Are 9th level spells worth it?

[Hiro Quester]

I'm playing a multi class Swords Bard/Hexblade, frontline DPS, with lots of gishy versatility. Just started the campaign as Bard 1.

I don't need to be a primary caster. Party is me plus druid, wizard and cleric (along with paladin and artificer).

Plan is either:
A: Bard 1/ Hexblade5/ Bard 2-15, (versatile Gish with smites as a source of extra damage)
B: Bard 1/ Hexblade 1/ Bard 2-6/ Hexblade2-3/ Bard 7-17 (caster with Gish-like frontline versatility)

Plan A gets 3 invocations, including eldritch smite and extra attack (invocation) from 6th level, and third level pact slots to smite with (take Elven Accuracy for critfishing 4d8 force damage (doubled for crit) 2/short rest). Bard casting is delayed, though. Warlock and bard spells use weapon as arcane focus. Warlock spells add booming blade, shield, hex, armor of agathys, etc.

Plan B means not getting eldritch smites, having 2nd level pact slots. Sword flourishes and dueling style from 4th level. Extra attack at 7th level. Bard casting progresses closer to normal pace (delayed by 3).

And eventually, at level 20, plan B gets access to a 9th level spell: Foresight. Foresight is awesome for this build. But in all likelihood, I get that 9th level spell only for the big boss fight at the end of the campaign. (That's how our last campaign with this DM went. Last level gained only for the very last session.)

I know the general recommendation is that 9th level spells are really cool and valuable. That's true.

But is being able to use eldritch smite 2/short rest for much of the campaign, a good tradeoff for not getting that one play session with Foresight and delaying the progression of bardic casting?

[Kurt Kurageous]

I'd say so.

The value of something is related to the number of times you get to use it. That's why feats at first level are so awesome.

And along will come someone who will math this out and disagree.

[sithlordnergal]

Hmmm, it looks like you're making primarily a martial build with a decent amount of casting, therefore I'd go for the Eldritch Smite. Don't get me wrong, 9th level spells are nice, but you can always ask the Druid, Cleric, or Wizard to cast Foresight on you.

[Nidgit]

I'd also go for Plan A, though your party is pretty stacked on both ends. I'd honestly probably play more as a switch-hitter that can do both damage and debuffs rather than focusing on one or the other exclusively.

[Bobthewizard]

If you can swing a 13 STR or your DM will forego that requirement, I'd take 2 levels of paladin instead of 4th and 5th in warlock. Paladin smites can use any spell slots while warlock ones are limited to pact magic slots. So Bard 6/ Warlock 3/ Paladin 2, then the rest bard for more spell slots.

But I'd still rather go with Warlock 3/ Bard 17. It's not just that last level of foresight. It's the rest of the campaign where you are 2 levels behind in your bard progression. 4th-9th level spells all come on 2 levels later. Unlimited d6 flourishes is 2 levels later. Magical secrets are all 2 levels later. There's always something you are missing to counter those eldritch smites.

[heavyfuel]

I agree with Kurt in that things are only valuable if you get to use them.

With this in mind: Don't worry about your build 19 levels in advance. You shouldn't care about what your character might eventually be able to do IF the campaign reaches level 20 and IF this character survives that long.

Despite 9th levels spells being amazing (and Foresight being a pretty weak choice), you shouldn't build a character around them unless you're starting at level 16+.


Hmmm, it looks like you're making primarily a martial build with a decent amount of casting, therefore I'd go for the Eldritch Smite. Don't get me wrong, 9th level spells are nice, but you can always ask the Druid, Cleric, or Wizard to cast Foresight on you.

Personally, if I'm playing a caster and finally get to toy around with 9th level spells and my partymate says "Hey, btw, can you spend your sole slot on a suboptimal spell so that I can hit things better?" I'm gonna reply with something along the lines of "No".

Asking the caster to cast Foresight on you and not something actually powerful like Wish/TPM/Shapechange is basically asking the caster to not use their cool new spell level.

[Angelalex242]

Foresight is something that should go into an improved ring of spell storing that can hold spells that big so martials can use it later.

