Aasimar/Hexblade/Divine Soul

[Mr. Wonderful]

I'm restarting a run of Descent into Avernus that was halted by covid and one of my players requested playing a Protector Aasimar starting at Hexblade 1 and then running through Divine Soul for the remainder.

While I like the optics and flavor of the build it seems very unbalanced on the power curve. It would of course make sense to have devils pay extra attention to the almost angelic character, but that just makes the character even more the focus of the party.

I would appreciate your opinion on whether or not this character is OP.

I'd also like to know if and how you have nerfed the obligatory Hexblade 1 builds at your table. I've been thinking that pushing some of their level 1 bonuses to level 3 might add balance.

[Unoriginal]

I'm restarting a run of Descent into Avernus that was halted by covid and one of my players requested playing a Protector Aasimar starting at Hexblade 1 and then running through Divine Soul for the remainder.

While I like the optics and flavor of the build it seems very unbalanced on the power curve. It would of course make sense to have devils pay extra attention to the almost angelic character, but that just makes the character even more the focus of the party.

I would appreciate your opinion on whether or not this character is OP.

I'd also like to know if and how you have nerfed the obligatory Hexblade 1 builds at your table. I've been thinking that pushing some of their level 1 bonuses to level 3 might add balance.

First, let's try to identify the root of the issue: what makes you think an Aasimar Hexblade 1/Divine Soul X is unbalanced?

Second: while some Devils (Asmodeus among them) might be interested by a Divine Soul, most Devils and especially the ranks-and-files engaged in the Blood War do not have any particular reason to care. They've seen holier than that come down to Hell before and that didn't end well for the holy folks. If anything I'd say the Devils would either be pretty sarcastic or try to manipulate the character (or both) if they think they're a big deal just because they have angel blood.

[RogueJK]

Is it overpowered or unbalanced? No. It's not that much stronger than any other melee caster gish. They just get to max out their primary stat a bit earlier than someone like a Paladin or Fighter/Wizard with two primary stats. But with bounded accuracy, that's not as huge of a deal. They'll just be sitting at 20 for 4 more levels, while someone else would be sitting at 18.

Is it "optimized"? Yes, more than some other character builds. But again, the overall impact isn't going to be "over the top".

It's not going to severely affect the balance of the game, but it could potentially result in occasionally somewhat overshadowing some of the other players during combat, if everyone else in the group is completely unconcerned with combat optimization, and is more about the storytelling and making interesting characters even if they only have a 14 in their primary stat.

But even when playing with a highly-optimized character in the party, most any other class will still have a chance to shine in combat, like when the Paladin gets a clutch Critical Smite, or the Rogue lands a big backstab with a handful of dice, or the Wizard gets to roll a mountain of d6s for that Fireball.

And there's more to a campaign than just combat anyway. So that totally unoptimized character who's middling in combat can still really shine outside of it in the Social and Exploration angles, and outshine the optimized Hexblade Sorlock whose player is only concerned about combat.

[Wraith]

Hexblade 1/Sorcerer X isn't itself overpowered, provided that the GM doesn't allow it to turn into the Coffeelock (https://www.thegamer.com/dungeons-dragons-exploits-coffeelock-caster/). As-is, I think it's okay - They're a Sorcerer who has medium armour, a shield, a martial weapon and 2 extra known spells - only one of which they can use per rest. That barely compares to an equivalent level Barbarian or Paladin, and it doesn't scale well into higher level.

In Avernus, I think Divine Soul is a mixed bag. On the one hand; clutch healing and easy access to Radiant damage is always great, but a lot of the enemies are resistant to magic and a long list of elements and effects, so that's pretty much ALL they're going to be doing. It's good, but it's just one trick getting repeated.

Their biggest threat to party balance is using short rests and metamagic to regenerate all their spell slots at an accelerated pace, which is easy enough to clamp down upon. If that's the case, they're pretty much sacrificing a level of spellcasting in exchange for +4AC, a longsword and a single, non-scaling spell slot, and the Devils they're going to face are not going to be worried about that at all. :smalltongue:

[Gtdead]

Nothing to fear from this character. He will have some moments, but truthfully, not going 2 levels on warlock sounds extremely odd to me and I'm not sure what he is planning to achieve with it.

He doesn't get agonizing blast, extra attack, darkness/devil sight. His main play will probably be bb and spirit guardians and he isn't really better at it than your average single classed cleric. He doesn't even have con proficiency by starting as a Hexblade so this is probably how he will use his Favored of the Gods charges. Hexed/cursed scorching rays aren't too hot since devils are immune to it.

There aren't really any good tricks this guy can pull of. If my assumptions are correct, you can treat him as an arcana cleric pretty much.

[Mr. Wonderful]

First, let's try to identify the root of the issue: what makes you think an Aasimar Hexblade 1/Divine Soul X is unbalanced?

