now, the best melee warlock strategy involves using the Tome for the extra cantrips as opposed to the one that gives you a customizable, magical melee weapon. That seems a bit off to me. Even if Hexblade does lose something, it's not enough to put it out of the race (it becomes more of a circumstantial choice rather than the only one), and it puts Pact Weapon on the map.

But mostly, it puts a damper on those lazy level 1 dips, and I'm all in favor of that.

[Sception]

Hexblade's Curse is okay, but it's also only once per rest. It's a nice bonus, but you'll only be able to use it on 1 creature per 2-3 encounters.

Yes, but it lasts for a full minute unless you or the target drops first, which imo puts it very much on par with if not ahead of the archfey's "fey presence" ability, which is also on a short rest timer, and while fey presence can affect more than one enemy (though rarely more than two in it's 10 foot cube), it allows saves, and even if one or more targets fail their save it only lasts for a single round. If anything, I'd say hexblade's curse on its own is superior to what the archfey gets at the same level.

Alternatively there's great old one. Great old one offers an all the time telepathy ability, but while certainly situationally quite useful both in and out of combat, it isn't as mechanically tangible a bonus. fiendlock's temp hp on downing enemies is very strong, and might be weighted higher than hexblade's curse on its own, but then again it relies on both landing killshots - so teamwork can end up working against you, and requires you to get hit for those temp hp to even matter, while the hexblade's access to shield lets you instead focus on not getting hit in the first place.

So the only first level patron feature that I'd personally weight above *just hexblade's curse* is the fiend's, and even if we allow that, "second strongest mechanically out of five" isn't exactly an untenable place to be.


It also offers nothing to a melee character over a ranged character.

Nor should it! Patron choice shouldn't dictate boon choice or overall play style, nor vice versa. The fact that blade boon seems so obvious for hexblade, and that the reverse is even more painfully true, is a /problem/ that moving hex warrior into pact of the blade /fixes/. Blade Boon Bladelocks are exactly the same from level 3+, so basically they're just a bit less front loaded, which is the biggest complaint about hexblades currently. Conversely fey, fiend, and star bladelocks - builds where thematically should be perfectly viable but were considered rather painfully subpar and frustrating to build *even before* hexblade showed up to obsolete theme - would suddenly be viable choices in their own right.

Simultaneously, there's nothing *now* that prevents a hexblade from taking their bonus armor and shield proficiencies - proficiencies intended to enable melee combat - and blasting away from range anyway with book or chain boon, but with a higher ac then than a character with that sort of range and mobility is expected to have such easy access to. Moving hex warrior to pact of the blade would require hexblades to make at least some sort of commitment to melee to obtain features meant specifically to enable melee.

as for a thematic tie to melee, the hexblade will still have that in its mechanics even if hex warrior's effects were moved to the blade pact, because its patron spells and armor of hexes feature are still more (though not exclusively) useful to melee builds. It would just be a light nudge, which is appropriate, instead of a hard shove, which really isn't.


Accursed Spectre, to my mind, seems entirely out of place on the Hexblade. It doesn't seem to gel with anything the Hexblade does - either mechanically or in terms of fluff.

hexblade is the hexing patron, the cursing patron. Undead/undeath are heavily associated with curses. Vampires cursed to feed on the blood of the living, ghosts cursed to haunt the places of their death, revanents both themselves cursed to persist until avenged and themselves being a curse on those who slew them, mummies cursing those who defile their tombs, etc. The accursed spectre is thus a natural extension of the hexblade's core identity, cursing the soul of your victim to serve you in the afterlife, at least for a day. To me, that's well within the thematic purview of the curse-oriented patron, which is what hexblade should be seen as, and would be seen as if hex warrior weren't there to distract from the patron's core identity.

The one issue I do have with accursed specter is that it and armor of hexes feel like they're in the wrong places. Most other patrons get a defensive feature on a short rest timer equivalent to armor of hexes at level 6 (fey escape, dark one's luck, etc), and a more situational but always on feature at level 10. The hexblade abilities would feel more natural if armor of hexes was the level 6 ability and accursed specter the level 10 ability. I figure it's not that way because a specter feels pretty neat at level 6 but a bit less exciting by level 10. I don't know if there's a different ghosty undead that would work at level 10, or if maybe you could allow more than one of them? Like if every enemy slain while under your hexblade's curse would become a spectre under your control, that would both tie the ability back into hexblade's curse so it isn't the one stand out there, and would allow you to accumulate more spectres over the course of a day, particularly once you get master of hexes?

but still, I don't think it's a problem as it is.


Armour of Hexes is nice in theory but it's also tied to the aforementioned once-per-rest ability.

