Hexblade just hit level 2. Spell choices?

[Crichton]

Ok team awesome.


My Hexblade just hit level 2 in a new and exciting campaign.


Vhuman with PAM, currently using quarterstaff, to be upgraded to Glaive at level 3 when Pact of the Blade comes online.

Current spells are
C) Prestidigitation, Toll the Dead (yes, I know it's inferior to EB. Chose it on purpose for ingame and table reasons, choosing instead to focus build resources on melee, mostly)
1) Hex, Hellish Rebuke


Now that I have 2 spell slots per short rest, and need to choose 1 more spell known, what are some good suggestions? I'm leaning towards something that either has a long duration, or a bonus/reaction casting time, to not mess up my action economy too badly. Either that, or something that's just straight utility, like Unseen Servant or Comprehend Languages, if nothing else is worth the slot.


Invocations are currently Devil's Sight and Fiendish Vigor, which will be traded for Improved Pact Weapon at lvl 3, most likely.


Thoughts, questions, or snide remarks all welcome. Thanks, team!

[da newt]

Cause Fear and Armor of Agathys can both be handy, but I expect SHIELD, and SMITE are the most used / best options.

[Keravath]

Cause Fear and Armor of Agathys can both be handy, but I expect SHIELD, and SMITE are the most used / best options.

Shield and smite are both trap options in my opinion :) ... shield becomes useful if you have level 1 slots from multiclassing ... otherwise it is a waste to blow a higher level spell slot on one shield spell in one combat.

A warlock only has two spell slots/short rest until level 11. If you can convince everyone to take a short rest after every combat then you have a total of TWO spells every combat. However, in my experience, it doesn't usually work this way and planning to have your two spells last two combats is the far more likely scenario (though it depends on your group). This means that you need to plan for ONE spell for each combat and this means it needs to do a lot for you.

I have a level 10 hexblade/ 1 shadow sorcerer melee warlock, variant human, who also took PAM at level 1 and wielded a glaive after level 3. I've had a lot of fun with him. (I took the sorcerer level because I came across a ring of spell storing and putting a shield spell into the ring used 5 storage spaces since I could only cast shield or hex with 5th level slots and so the ring could only hold one spell ... by taking the level of sorcerer I could put in a mixture of hex, shield and absorb elements ... all with first level slots).

So ... what spell was worthwhile casting once/combat? At level 2, hex, at level 3, darkness+devils sight and at level 7 shadow of moil. However, all of these spells have one thing in common, concentration ... resilient constitution for improved con saves is almost a requirement for this build even if you are using darkness+devils sight to get advantage on your attack rolls and disadvantage to be hit because you will get hit. If you fail that con save, your average one spell/combat goes away. You don't want to fail that save. So your ASIs at level 4 and 8 are likely to be resilient con and either +2 charisma or GWM.

Finally, I would strongly recommend picking up eldritch blast. You won't have room for the agonizing blast invocation until level 7 or so but having a decent ranged attack option is very useful especially since it does rarely resisted force damage (I would consider keeping toll the dead as well since there are times you want to have a saving throw cantrip as well as a to hit based cantrip but I personally think eldritch blast is a very useful backup even for a melee hexblade.

[Sam113097]

I'd recommend something to help you out in melee if that's what you're investing in, like Armor of Agathys, or Charm Person if you'd like a spell that's useful out of combat, as you currently lack one beyond Prestidigitation.

[Crichton]

Ok Team! Great suggestions. Big update.