"Okay, I've been spending the last week charging all your rings with Foresight, let's go slay the Dark Lord of Evil! Pop your Foresights when we get to his castle..."

[sithlordnergal]

Personally, if I'm playing a caster and finally get to toy around with 9th level spells and my partymate says "Hey, btw, can you spend your sole slot on a suboptimal spell so that I can hit things better?" I'm gonna reply with something along the lines of "No".

Asking the caster to cast Foresight on you and not something actually powerful like Wish/TPM/Shapechange is basically asking the caster to not use their cool new spell level.

See, I'd agree with you if it was just the Wizard. But I'll be honest, the only worthwhile 9th level spells a Druid gets are Shapechange and Foresight. And as someone who regularly plays a 20th level Druid via Adventures League, I can tell you that Foresight on the frontline character is far more useful than Shapechange. Shapechange is a bit too limited to be that good of a spell. It is good, don't get me wrong, but I typically find it more useful to cast Foresight on a frontline and use my Concentration on things like Whirlwind, Reverse Gravity, Wall of Stone, or Guardian of Nature. Pretty sure I've only ever cast Shapechange once, and that was me messing around and not caring about my spell slots cause my party decided to summon Dendar to fight them after blasting through an adventure and wanted a proper final battle.

Sadly Clerics don't get Foresight for some reason...which...that really makes no sense. Its a Divination buff spell...why don't Clerics get it? If they got it then they'd end up with one worthwhile 9th level spell outside of Mass Heal.

[Hiro Quester]

If you can swing a 13 STR or your DM will forego that requirement, I'd take 2 levels of paladin instead of 4th and 5th in warlock. Paladin smites can use any spell slots while warlock ones are limited to pact magic slots. So Bard 6/ Warlock 3/ Paladin 2, then the rest bard for more spell slots.

But I'd still rather go with Warlock 3/ Bard 17. It's not just that last level of foresight. It's the rest of the campaign where you are 2 levels behind in your bard progression. 4th-9th level spells all come on 2 levels later. Unlimited d6 flourishes is 2 levels later. Magical secrets are all 2 levels later. There's always something you are missing to counter those eldritch smites.

Yeah... Paladin 2 would be a good one on a build like this. But I'm already playing a half-elf bard (with 10, 16, 16, 8, 8, 17 stats), so no STR 13 for Paladin. Plus we already have a Draonborn Conquest Paladin, and I don't want to step on his toes.

I am intending to play this as a bit of a switch-hitter. I can do spellcasting, ranged (summoning a longbow as pact weapon), buffing (with spells and inspiration), frontline damage, and BFC. (We have a party of 6, but all middle-aged people with families and busy lives. I'm intending to be able to fill in some other roles if someone else can't play that week.)

Even though a few things come online a couple of levels later than they would ordinarily, the two classes complement one another well. So I doubt that I will ever not have useful contributions to make to any encounter, and out of combat I'm face, infiltrator (Mask of Many faces), etc.

And many of the spells I might get late, are ones other party members will be casting, anyway. Perhaps including Foresight.

[tokek]

I'm not sure that anything you get at 20th level is objectively worth it to give up stuff for the previous 19 levels unless you are going to play very extended games at 20th level.

Yet 9th level spells are a blast and to an extent getting them is its own reward for sticking to something that might have been sub-optimal at times but you stuck to it all the way through. Foresight would not be my personal favourite, I want my reward for all that dedication to be a bit more flashy, but 9th level spells do just feel great.

[Segev]

Are you going to play at levels where you would theoretically have 9th level spells? If so, for how long?

How long would you enjoy the alternative benefits of the other build?

[Keravath]

I agree with the folks saying building around a 20th level feature isn't a great idea. You may never get there and if you do, getting to use it may depend on how long you keep playing the characters at 20th level.

On the other hand, I'm not at all a fan of eldritch smite. You only get two spell slots to use it with/short rest - on the other hand, you may not have more useful things to do with those specific spell slots anyway if you are mostly a bard with lots of other spell slots.

A couple more comments though ...

