Help building a hexblade X sorcerer

[Darth Leere]

Hello everyone im struggling with a build for a hexblade and divine soul sorcerer melee character for curse of strahdbid like more hexblade but im unsure how many levels to be in both and what would be optimal we are starting at level 3 any advice would be appreciated ps. Im not sold on divine soul if theres a better subclass im open to it

[RogueJK]

There are basically two ways to build a melee Hexblade Sorlock here, with one being a bit more spellcasting focused and the other being a bit more melee focused:


A) More Spellcasting: Hexblade 1 or 2/Sorcerer X. This limits you to 1H melee weapons, and relies on Booming Blade and/or Green Flame Blade cantrip to scale the damage on your lone melee attack. The trade-off is that your Metamagic and higher level Sorcerer spells come online faster. 1 level of Hexblade gets you pretty much everything you need, with Medium Armor and shield, Martial Weapons, CHA-based attacks, and some other useful stuff like additional cantrips, a short rest recharging 1st level slot for Shield/Absorb Elements, and Hexblade's Curse. The 2nd level of Hexblade isn't strictly necessary, but gets you a second 1st level Pact slot, along with a couple useful invocations, such as Devil's Sight and Agonizing Blast, which could be worth delaying your Sorcerer progression.

Just understand that since Curse of Strahd ends at Level 10, taking the 2nd level of Hexblade means you'd top out at 4th level spells by campaign's end, whereas a Hexblade 1/Sorcerer 9 would have 5th level spells in the endgame.



B) More Melee: Hexblade 5/Sorcerer X. This gets you a third Invocation, along with Blade Pact and Thirsting Blade for Extra Attack, and you can also use 2H melee weapons starting at Hexblade 3 if you want. You don't have to rely on the SCAGtrips to scale your melee damage, since you'll get Extra Attack from Thirsting Blade. And you can boost your melee damage further with an Invocation like Improved Pact Weapon and/or Eldritch Smite. You also get short rest recharging 3rd level Pact slots. The trade-off is that it takes longer for your Sorcerer Metamagic to come online (Level 8), and you'll only ever have 3rd level spells at most in the CoS campaign.


Either way, you'll want to start Sorcerer at 1st level for CON saving throw proficiency (for Concentration purposes). Since you're beginning Level 3, that'd look like Sorcerer 1/Hexblade 2 for the Melee version, and either Sorcerer 2/Hexblade 1 or Sorcerer 1/Hexblade 2 for the Spellcasting version, depending on whether you want just 1 or 2 levels of Hexblade. From there, the Melee version would want to go to Sorcerer 1/Hexblade 5 before resuming Sorcerer levels. The Spellcasting version would just add further Sorcerer levels from there.

Divine Soul is an excellent choice for Sorcerer subclass. Shadow Sorcerer and Clockwork Soul would also work well for a melee Sorlock.


Assuming Point Buy, they'd look something like this:
Half Elf Hexblade 1/Divine Soul Sorcerer 9 or Hexblade 5/Divine Soul Sorcerer 5
STR 8
DEX 13+1
CON 15+1
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 15+2
Feats: Elven Accuracy (or Fey Touched/Telekinetic/Skill Expert) for +1 CHA at 1/4, then +2 CHA at 1/8 or 4/4.

Or, if you want a different race than Half Elf, you can do:
STR 8 or 10
DEX 13+1
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 12 or 10
CHA 15+2

[Keravath]

It is a bit challenging to build a good melee hexblade since you need to invest a lot in the melee aspect in order to do better than agonizing blast in terms of damage. Personally, when playing a melee hexblade, I don't want to feel like I could just do better standing back and firing off a cantrip.

So ... what are the various ways to build it?

As mentioned above, you can go with booming blade.
- at level 5-10 this will do <weapon damage> + cha + d8, while agonizing blast will do 2x(d10+cha). Agonizing blast in this case is always more average damage so running in and swinging a sword is less optimal than firing off a couple of agonizing blasts - and agonizing blast only costs one invocation.