We had a marathon 12 hour session, which was nonstop action, more or less. Long story short, we ended up all the way to level 4 at the end of that session, so the character has upgraded in many ways. (yes that's fairly fast, but there was a LOT going on)


Current state of things, but open to suggestion:



Hexblade Warlock 4, Pact of the Blade

Variant Human with Polearm Master
Primary weapon: Glaive +1(from IPW) +7 attack, 1d10+5 damage

Invocations: Improved Pact Weapon, Devil's Sight

Cantrips:
1)Prestidigitation
2)Toll the Dead (DC14)
3)Eldritch Blast (probably. As mentioned before, I recognize that it's superior mechanically/numerically, but having stated to the DM that I wasn't going to take it, it feels weird to go back on that and pick it up as my 3rd cantrip, at this point)


Spells:
Level One
1)Armor of Agathys (definitely more worth it now, from a 2nd level slot, but still hard to spend a slot on this instead of Hex and/or Darkness)
2)Hellish Rebuke (panic/anger button, likely wont see much use)
3)Hex (often top priority for the spell slot and the concentration)

Level Two
1)Darkness (messes up the rest of the party, but very useful for crowd control/chaos/handling groups by myself)
2)Mirror Image (chosen instead of Blur due to not needing concentration)



I recognize that this leaves me with limited out of combat utility from my spells. That's by design, as a) I've almost died from being in over my head already and b) there are some custom items from the campaign that offer quite a lot of out of combat versatility, as well as several extra skill proficiencies as well, that help out in that regard. That said, if any of these options aren't likely to be seeing much use, I'd be open to trading one or two out for utility spells



Definitely still open to suggestions and critiques, so if I've made any blunders, feel free to point them out!

[Keravath]

Looks like reasonable choices and it is sounding like you are having a good time which is the important thing :)

1) Keep eldritch blast. You won't be getting agonizing blast until at least level 7 and it is probably your best option for ranged damage though you could choose to summon up a +1 longbow instead of your glaive as a pact weapon and use that if you know the combat is going to be primarily ranged. However, the action loss switching weapons during combat to go back to melee would be frustrating. This is why eldritch blast is a decent fall back. On the other hand, until you pick up agonizing blast (or hit level 11) the bow will do more damage than eldritch blast (d8+5 for a 18 charisma and +1 bow). If you focus on melee with PAM+GWM+resilient con, you will do far more damage than eldritch blast anyway.

2) Darkness shouldn't mess up the rest of the party depending on how your DM runs it. Usually, darkness means that characters can't see their opponents so they get disadvantage but also that the opponents can't see the characters so they get advantage. As a result, most of the melee and ranged attacks by the party are straight rolls whether the darkness is there or not (at least RAW). Darkness does interfere with spells that require you to see the target. It also blocks harmful effects like basilisk or medusa gaze effects or vampire charms. It also prevents a barbarian from gaining advantage using reckless attack or a ranged weapon having disadvantage vs adjacent targets. However, in general, when playing, I found that it didn't negatively affect the mechanics of the party much at all ... only their sensibilities about trying to imagine attacking things in the dark.

However, that said, with a 10' reach on the glaive, I found that I could step into range of a target, make the attack and move back 10-15' leaving the target visible to the rest of the party since you can cast darkness on an object and carry it with you (eg on a string or attached to your belt - or cast on your weapon if you really want to). You can even cover the object that has darkness cast on it and smother the magical darkness until you remove the covering (like the inverse of a light source in some ways).

[Crichton]

Thanks for the advice.

A follow up question:
I haven't yet decided on my level 4 ASI or feat.
My Cha is currently 18.
So which would likely be better: bumping Cha to 20, or taking GWM?

Keep in mind that I have a special ability from this campaign that gives me advantage on any roll I make 3/long-rest (the god of luck is a key part of this campaign, and l managed to gain his favor. It's essentially a modified version of the Lucky feat, that only applies to rolls I make for my own character)

So that would at least sometimes give me a semi-reliable way to offset the -5 of GWM, but I'm not sure if the straight +4 to +5 upgrade is better, or the +10 damage with decent chances of hitting it multiple times per day (also stuff like darkness, or any other way I can gain advantage will help.)

Of course, if I take the ASI now, feats later are still good options, but I'm unsure which is the better choice now.

[Keravath]

My character like this took PAM/GWM/resilient con for the first three ASIs. I won't get to 20 charisma until level 17 :). You have the advantage that your charisma is already 18.

