Which is build is more optimized?

[VenomTongue]

So I'm playing my first 5e game. I have a bit of experience in 3.5 so I felt like it couldn't be too hard.
We're doing the Lost Mines of Phandelver, and then we're moving on to Curse of Strahd.
I am playing a Hexblade Warlock, we just got to level 2 before Covid-19 caused a hiatus.
I was planning on going Hexblade until level 3 then taking pact of the Tome, and then taking Sorcerer levels from then on.
But I'm worried that being unoptimized in Barovia is a great way to become a corpse.
So I was wondering, is Sorlock a terrible idea going to Barovia, or should I stay going straight Hexblade? Or should I consider being a Warlock/Paladin, and ditching casting all together?

[OldTrees1]

Optimized for what? What do you want? All 3 of your routes are going to be good enough at surviving and participating. So the purpose of optimizing would be to optimize your enjoyment rather than minmaxing some random number.


If you could make up the rules, what would you want this character to be able to do? What would you want them to be?

[Expired]

So I'm playing my first 5e game. I have a bit of experience in 3.5 so I felt like it couldn't be too hard.
We're doing the Lost Mines of Phandelver, and then we're moving on to Curse of Strahd.
I am playing a Hexblade Warlock, we just got to level 2 before Covid-19 caused a hiatus.
I was planning on going Hexblade until level 3 then taking pact of the Tome, and then taking Sorcerer levels from then on.
But I'm worried that being unoptimized in Barovia is a great way to become a corpse.
So I was wondering, is Sorlock a terrible idea going to Barovia, or should I stay going straight Hexblade? Or should I consider being a Warlock/Paladin, and ditching casting all together?
It sounds like you know what you're doing. I wouldn't worry about it—Sorlock is a good choice, especially Hexblade Warlock and Divine Soul Sorcerer. Make sure to don medium armor and a shield, buy (or start) with a component pouch, and ensure your Dex is at least 14 (for +2 AC) while maxing your Cha. Choose your Metamagic, Eldritch Invocations, and limited spells known wisely.

For Metamagic, I suggest Quickened (for x2 Eldritch Blasts/turn at the cost of Sorcery points), Twin (for twinned buffs and Cleric spells like Healing Word), and Subtle (for subtle Counterspells and casting during social encounters) or Extended (for extended Death Wards/Aid).

For Eldritch Invocations, I suggest Agonizing Blast and Devil's Sight + Darkness or Book of Ancient Secrets, if you don't have a Wizard/Repelling Blast.

In my opinion, straight Hexblades are not as effective as Sorlocks or Sorcadins (depending on the party's penchance for SRs/LRs, of course—Warlock is better if you take more SRs, and other spellcasters are better if you don't take many SRs or none at all). I would wait to see what your party members choose to play and adapt from there. Divine Soul/Hexblade Sorlocks are useful because they have decent AC and saves (Favor of the Gods) and can cast Cleric spells. Sorcadins can tank and deal NOVA damage while still being a capable healer with Lay on Hands/Cure Wounds. If you do decide to forgo casters, I'd choose a straight Paladin as opposed to a Padlock/Pallock/Waradin or a Battle Master Fighter/Path of the Totem Warrior Barbarian with PAM + GWM + Sentinel and a glaive/halberd.

[VenomTongue]

When I say optimized I mean for killing undead, hags, werewolves, etc, and staying generally alive.
I was thinking of going Pact of the Tome for the extra cantrips, Book of Ancient Secrets, Devil's Sight maybe.
And I was probably going to go divine soul because it really helps with my character's RP. But I'm worried that by multiclassing I'll be putting off higher level spells for so long that it hurt my effectiveness.
And the only other casters in the party are a Bard, a Druid, and a Paladin. So if I don't fireball, no one will.

[OldTrees1]

All 3 of your options will satisfy your primary objective.

Hexblade Tomelock / Sorcerer will satisfy your Fireball objective but rather late (8th level) if you go Tome -> Fireball. You could delay Tome in order to get Fireball sooner. But it also depends on if Shatter is good enough in the meantime.
Warlock 3 / Sorcerer 5 gets Tome and Shatter at 3rd, and Fireball at 8th.
Warlock 2 / Sorcerer 5 / Warlock 1 gets Shatter at 5th, Fireball at 7th, and Tome at 8th.

CoS seems intended to run from 3rd to 9th. Although some DMs augment the campaign to have it at higher / longer level ranges. So you would be able to get both within the normal campaign bounds.