Again, the equivalent (albeit 6th level) defensive abilities of other patrons are /also/ on short rest timers, while the 10th level abilities of most other patrons are significantly more situational than armor of hexes. The feylock's charm bounce may never come up, and once it does the charmer isn't going to make the same mistake again. Likewise with the starlock's psychic bounce. Once again the fiendlock seems to have the strongest ability of the level, but armor of hexes still strikes me as a strong contender for second best, which hardly puts it in unplayable range.


If the creature you want to Hex isn't attacking you (for whatever reason) then it's entirely worthless. And bear in mind that we're removing all of the Hexblade's ties to melee weapons, so there's literally no reason to not just stand 60+ft away and use Eldritch Blast on a Cursed target.

Again, hexblades being free to blast at range is already the case, and that they get to do that with the bonus proficiencies intended to enable melee combat is a problem that moving hex warrior to blade pact helps with. Beyond that, that armor of hexes is slightly more helpful to melee than ranged is an acceptable thematic nudge, and even if you are at range the extra damage that you're putting on your cursed target is motivation for them to attack you anyway. And, again, even if we call armor of hexes a situational ability, the same can be said for most other 10th level patron features.


Master of Hexes finally allows you to use your Curse on extra creatures, though using it strips you of the Curse's sustain ability on all but the last creature. No explanation is given for why this would is the case. :smallconfused:

Yeah, there's really no reason to not allow the temphp for every cursed target downed. it's not like it scales that well regardless. But otherwise this is a good ability that feels like a natural capstone to the patron.



To my mind, with Hex Warrior gone, too many of its features are tied to Hexblade's Curse. And the one feature that isn't tied to it seems very out of place.

With hex warrior gone, the hexblade looks like what it should be, the *hexing* patron, and in my mind the patron features all being tied to that hex is a feature, not a bug. The fact that so many of their mechanics are bound up in this one signature ability is part of what makes hexblades compelling to me. Many of the abilities of other patrons feel kind of arbitrary and forgettable by comparison. Heck, as previously mentioned, if it were me I'd have tied the accursed spectre to your hexblade's curse as well, balancing it out by allowing you to have multiple spectres at a time.
Again, though, that's just me, and I think it works fine as it is.


In terms of spells, Shield would normally be good... except that it's on a Warlock. The reason Shield is good is because it's a Lv1 spell. But before long you'll be forced to cast it using not only a 4th or 5th level spell slot but one of just 2 spell slots you get per short rest. It seems like it will be a very short-term investment.

spells that are great early on but not so good later aren't exactly uncommon for warlocks. There's a reason they're allowed to retrain their spells known as they level. But here we're getting into some more fundamental problems with the class that have nothing to do with patron design. Hexblades aren't the only warlocks that are perhaps a little bit *too* motivated to dip into another cha based caster class for some spare low level slots. I'm not sure what the best solution to that problem would be. Maybe shifting pact magic to a spell point system? Giving them bonus first level only slots at later levels? Maybe later level invocations to turn a first level spell into an x times per short rest or even just an at-will ability? I don't know, but regardless that's a bigger problem than hexblades specifically.

Regardless, while hexblade-without-hex-warrior might not be the strongest patron anymore, that title would likely revert to the fiend, they'd still be far from the worst. They'd still be far above undying, imo comfortably situated alongside fey and great old one, which is a perfectly acceptable place to be. And a blade pact that included the benefits of hex warrior would suddenly make fiendblades and feyblades and starblades much more mechanically viable and more importantly fun to play. you could play the meleelock you wanted based on theme without being shoved towards one and only one patron. IMO, that would be a dramatic improvement from the current situation. And again, the typical current hexblade-bladelock would still be exactly the same from levels 3+, the only change to them would be making them a bit less front loaded. If you gave them any sort of compensation at level 1, you better make sure it's something that turns off at level 3.

[OldTrees1]

Hexblade's Curse, in and of itself, is enough to make the Hexblade patron comparable to other patrons. The Great Old One only gets a ribbon at first level, after all.

The Awakened Mind telepathy "ribbon" is quite strong on its own and is more interesting.

Hexblade gets to do 1 thing to 1 opponent per rest.

Then you get Fiend that gets its THP multiple times per short rest.

Is the extra damage against 1 opponent per rest really worth it? I think No. While it can stack with Hex & Hex Warrior those at least apply to all your targets in your multiple fights per rest. And everyone should know there are diminishing returns on additive bonuses to damage.