1) I would consider starting as Hexblade 1 rather than Bard 1 from a mechanical point of view, you can always work it into your backstory why you start with the pact rather than the performance aspects. The reason for this is proficiency in wisdom and charisma vs decterity and charisma saves. In the long run, I think wisdom save proficiency is more useful. You get an extra skill when you multiclass into bard anyway so you don't lose any skills either way.

2) I would consider pushing bard forward as much as possible since you pick up extra attack faster that way. Until then booming blade works as a decent substitute.

3) If you really want to push the smiting angle, you might want to consider hexblade 5 followed by whispers bard. You get eldritch smite but more important you pick up the psychic blades feature:

"When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration to deal an extra 2d6 psychic damage to that target. You can do so only once per round on your turn. The psychic damage increases when you reach certain levels in this class, increasing to 3d6 at 5th level, 5d6 at 10th level, and 8d6 at 15th level."

You get as much bardic inspiration as your charisma modifier and at 5th level bardic inspiration refreshes on a short rest. That is likely to get you a lot more smiting ability and it doesn't use spell slots. (though short rest bardic inspiration wouldn't happen until character level 10 if you do hexblade 5 first)

However, like Eldritch smite, it is only usable 1/turn unlike the paladin smite.

4) Even if you prefer swords bard, I would still consider going hexblade 5 to start - I am not sure I see the point of starting with bard 1.

5) No matter which build you go for, you should get eldritch blast and agonizing blast if you take at least warlock 2. The big weakness of focusing on a melee build is forgetting to include the ability to do decent damage at range (particularly useful against flying targets). Eldritch blast is the simplest and easiest way to

6) The main reason I might not do hexblade 5 early or at all is because it sets the bard spells way way back. You wouldn't get 3rd level bard spells until 10th level though you would have a couple of 3rd level warlock spells. However, every one of those you cast is one less smite if that is your goal.

7) I've played a melee hexblade blade pact warlock to level 11 (10 warlock/1 sorcerer - and sorcerer mainly because I found a ring of spell storing and couldn't use it effectively without 1st level spell slots) - they went the GWM/PAM route and used darkness+devils sight switching to shadow of moil at level 7 warlock to generate advantage to be hit and disadvantage to be hit. So far it has worked pretty well.

[animorte]

9th-level spells are very good. Wish, the most popular one essentially just grants you access you all 8th-level spells. That's not even my favorite either.

I personally prefer to have a lot of fun along the way, which can honestly be done no matter what you build. I'll grant some things are more fun than others.

I recently built a Charisma-based duelist that is super fun. Not sure if you're planning on being a duelist specifically, but...
Feel free to ignore because there's a lot of multiclassing nonsense specifically designed for 1v1 dueling fun.
Vengeance Paladin 3 - Vow of Enmity and Divine Favor (or Compelled Duel if you're trying to protect the party)
Swords Bard 3 - Defensive Flourish
Swashbuckler Rogue 3 - Rakish Audacity, Fancy Footwork
Hexblade Warlock 1 - Hexblade's Curse, Hex Warrior

This gives various primary 1v1 bonuses while leaving plenty of room to take any of them up for the rest of the levels:
- Rogue 13 Uncanny Dodge and 7d6 sneak attack, or 14 (drop Hexblade) for Blinsense.
- Hexblade to 11 for 6th-level spell and Armor of Hexes (10). Eldritch Smite with 3 total 5th-level slots for damage.
- Taking Bard to 13 for 7th-level spells, or 14 (drop Hexblade) for free Blade Flourish (d6 instead of d10).
- Paladin 13 would get 4th-level spell and Improved Divine Smite (11) in addition to more Auras.
Can pick up Defensive Duelist feat at some point.

Best thing is that concentration doesn't overlap and SAD with Hexblade. Some of the activations will require a couple turns to get everything going though with bonus actions and such. If you get a ready round though, that shouldn't be much of an issue.
For the order I would go something like:
Hexblade (1)
Bard (3)
Paladin (3)
Rogue (3)
Then finish the build off with whatever preference.

[Hael]

The Hex2, BardX is going to be many times stronger than the alternate build. Eldritch smite is simply not worth the delayed feature and spell progression.