[Quietus]

In complete honesty, you're overdoing it. You don't need to go to that level of optimization, and if this is your first game, you may end up leaving yourself so accustomed to what is one of the strongest multiclasses available that it'll be hard to play anything more casual in the future. And if the rest of your party isn't up to the same level of optimization, they'll feel left behind.

Any variation on sorlock will do just fine, as you learn to play it. No need to worry there. In this particular scenario you won't really feel the full strength of it until you're in the final third of the adventure, but your potential output by the end can very easily overshadow what the book, and your friends, are expecting to encounter.

[Alucard89]

Curse of Strahd is only to level 10. Multiclassing apart from some 1 level dips, maximum 2 is not really optimum at all here.

Hexblade is powerhouse on his own. No need to multiclass.

If you are variant human you can go for simple PAM + GWM and +2 CHA Pact of The Blade on levels 1,4,8 and be really strong vs everything since you will already have magic weapon from Pact of the Blade which is big deal in CoS, as there are few magic weapons there and many monsters have resistance to non-magical damage.

You can also just go pure Hexblade as blaster and focus on getting 20 CHA and using Hex + Agonizing Blast + Curse combo. Or just Darkness/SOM + Agonizing Blast to spam E-Blast with advantage.

If you are elf or half-elf you can go for EA at level 4 and then either GWM or +2 CHA at level 8 depending if you want to go for melee or blasting.

I would go straight 8 levels of Hexblade and then dip maybe 2 levels of Divine Soul Sorcerer just for more level 1 slots for Shield and Absorb Elements. But only if you won't plan to continue with those characters after this campaign. Because if you do - pure Hexblade to level 12 for Life Drinker is just too good.

Anyway stay pure Hexblade till level 8 since you already got second level - it's most optimum now to stay as Hexblade.

If you were just level we could go Paladin 6, Lore Bard 6 etc. But 2 levels in campaign where you end on level 10 is too big of a delay imo.

And Sorlock is imo not worth in such short campaign. They really spread wings at levels 10+ in my opinion.

[Keravath]

I am a bit dubious about pact of the tome for a sorlock since it needs an invocation and you will only ever get up to second level rituals. There is still a lot of utility there especially with all the level 1 wizard rituals (IF you can find the needed spell scrolls in CoS ... I don't know what is available).

I'd be tempted to either go with mostly hexblade - maybe a one level dip in sorcerer for the two extra spell slots, cantrips and additional spell selection plus whatever 1st level sorcerer bonuses are available. Or to just go with a two level dip in hexblade and the rest sorcerer. I would also strongly consider taking the first level in sorcerer for the constitution saves. Making concentration saves is important with any caster and one of the benefits of hexblade is that you get the benefits in terms of armor/shield/weapons even when you start as another class.

So, my suggestions would be:

2 warlock/ X sorcerer ... start level 1 as a sorcerer ... using eldritch blast + agonizing blast + devils sight for casting ... some synergy with shadow sorcerer .. divine soul is also good

or

X hexblade / possibly 1 sorcerer ... If you want to go blade pact and get into melee then you will need to either start sorcerer or take resilient con as a feat. Variant human Hexblade + PAM + resilient + bladepact will be decent in melee ... pick up GWM or +2 cha at level 8.

[VenomTongue]

Oh I already have a character. I'm a level 2 Hexblade Warlock, I'm just wondering where I go from here. Finding wizard scrolls might be hard in CoS, I'm use to Greyhawk where every sizable town has a magic shop where you can get stuff.
Magic is... rarer in Faerun.

[AH0098]

Curse of Strahd is in Barovia, not Faerun. I am currently running an augmented CoS for my family.
I also am running LMoP for my kids and wife as well.
A few things to think of, depending on the spells your Druid and Bard take, you might not need the ritual casting. Most of the useful lower level rituals your Druid can use as well (as long as they are prepared), your Paladin can deal effective single Target damage very well, and your Druid depending on their circle can tank or handle a lot of the crowd control, spike growth properly place is amazing.
Healing isn't as big of an issue in 5e as previous editions and your Druid has access to healing Spirit, even with the recent nerfing, is a pretty amazing spell. Also depending on the type of college your Bard wants to join, they can handle the crowd control and utility aspect as well.
Spell scrolls aren't amazingly common in CoS, but you can find enough in LMoP, and I don't want to spoil what is where.
I honestly think it depends on if your party needs an additional front liner, or not.
Also I would recommend someone who can disarm traps. 😁

[Sception]

So I'm playing my first 5e game. I have a bit of experience in 3.5 so I felt like it couldn't be too hard.
We're doing the Lost Mines of Phandelver, and then we're moving on to Curse of Strahd.
I am playing a Hexblade Warlock, we just got to level 2 before Covid-19 caused a hiatus.
I was planning on going Hexblade until level 3 then taking pact of the Tome, and then taking Sorcerer levels from then on.
But I'm worried that being unoptimized in Barovia is a great way to become a corpse.
So I was wondering, is Sorlock a terrible idea going to Barovia, or should I stay going straight Hexblade? Or should I consider being a Warlock/Paladin, and ditching casting all together?