I found that GWM was less useful before level 9 since the -5 to hit more or less balanced the +10 damage against typical opponents with an AC around 15. I found I had to pick and choose the targets it was useful against. With your stats, you'd be looking at a +8 to hit (+4 cha, +3 prof, +1 magic) in early tier 2 which drops to +3 if using GWM. If you will usually have advantage from darkness+devils sight or shadows of moil it might be worthwhile but otherwise I would tend to lean toward resilient con so you have a better chance of maintaining concentration and making con saves.

Alternatively, bumping charisma to 20 is also not unreasonable. It depends on whether you are relying on maintaining a concentration spell like darkness/hypnotic pattern or something else throughout the combat while being involved in melee.

Your luck ability sounds like 3 free uses of inspiration each day. Inspiration allows you to have advantage on rolls but you need to decide before you make the roll. The advantage of the Lucky feat is you can decide to use it after failing the first time.

[Crichton]

My character like this took PAM/GWM/resilient con for the first three ASIs. I won't get to 20 charisma until level 17 :). You have the advantage that your charisma is already 18.

I found that GWM was less useful before level 9 since the -5 to hit more or less balanced the +10 damage against typical opponents with an AC around 15. I found I had to pick and choose the targets it was useful against. With your stats, you'd be looking at a +8 to hit (+4 cha, +3 prof, +1 magic) in early tier 2 which drops to +3 if using GWM. If you will usually have advantage from darkness+devils sight or shadows of moil it might be worthwhile but otherwise I would tend to lean toward resilient con so you have a better chance of maintaining concentration and making con saves.

Alternatively, bumping charisma to 20 is also not unreasonable. It depends on whether you are relying on maintaining a concentration spell like darkness/hypnotic pattern or something else throughout the combat while being involved in melee.

Your luck ability sounds like 3 free uses of inspiration each day. Inspiration allows you to have advantage on rolls but you need to decide before you make the roll. The advantage of the Lucky feat is you can decide to use it after failing the first time.

Thanks for the feedback. Good ideas, all.


I guess I was imprecise in my haste, when describing the luck ability. It's literally exactly the Lucky feat, except with the removal of the sentence about using it on rolls made against me. So yeah, it's not just straight advantage. My point mainly was that even at this level, at least 3/day I can more or less negate the -5 from GWM, so that might make that a bit more appealing and tip the scale in favor of CHA18 w/ GWM and PAM instead of CHA 20 with only PAM. I dunno. CHA20 is pretty darn appealing. For the attack/damage, sure, but also for the skills and spell save DC... But that +10... You can see why I'm on the fence about it here...

As for resilient Con, it's not a bad idea, but I haven't found myself worrying too much about keeping up concentration (yet). I keep most things out at 10', and when darkness is active, they all have disadvantage on me as well (unless they too have Devil's Sight or Truesight other means of seeing in magical darkness). If it becomes an issue, that'll change things, for sure, but I'd mostly foresee it being an issue when I'm using concentration to hold Hex, as opposed to Darkness.



I think at this point I'm down to the choice between CHA 20 or CHA18 and take GWM. That +10 would have been super useful last session, when we were fighting high HP, AC13 creatures that nearly wrecked us, but there's no guarantee that future enemies will have that HP:AC ratio, too... The 20 lands 5% more hits of all kinds, and does a wee bit more damage per hit, but the GWM lets you really wallop sometimes, when needed, and I can sort of negate the attack penalty a few times a day with Luck, and with advantage from Darkness...

Tough choice.

[Keravath]

Given your stats and choices, I'd probably go with GWM given your description, assuming that your DM is ok with it. The extra CHA is incremental while GWM gives you more options and you don't have to use the -5/+10. It will also give you an extra weapon attack as a bonus action on a crit or kill .... so you have to remember to use the d10 for damage on the bonus action attack when that happens.