A variant of the above is to go Hex1 and then take agonizing blast as a feat and skip hex2.. Which might be even better as you get online faster (not having extra attack until lvl 8 feels terrible)

[animorte]

The Hex2, BardX is going to be many times stronger than the alternate build. Eldritch smite is simply not worth the delayed feature and spell progression.

A variant of the above is to go Hex1 and then take agonizing blast as a feat and skip hex2.. Which might be even better as you get online faster (not having extra attack until lvl 8 feels terrible)
You mean Eldritch Adept feat? That would save some spell progression.

[Witty Username]

I can definitely say Plan A can work very well (did that build by accident, I took hexblade 4 for an ASI, and didn't catch that it took me off 9th level spell access until we reached 17th level, at which point I took hexblade 5). It works very well if think you will use eldritch smite and have go to 3rd level spells you like casting frequently. I think 9th level spells are better once you get there though, do as your mood strikes you I think is the best idea.

[rlc]

That, obviously, depends on what you want to do.
If you want to use meteor swarm to destroy an entire army, then you can’t do that if you can’t cast meteor swarm. If you want to upcast lower level spells, then you don’t actually need level 9 spells for that.
If you want to hit things with a weapon, you also don’t need level 9 slots.

[Hiro Quester]

A couple more comments though ...


1. I started with Bard partly for role-play reasons, and dex save proficiency seems helpful if I'm at the front line. It helps to keep concentration if I make the dex save vs fireball (or whatever). Plus I already started the campaign with bard 1, so there's no revising that now.

2. Either bard 1/Hexblade 5 or Bard 6 will get extra attack at the same time. The downside of Hexblade 5 is that it takes an invocation which I'm stuck with until I take another hexblade level, which I probably would not do.

3. Whispers bard is an option. I like using BI for extra damage. My hesitation is that I like the Swords bard flourishes (including getting the dice to extra AC or moving opponents around; especially useful if I summon a longbow as a pact weapon)

4. starting with Bard 1, in addition to what I mentioned at point 1, gets skills, dex saves, Bardic Inspiration, and low-level spell slots for hex and shield, which remain useful, but I would not "waste" higher level pack slots on. so Bard 1/Hexblade 5 has some options throughout the build that hexblade 5/bard 1 would not have until 6th level.

5. Yes. Agonizing blast is a great ranged attack. And you can use hex on it. But Hexblade can summon a longbow as a ranged attack option, and use all the lovely "sword" flourishes still (they only require attacking with a weapon). They can even get the equivalent of repelling blast invocation using mobile flourish. You can't smite with EB also. You can with a longbow, if it's your pact weapon. For a critfisher, that difference might be worth forgoing EB in favor of a longbow pact weapon.

Plus I'll need Improved Pact Weapon, Eldritch Smite invocations, and there are lots of options for the third invocation I'd have at 5th. Agonizing blast is certainly a good one. But Mask of Many Faces (at will disguise self), Misty visions (at will silent image) or Cloak of Flies for +CHA damage to everyone up-close (if I'll spend most of my time in melee), are also tempting.

6. One plan would be spreading out Hexblade a bit. Hex 1 at 2nd level, then Hex 2 and 3 at 7th and 8th level (after Bard gets extra attack, short rest BI recovery, and 3rd level spells). That spreads out the delay in casting.

7. More Hexblade is also tempting. An earlier plan involved mostly hexblade with a little bard, like hexblade 12/bard 8 or even bard 4 hexblade 16, for shadow of moil, life drinker invocation, Mystical incarnum, and low-level bard spell slots mostly for hex, shield, armor of agathys, etc. that still has some temptation.

I think how long I stick around in Hexblade will depend on the nature of the campaign, how the rest of the party progresses, and especially on my patron and my relationship with them. My DM says he has some interesting ideas there, that might be fun or frustrating or both.

[Segev]

Given your current level, I would advise against planning for 9th level spells. If you get to 20th level and actually regret not having them, discuss a rebuild with your DM at that time. Odds are, your game (sadly) won't actually get that far, and even if it does, with the other build, you'll get to do the cool thing with it for far longer than you'd get 9th level spells, if you ever got them at all.