Another consideration for a melee bladelock is that it will be highly desirable to either start first level as a sorcerer (not optimal due to hit points) or take the resilient con feat. A warlock only has 2 spell slots, if they are using these to support their melee ability then the character wants to reduce the odds of failing a concentration check.

The best spell options for a melee bladelock are typically darkness+devils sight for advantage to hit and disadvantage to be hit. By good use of movement, the character can usually minimize the effect of the darkness on the rest of the party (mostly by stepping back between rounds) - the target does not get opportunity attacks if they can't see you. Use of darkness also depends on how your DM runs it. RAW, using darkness for those who can't see in it, results in the attacker and defender being unable to see each other - which causes the advantage gained from a defender being unable to see the attack coming and the disadvantage caused due to the attacker being unable to see the target to cancel and results in a straight roll to hit as if the darkness wasn't there - but some DMs may run it differently.

At level 7 warlock, the bladelock would switch over to using Shadow of Moil.

You can also use hex and/or spirit shroud for damage enhancement depending on the situation rather than using darkness/Shadow of Moil for the defensive and to hit benefits. However, the advantage element can be very important if the melee bladelock uses GWM to enhance damage.

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A pure melee bladelock picks up improved pact weapon, thirsting blade, and eventually life drinker at level 12. Add in devils sight and the early invocations are used up - the character won't have room for agonizing blast until level 7 warlock.

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In order to keep the damage output greater than agonizing blast, the melee bladelock needs to rely on feats - either PAM, GWM or both. If you go the PAM route, the character gets a bonus action attack and will keep ahead of agonizing blast by having an extra attack. GWM will do extra damage with the -5 to hit somewhat compensated for by the advantage generated from Darkness/Shadow of Moil. Using both GWM+PAM results in more melee damage than Agonizing blast through tier 4 - but early on you only need one of the two and not both.

In addition, in tier 2, even just a melee great sword build will slightly exceed the damage of agonizing blast without anything else. PAM with a glaive is more damage and PAM with a spear or quarterstaff will be a higher AC and roughly equal damage to agonizing blast.

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In the end, it depends what sort of character you want to play. I've played the melee hexblade to level 11 - 10 hexblade/1 shadow sorcerer (in this case, variant human with resilient con, GWM and PAM - cha is still 16). I've also played various sorlocks and bardlocks which are hexblade 2/ sorcerer or bard X. One of these is an aberrant mind sorcerer who uses agonizing blast but when caught in melee range pulls out their long sword and uses booming blade.

However, for a primarily melee haxblade, I would go for mostly warlock perhaps with a little bit of sorcerer eventually for the extra spell slots, cantrips and 1st level ability. Decide whether you prefer PAM or GWM and go for it.

Example: A great sword wielding melee character, variant human with resilient con or GWM, pick up the other at 4th level - increase cha at 8th level. Invocations - improved pact weapon and devils sight (which lets the human see in the dark). Remember to get the party to take short rests :)

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Additional comments ...
- 3 levels of sorcerer is nice for the extra spell slots + quicken which lets you get your combat spell of choice out in the first round of combat as a bonus action then still take the attack action. For CoS you might want warlock 8/sorcerer 3 since the adventure will end in the 10-12 level range depending on the DM.
- You can go for more sorcerer but you should decide if you want a melee character with some spell casting or a spell caster with melee capability. A 5/5 split is possible giving you 3rd level spells from both the warlock and sorcerer but it won't come on line until 10th level. On the other hand, you can cast things like spirit guardians by that point.
- You could also go with warlock 3/sorcerer X choosing blade/chain or tome and then rely on booming blade + casting spiritual weapon for a bonus action attack that would keep you ahead of agonizing blast at the cost of more resources.

One thing to keep in mind is that IF the DM runs CoS by the book, there are very few magical weapons and some of them are only available late in the game depending on where they end up so a blade pact warlock has an advantage because they can create and enhance their own weapon using improved pact weapon.

Good luck! Should be a fun game :)