[Sception]

Again, compare to fey. Nobody to my knowledge complains about fey presence, and that's also only once per rest AND requires a full action to use AND allows a save to negate AND only lasts for a single round even for targets that fail the save. hexblade's curse is blatantly better than that, and it's better combat crunch than telepathy (even if telepathy is still very fun and with some creativity quite useful both in or out of combat), AND while fiend's temp hp is more readily usable and arguably better overall, hexblade's curse is an offensive tool, which some prefer, and isn't subject to getting negated because a party member happened to get the last hit in on something.

AT WORST hexblade's curse is middle-of-the-pack for first level warlock patron features, and as such hexblades in no way need some extra bonus feature on top of it to hold their own as a valid option at first level.

[Garfunion]

The way I would do it, is to swap the features of Hex Warrior and Pact of the Blade. Something like this.

Hex Warrior
At 1st level, you gain proficiency with medium armor and shields.

Additionally, you can use your action to create a hexblade in your empty hand. You can choose the form that this melee weapon takes each time you create it. You are proficient with it while you wield it. This weapon counts as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to non-magical attacks and damage. Your hexblade disappears if it is more than 5 feet away from you for 1 minute or more. It also disappears if you use this feature again, if you dismiss the weapon (no action required), or if you die.

You can transform one magic weapon into your hexblade by performing a special ritual while you hold the weapon. You perform the ritual over the course of 1 hour, which can be done during a short rest. You can then dismiss the weapon, shunting it into an extra-dimensional space, and it appears whenever you create your hexblade thereafter. You can't affect an artifact or a sentient weapon in this way. The weapon ceases being your hexblade if you die, if you perform the 1-hour ritual on a different weapon, or if you use a 1-hour ritual to break your bond to it. The weapon appears at your feet if it is in the extra-dimensional space when the bond breaks.

If you later gain the Pact of the Blade feature, its benefits extends to every hexblade you conjure with this feature, without the need for a long rest, and no matter the weapon type.

Pact of the Blade
Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch one weapon that you are proficient with and that lacks the two-handed property. When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls. This benefit lasts until you finish a long rest.

Eldritch Invocation Changes

Improved Pact Weapon
Prerequisite: Pact of the Blade feature
You can uses your pact blade as a spellcasting focus for your warlock spells. In addition, the weapon gains a +1 bonus to its attack and damage rolls, unless it is a magic weapon that already has a bonus to those rolls. Finally, your pact of the blade feature can be applied to a shortbow, longbow, light crossbow, or heavy crossbow.

[Sception]

Hexblade shouldn't be getting proficiency with medium armor and shields for free at first level in addition to hexblade's curse, and blade pact warlocks regardless of patron should get the medium armor and shield proficiencies to smoth the experience of fighting in close combat. Additionally, I don't think you should be taking *anything* away from pact of the blade. Why would you? A pact boon is something you get, the pact blade fits that thematic element.

AND patron choice shouldn't be pushing you into a specific play style or pact boon to begin with. the hexblade patron shouldn't push you to play blade over other boons, and the blade boon shouldn't push you to play hexblade over other pacts.

AND, AGAIN, hexblade's curse, *on its own* is AT WORST middle-of-the-pack for 1st level patron features. You don't need to provide compensation for moving hex warrior out of hexblade and into blade pact entirely. Hex warrior is a blade pact fix arbitrarily stapled to what is otherwise a perfectly fine and functional warlock patron without it. Just put the fix where it goes, on the mechanic that needed fixing in the first place, and everything else is fine.

[Brawnspear]

I like your fix for making Bladelock work with any patron. As for the AC boost from Dual Wielder: That would still only come into play if they're actually dual wielding.

The bonus action to change your weapon is a nice touch, but I do wonder how you would handle them making an already magical weapon their Pact weapon.
Let the weapon's effect take hold on any form? Because you might end up with stuff like Flame Tongue Longbows that way.
Not that I can see a huge problem with that considering a Warlock can reach a similar damage output, if not better, with a simple Agonizing Blast+Hex combo.

I had the same thought process, not too worried about it. In my game magic weapons are either BIG deal or very small potatoes (like the minor magic item creator that was posted here a good while back). We're talking about weapons that are at least partially sentient for anyone lucky enough to find them. And in that case, it will probably depend on the weapon, but if they go through the effort of finding one of these big mamma jammas, I think i'd let them do whatever would make sense with it.

Say I have an axe that cares about being the biggest and the baddest weapon out there. Warlock wants to turn that into a bow. Now we have a bow that looks big and bad and bladed and shoots Axes instead of arrows.
The one question that did come up was, "Do I need to carry a quiver of arrows with me?" The answer is currently, you get 20 when you form the bow, don't abuse your supply of infinite arrows or the fact that they disappear when you swap to a different form. It's been fine so far.