[animorte]

Short answer: 9th-level spells aren't worth it.

If you're leveling up all the way to get there, do what is most rewarding for you on the way. I'm not saying ignore the future, so obviously plan a couple levels ahead, that's fun too. But unless you're starting at a high level or your DM says to expect a lot of high level play time, don't worry about it.

Focus on a goal to accomplish what your character wants to do.

[Psyren]

9th-level spells can be worth it, and not having them can also be worth it. It really depends on what you want the character to be doing and how tough the road to max level is in your games. (Both approaches in the OP seem valid to me.)

[Segev]

Yeah, my main reason for recommending against the 9th-level-spell build is that, in my experience, you may well never get to the levels with the payoff, and you are giving up something you'll enjoy for a long time during play in order to get there.

And, frankly, if you DO get to where you could have had 9th level spells...you can discuss with your DM a rebuild, maybe after a side quest, to get them. I am not saying you should always plan to rebuild your character, but when your choices hinge on a real risk of never being able to do the cool thing, I will recommend it, here.

[Keravath]

...

7. More Hexblade is also tempting. An earlier plan involved mostly hexblade with a little bard, like hexblade 12/bard 8 or even bard 4 hexblade 16, for shadow of moil, life drinker invocation, Mystical incarnum, and low-level bard spell slots mostly for hex, shield, armor of agathys, etc. that still has some temptation.

I think how long I stick around in Hexblade will depend on the nature of the campaign, how the rest of the party progresses, and especially on my patron and my relationship with them. My DM says he has some interesting ideas there, that might be fun or frustrating or both.

You might want to consider Hexblade 17/bard 3 as an option then if you think you will get to 20. Bard 3 provides some utility with spell slots and long rest inspiration while Hexblade 17 can pick up Foresight as a Mystic Arcanum if that was the feature you really wanted. Also, if you were going the Elven Accuracy route, warlocks have a number of reasonable ways to obtain advantage through the vision rules with darkness+devils sight and at 7th level warlock Shadow of Moil.

In this case though it is much more warlock than bard and it sounded like you really wanted the sword flourishes ... so lots of choices :)

P.S. I realize that you will be sticking with bard 1 for role play reasons which I think is perfectly fine ... however, Resilient con will help out far more on concentration saves than saving for half damage with dexterity might ... at best that will reduce the number for the check but with only a +3 from con there is a 30% chance of failing any concentration check and if you are in the front line you could get hit multiple times each round. On the other hand, if you are usually standing next to the paladin then things tend to get a bit easier after 6th level :)

[Hiro Quester]

Resilient Con is definitely a contender. Though I will have war caster (after Elven Accuracy first to bump Cha to 18) to get advantage on those Con saves to keep concentration.

Bard 3 Hexblade 17 is definitely also an option. And it would get Foresight. It would also get fifth-level slots for smites.

And anything over Hexblade 12 gets Lifedrinker for +CHA to damage on every hit. With hexblade's curse adding proficiency to damage, and dueling style and improved pact weapon, that's a base of (dice)+19 to damage on every (cursed) hit after Hexblade 12.

But only Bard 3 would forego the sword flourishes. I do like them as a source of extra damage when I crit (and that hopefully will be often with Elven Accuracy), as well as for BFC (moving the barbarian away from my friend so friend can disengage without OAs), and for extra AC.

With only a few Pact slots fueling extra damage from smites, it will be beneficial to also have sword flourishes that refresh on a short rest as another source of damage.

And smite and flourish can both be aded to a critical hit after it rolls. So Nova damage can be reasonably decent if I have those two sources that refresh on a short rest.

But nova damage (Hex, Curse, Smite, Flourish) from one hit is better if I have more warlock. Bard 15/Warlock5 nova damage will average about 77 (min 28, Max 131), while it would average average about 98 (min 37, Max 159) with Hexblade 12 Bard 8 (because 5th level pact slots and lifedrinker invocation).

Like I said, whether I take more in bard or in hexblade will depend on how the party roles evolve as we level, and on my patron and my relationship to them.