Fair question, its based on my experience playing a Divine Soul. I found the limited number of spell slots to be the biggest trade off against a standard cleric, and starting off Hexblade patches that nicely. Likewise, the cleric's ability to stand base to base with opponents in a pinch are surpassed by the Hexblade immediately thanks to using CHA as the attack modifier. The rest of the advantages for Hexblade 1 don't need repeating.

All in all, you end up with a much more flexible character - more spells, better defense, better offense - all for the cost of 1 level delay in spells and ASI.

As for your second point, I just see things differently. Ambitious people model themselves after their boss, and the boss devil turned an avenging angel into the current ruler of Avernus.

[Contrast]

I would appreciate your opinion on whether or not this character is OP.

As has been mentioned, if they were really powergaming they'd be taking at least 2 levels of warlock and sorc to start for the con save prof.

While I agree with everyone else that you don't have anything to worry about in theory the more relevant question to be asking is - what is everyone else at the table playing and do you have reason to believe this character would overshadow them? If they're going to build characters which lag behind this one consider helping them to make characters rather than trying to ban this character. If its more a player experience issue, maybe have a discussion with the sorc player about their spell picks.

Twinned Haste is a power move by the sorc but also buffs other players so everyone feels good, for example.

[Mr. Wonderful]

And there's more to a campaign than just combat anyway. So that totally unoptimized character who's middling in combat can still really shine outside of it in the Social and Exploration angles, and outshine the optimized Hexblade Sorlock whose player is only concerned about combat.

Thanks for the full reply, I appreciate your reasoning. I do want to point out that focusing on Charisma gives you extra advantages in the Social angle as well.

[Hael]

As has been mentioned, if they were really powergaming they'd be taking at least 2 levels of warlock and sorc to start for the con save prof..

To be fair, nowadays with Tashas it’s probably optimal. You could take the eldritch adept feat and pick up agonizing blast or devilsight. I would definitely want to start sorcerer though.

[Unoriginal]

All in all, you end up with a much more flexible character - more spells, better defense, better offense - all for the cost of 1 level delay in spells and ASI.

A more flexible character than a standard cleric, you mean?



As for your second point, I just see things differently. Ambitious people model themselves after their boss, and the boss devil turned an avenging angel into the current ruler of Avernus.

And if we were talking about an actual angel of some power, I would agree. But keep in mind how the Devils treat Lulu the Holyphant in the module: sometime curiosity, sometime as a valuable commodity, but never as something they particularly should care about corrupting or killing just because she's from the Upper Planes. And unlike the PC she's a full-blown Celestial. The module also has an actual demigod in it, and he got rekt by Tiamat and ignored by the rest.

[McSkrag]

I've played a similar Aasimar 12 Shadow Sorcerer / 2 Hexblade all the way from level 1. I really enjoyed it. The build is not OP in a broken sense, but it is powerful. Any DM worth their salt should have no problem with it.

I'd recommend taking 2 levels of Hexblade to get Agonizing Blast and another invocation like Repelling Blast, Devil's Sight, Grasp of Hadar, or Lance of Lethargy. This build uses Eldritch Blast as the primary attack so adding an invocation to give EB a rider effect is consistently useful.

I took Repelling Blast and found it super fun to control the field and knock enemies back into spells like web and sickening radiance.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

We've generally not done it. That said a lot of our trepidation was due to the ability to use Cha as an attacking stat and effectively make other classes like the Paladin SAD when they are clearly not meant to be. That, on top of the other benefits mentioned in the thread seemed OP. With this particular build that's not so much of an issue.
All that being said, it'd sure be nice if Warlock dips were more evenly spread among the subclasses; the fact that they aren't and you are asking the question says something.

[Starman]

As for your second point, I just see things differently. Ambitious people model themselves after their boss, and the boss devil turned an avenging angel into the current ruler of Avernus.

Interesting.

[1Pirate]

...you're going to TPK them in the Dungeon of the Dead Three anyway.

Seriously though it's fine, in fact that build might a little squishy to frontline when save-for-half effects start cropping up.

[MrStabby]

Is it OP? Depends on the DM and the campaign.

In a usual homebrew campaign with a good DM and similarly optimised other party members its probably fine. If a DM has a good split between the saves a party faces then they might really suffer from those weaker strength saves and dex saves. If the DM also has 6 to 9 meaningful encounters between long rests then there shouldn't be too much of a problem.

The issue is that I dont think Descent actually follows this. Saves are not really equally distributed and pretty much all WotC modules seem to be pretty poor at generating a balanced adventuring day.



So yes, it might be on the strong side but there are other options that fall into that category as well.

[Azuresun]

I'd also like to know if and how you have nerfed the obligatory Hexblade 1 builds at your table. I've been thinking that pushing some of their level 1 bonuses to level 3 might add balance.

Move Hex Warrior onto the pact of the blade for all warlocks. It's a bit messy, but it gets the job done.

[Mr. Wonderful]

Thank you all for your perspective, based on your reassurances I will allow the character concept into the scenario.