If you have easy targets or some form of advantage, you can potentially do a lot of damage every turn with 3 attacks at d10+14, d10+14, d4+14 and the possibility of adding a d6 to each of those if you have hex running.

[Crichton]

Given your stats and choices, I'd probably go with GWM given your description, assuming that your DM is ok with it. The extra CHA is incremental while GWM gives you more options and you don't have to use the -5/+10. It will also give you an extra weapon attack as a bonus action on a crit or kill .... so you have to remember to use the d10 for damage on the bonus action attack when that happens.

If you have easy targets or some form of advantage, you can potentially do a lot of damage every turn with 3 attacks at d10+14, d10+14, d4+14 and the possibility of adding a d6 to each of those if you have hex running.

Thanks. I was leaning that way as well. The 20 is so tempting, but I think you're right about the added options instead.

As a clarification, in that last section, the 3 attacks you're referring to are 1d10 attack Action, 1d4 Bonus butt-end attack, and 1d10 Reaction opportunity attack?

Next level I'll qualify to pick up Thirsting Blade for an extra attack on the attack action, but don't have it yet.

[Keravath]

Thanks. I was leaning that way as well. The 20 is so tempting, but I think you're right about the added options instead.

As a clarification, in that last section, the 3 attacks you're referring to are 1d10 attack Action, 1d4 Bonus butt-end attack, and 1d10 Reaction opportunity attack?

Next level I'll qualify to pick up Thirsting Blade for an extra attack on the attack action, but don't have it yet.

Ooops ... I was mostly referring to level 5 when you pick up thirsting blade and get two attacks with your pact weapon on your Attack action. Combined with either a d4 bonus action attack from PAM or a d10 bonus action attack from GWM (when it triggers - kill or crit).

[Crichton]

Ooops ... I was mostly referring to level 5 when you pick up thirsting blade and get two attacks with your pact weapon on your Attack action. Combined with either a d4 bonus action attack from PAM or a d10 bonus action attack from GWM (when it triggers - kill or crit).

No worries. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something else. As it stands, I get to attack with 3 of the 4 action types (don't know of any way to get to attack on a Move), and pretty decently reliable ways to trigger the non-standard ones (Reaction is still contingent on waiting for enemy movement, but that's what a reaction is, so that's fine. Also, at some point I might pick up Sentinel, to make that have even more triggering conditions).

I already find my round's actions tend to be pretty full, and yeah, next level Thirsting Blade will add another attack as well. Not quite as many attacks/round as our monk can pull off, but mine tend to hit harder.

Thanks again for the help!

[Crichton]

Looking to the future, I keep seeing suggestions for Shadow of Moil as a staple, every-encounter spell once you reach level 7, mostly as an upgrade/replacement for Darkness.

The spell looks amazing, but

a) how do you justify the loss of 150gp/minute for the spell? I know there aren't firm wealth by level guidelines like there were in previous editions, but the DMG chart on pg 38 makes it look like that would be a pretty huge chunk of what you might be expected to have at the level you can access it. Even at the highest levels, based on that chart, it would only take 14 castings of Shadows of Moil to eat a full 10% of your total gp. That seems super expensive, for a minute-long spell that you still have to concentrate on.

b)where the heck do you go, in game, to buy a steady supply of undead eyeballs encased in a gem? Especially if your campaign doesn't take place in a large city where weird specialty arcana shops might exist.

[Guy Lombard-O]

where the heck do you go, in game, to buy a steady supply of undead eyeballs encased in a gem?

Reread the spell. It's a one-time only expense, since it doesn't say the spell consumes the material component.

[Crichton]

Reread the spell. It's a one-time only expense, since it doesn't say the spell consumes the material component.

Oh crap. Yeah. Nevermind. I have no idea what I was reading when I thought that. Thanks! Still gotta figure out where the heck to get one, but it's just one, so that's not horrible, hopefully.

[J-H]

Try to find a Rod of the Pact Keeper if you can. It's not super-rare, and lets you recharge one of your spell slots once per day.