Celestial Blade

[Bjarkmundur]

After looking at all these divine options for my GFs angel PC, I kinda want to make one on my own.

I remember a class called the Avenger in some earlier edition, which was a sort of Celestial Blade-type character. It almost felt like a Divine Hexblade, but more melee perhaps?

What option do I have for a melee damage class with some celestial Flare? Level 3 would be ideal. I'll definitely pick Aasimar for the flavour. We have floating race ability score, so that shouldn't affect my class options.

I'm not a fan of the paladin, since it's a little bit.... Slow, at least in the early levels. Should I just go for Fighter/Rogue/Barbarian and get a dip into a spellcasting class to pick up some options?

Make a hexblade and switch out spell lists?

I've heard a Warlock / Paladin multiclass is very popular, but I have no idea why.

[Misterwhisper]

After looking at all these divine options for my GFs angel PC, I kinda want to make one on my own.

I remember a class called the Avenger in some earlier edition, which was a sort of Celestial Blade-type character. It almost felt like a Divine Hexblade, but more melee perhaps?

What option do I have for a melee damage class with some celestial Flare? Level 3 would be ideal. I'll definitely pick Aasimar for the flavour. We have floating race ability score, so that shouldn't affect my class options.

I'm not a fan of the paladin, since it's a little bit.... Slow, at least in the early levels. Should I just go for Fighter/Rogue/Barbarian and get a dip into a spellcasting class to pick up some options?

Make a hexblade and switch out spell lists?

I've heard a Warlock / Paladin multiclass is very popular, but I have no idea why.

Blade Pact Celestial Warlock
Multiple Cleric subclasses

[Grod_The_Giant]

The Paladin is a lean, mean, holy machine; you'll blow past that anemic first level in a session or two and then it's pure power all the way.

A Celestial Blade Pact Warlock would do decently well if you want to focus more on casting... Mind you, War Cleric certainly does too.

[Man_Over_Game]

I've heard a Warlock / Paladin multiclass is very popular, but I have no idea why.

Paladins have an efficient way of spending low level spell slots via Divine Smite.

Warlocks efficiently regain low level spell slots via Short Rest recharging.
Additionally, Hexblade gains Shield, which is a powerful spell for melee combatants with low level spell slots. They can also curse an enemy to increase the crit range, and Divine Smites can be activated on a crit.

Just for an idea of what I mean, a Vengeance Paladin 5/Hexblade 2 with Elven Accuracy has a 27% chance to crit, attacks twice per turn, regains 2 spell slots every Short Rest, has Shield, uses the same stat for attacking and casting, all without needing Concentration. If you don't want to play a Vengeance Paladin, you can do the same thing with Hexblade 3, grabbing Darkness and Devil's Sight.

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TLDR: It's for a mechanical benefit. A lot of people end up having trouble trying to justify it within their narrative, though.

[Man_Over_Game]

The Vengeance Paladin, in particular, was ripped completely from the Avenger from 4e. Heck, even the Oath of Enmity has the same name and roughly the same effects!

[Bjarkmundur]

So I'm looking at

*cleric
*hexblade w/ alternate spell list
*vengeance paladin
*hexblade paladin multiclass

These feel like more spell-y than I envisioned it, but divine Smite does make it closer to what I'm looking for, which is a melee compatant with good consistent damage and a couple of 1st Level Spells.

Too bad it recharges on a long rest. I really like short rest characters.

Edit: vow of enmity is awesome, and is 1/short rest!

[Man_Over_Game]

So I'm looking at

*cleric
*hexblade
*vengeance paladin
*hexblade paladin multiclass

These feel like more spell-y than I envisioned it, but divine Smite does make it closer to what I'm looking for, which is a melee compatant with good consistent damage and a couple of 1st Level Spells.

One thing I'd recommend is to move some Hexblade benefits onto Pact of the Blade, like this:

Take the Hex Warrior benefits and the proficiencies and tack them onto Pact of the Blade.
Change the Hexblade spells to work around being "possessed", which fits in-line with the rest of the Subclass features, like so:

Spell Level:

Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Detect Good and Evil
Blindness/Deafness, Pass Without Trace
Animate Dead, Speak with Dead
Evard's Black Tentacles, Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound
Antilife Shell, Dominate Person

Then I'd make the Hexblade's Curse be reusable on a Short Rest, and make it so that Concentration Saving Throws caused by the creature affected by Hexblade's Curse have Advantage, to make up for the lost Hexblade Warrior features. This makes this almost identical to some of the features of the Monster Slayer Ranger.

This opens up the Hexblade to be a much more thematic subclass feature, and also allows other Warlock builds to benefit from Pact of the Blade. Now instead of having one weird melee Warlock patron, every Warlock Patron can be a melee build.

This also means that your Celestial Blade build would work well as a Celestial Warlock going Pact of the Blade.

[Unoriginal]

Could play a Celestial Bladelock.

[J-H]

Don't homebrew stuff for her unless you're letting other people have special homebrew also. Hold firm to everyone following the same rules.

[BarneyBent]

Play a Paladin/Hexblade who made a pact with a Planetar. Ask your DM if you can trade out necrotic damage for radiant. Everything else is just fluff.

[Bjarkmundur]

I'm gonna throw together some sample characters and see what I like.


Edit: "throw together" means "assemble" or "prototype" in Icelandic, don't know if it translates.