Sorlock is fine in barovia. Your primary damage output is spamming agonizing eldritch blasts, which deals significant force damage. Force damage is rarely resisted by anything in any setting or published campaign, so your damage output will be fine, and in particular tends to be effective against ghosts and other incorporeal undead. You'll have good charisma for face skills, and the guidance cantrip which makes everybody else in the party better at their important non-combat skills. You might have devil's sight to see in darkness and magical darkness, which can come up. Sorcerer spell slots helps with utility, and quicken metamagic when you get it will let you up your already decent baseline damage when confronted with a particularly tough foe, if hexblade's curse and eldritch blast alone aren't enough to get the job done. the tomelock ritual invocation doesn't scale if you multiclass out, but even just detect magic and identify are useful to have slotless access to. Your couple of pact magic slots will be useful early on, and later provide a refreshing pile of sorcery points. Hexblade's armor proficiencies make you fairly sturdy even before you spend any spells defensively.

It's a solid build. It'll do fine as ranged damage and support casting in any game.

[VenomTongue]

I'm just scarred from 3.5 Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. My party got murdered so hard, and we were prepared. I was a vampire killing machine, and we got ganked.
So I was just worried that a squishy caster would be, well very quickly killed.

[Expired]

I'm just scarred from 3.5 Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. My party got murdered so hard, and we were prepared. I was a vampire killing machine, and we got ganked.
So I was just worried that a squishy caster would be, well very quickly killed.
A Sorlock (Divine Soul/Hexblade) has decent saves (you'll have at least 14 Dex) and good AC for a caster with medium armor and a shield—Be sure to start Warlock and take Resilient: Con and War Caster later. You can stay out of melee range spamming Eldritch Blast and moving Hex with your bonus action, saving HBC for higher CR creatures.

[Azuresun]

I'm just scarred from 3.5 Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. My party got murdered so hard, and we were prepared. I was a vampire killing machine, and we got ganked.
So I was just worried that a squishy caster would be, well very quickly killed.

5e is generally a bit less lethal than 3e, mainly because the death save system makes it harder to accidentally kill PC's.

If you're worried about not enjoying yourself due to too much lethality, talk to your GM and tell them what you've written above. They might be planning a highly tactical and deadly game, or they might be aiming for a more chilled experience where you need to screw up pretty badly to wipe. And even if you do die, it's not the end of the world, it's a chance to come up with a new character. Lastly, don't forget that you have other PC's who can cover the weaknesses of any one character; no one character should need to be awesome at everything.

Just....play whatever you want, don't feel you have to copypaste a bunch of numbers from a forum. IME, getting into an arms race of optimisation to "beat" the GM seldom works out well unless everyone in the group is on the same page about wanting that sort of game.

[VenomTongue]

In 3.5 Expedition to Castle Ravenloft I played an Wood Elf Urban Ranger/Scout with the Swift Hunter feat, and Undead and Lycanthropes as my favored enemies. We were starting at level 6 or 7 and we got starting gear that was commensurate, I got a +1 (maybe 2) bane undead longbow, and other stuff and a variety of arrows, both magical and non-magical.

Murdered by hags in my third session. Though before dying I had managed to seduce an NPC female human paladin. The campaign died pretty soon after I (and most of the party) did. So now that we're returning to Barovia there is talk of a half-elf npc being added.
Apparently prior to my death the DM rolled to see if I had impregnated the NPC Paladin and I made the DC.

[Bobthewizard]

You are perfectly optimized. You can either stop at hexblade 2 and then go sorcerer or take hexblade to 3 for 2nd level short rest slots. I wouldn't go Tome because you don't want to use an invocation for the Book of Ancient Secrets. It's great if you are staying as a Warlock but I don't like it as much for a dip. You need to take agonizing blast and then you can take either repelling blast, devils sight or mask of many faces. I like Pact of the Chain for this build because having an invisible Imp is so handy and fun.

The reason to take hexblade to 3 isn't for the pact though. It's to get the 2nd level spell slots. In the long run, those give you 4 sorcery points every short rest to quicken your Eldritch Blast.