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Suzuro
2008-05-12, 12:28 PM
I'm debating playing a Hexblade in an upcoming game, and I was just wondering if you all thought they were a fun class.

Now, I'm aware that they aren't the most powerful class, but it looks fun, so I'm just looking for some opinions on your experiences with them


-Suzuro

Fawsto
2008-05-12, 12:39 PM
I have not actually played the class. But the best part of the Hexblade is definetly the flavor of it. It represents THE dark warrior in many ways, and I am not talking about any black armored fighter or a blackguard, I mean he has powers that come directly from the darkness.

You will, indeed, suffer if you play the current warblade. It has lame class skills. You should do the following, go to the wizard's forum (www.wizards... bla bla bla, you know it already) or here at Gitp, and find the rebalanced or reviewed Hexblade. They add fortitude or will (can't remmember) as a good save, the hexblade can use his Blade's Curse up to 1 or 2 + Cha chances per day and if they miss it they do not expend the use. There are other corrected stuff.

I wouldn't play a Hexblade due to the fact that I enjoy more Good Shinning warriors such Paladins and Crusaders, but I think that with the rebalancing the class can become very fun to play.

Starbuck_II
2008-05-12, 12:51 PM
I'm debating playing a Hexblade in an upcoming game, and I was just wondering if you all thought they were a fun class.

Now, I'm aware that they aren't the most powerful class, but it looks fun, so I'm just looking for some opinions on your experiences with them


-Suzuro

They are good, but their spells and curse needs work. Curse DC is low. The mechanic is nice, but the way they set the saves needs work.
They have too few spells/day.
They have good BAB and HD though.

Mettle helps protect from Prismatic spells, Inflict wounds, etc spells. Saves those are fort or will partial effects.
So their spell defenses are good.
AC will kinda suck sinde stuck in non-heavy armor (unless have lots of Dexd than light okay).

Keld Denar
2008-05-12, 12:53 PM
Hexblade makes a decent full BAB base if you are planning on going into another PrC, like Pious Templar, Exotic Weapon Master, Occult Slayer, Blackguard, or similar. They get most of their good abilities by like, level 4 if you take the Dark Companion ACF from PHBII. You'll be pretty effective, as effective as any other character wielding a 2hand sword with Power Attack. As with any melee, your job will be to hit stuff hard until it stops moving. You'll have the advantage of your curse though. You could move your Dark Companion onto a foe, then Curse it (foe takes -2 on this save from the DC) and if that hits, your caster allies can then open up with the big guns to take advantage of this big swing in saves. If you went Blackguard, you could impose another -2 saves due to Aura of Dispair, and if you took one of the fear feats like Frightful Presence you'd impose another -2 to saves from making your foe shaken. Through this, you function as a potent debuffer to allow your caster friends to utilize save or suck type spells before you deliver the killing blow.

So, its not a bad class, so long as you don't plan on going 1-20 with it. Comparable to taking Fighter 4 as a base minus the bonus feats plus hex, dark companion, metal, and arcane resistance. If that's what you want to do, take Hexblade, otherwise take Fighter or Barbarian.

Draz74
2008-05-12, 01:00 PM
Here (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=10585113#post10585113) is the "Rebalanced Hexblade," a popular variant that is supposed to make it more fun to play. Many DMs will accept this variant because it is homebrewed by one of Complete Warrior's original authors.

Chronicled
2008-05-12, 01:12 PM
Here (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=10585113#post10585113) is the "Rebalanced Hexblade," a popular variant that is supposed to make it more fun to play. Many DMs will accept this variant because it is homebrewed by one of Complete Warrior's original authors.

I've allowed this (I think I gave 3/4 fixes) as DM, and the player enjoyed being a hexblade. He also took the PH2's Dark Companion alternate class feature, which was much better than a familiar would be--between the Dark Companion, the Curse, and the party cleric & bard's buffs, the party barbarian could Power Attack for full each round and reliably hit. The hexblade himself wasn't the most powerful character in the party, but his ability to massively debuff enemies meant that the party was taking on CRs much higher than they could if he'd been a fighter or other straight-up meleer.

Theodoxus
2008-05-12, 01:21 PM
As a base fighting class for a dwarf, it's pretty damn awesome. I'm currently playing a Fighter/Hex/Paragon specializing in shield slams. The ability to shrug off a lot of magic is very nice.

I wrote up a dwarven rogue/hex varient that's also rather nasty - with evasion effective against all 3 saves, he's pretty unstoppable - especially since I boosted his charisma - by 8th level, he had a +5 bonus against spells and SLAs. The Dark Companion is nice, but I only take a 3 level dip... Arcane Resistance and Mettle are what make the class uber for dipping.

Theo

Person_Man
2008-05-12, 02:54 PM
I've played a Hexblade, and DM'd a game with one. I had a fun time, but I was playing with a newbie party at the time. If your party includes anyone who is optimized, you'll be comparatively nerfed, and that this could limit your enjoyment.

What is it that you'd like to do? Debuff? Mounted Combat? Tank? Gish? Something else? What books are allowed?

Possible stronger options:

Debuff: Bard 1/Full BAB Class 4/Warchanter 10: Pick up Doomspeak feat from Champions of Ruin. It uses Bardic music to impose a -10 penalty on 1 enemy for 1 turn. Warchanter also has a potent Fear song, and the ability to use 2 songs at the same time. Any full caster can also be an effective debuffer.

Mounted Combat: There are a million options for this. Any small race on a medium mount with the mounted combat feats work fine. My favorites are Knight or Paladin with the Leadership feat.

Tank: Again, there are a million options for this. Crusader is the easy/obvious choice. But my current favorite is Barbarian 2/Paladin of Freedom 3/Hellreaver 5 (Fiendish Codex 2). You get Rage, Pounce, Uncanny Dodge, Cha to ALL Saves, Immunity to Compulsion, Immunity to Disease, Immunity to Fear, Mettle, and the ability to heal 20 points of damage every round as a Swift Action, plus some other minor benefits. Pick up a Ring of Evasion, and you're set for pretty much anything.

Gish: Any Abjurant Champion build. If you're dying for full BAB, you can be a Ranger or Paladin with the Sword of the Arcane Order feat (Champions of Valor), which lets you memorize Wizard spells in your Ranger/Paladin slots.

wormwood
2008-05-15, 09:36 AM
A friend in a campaign i'm playing now has a fighter/hexblade/blackguard. He's planning to grab a ring of evasion and will be practically immune to magic when he does. The double Charisma bonus to all saves with Mettle and Evasion means if it allows a save, nothing happens (I think he's sporting a 16 charisma so +6 to all saves). He's a power attacking monster, too. The double whammy he provides with the Blackguard Aura and his Hexblade curse has definitely allowed the rest of us to land some nasty spells that wouldn't have gotten through otherwise.

So, in short, I wouldn't play a straight Hexblade but they make for some nasty combinations with other stuff.

Hyudra
2008-05-15, 11:05 AM
I'm playing in an Eberron game with a low-ish level hexblade with the changes listed in one of the posts above.

It's a terrific character, fun, interesting and novel. It had a definite flavor, and did it's job in the group.

One of the most underrated advantages for the Hexblade is arguably it's familiar, as it benefits so much from the high attack bonus & hp. I'm planning on going with improved familiar as soon as possible, to go from having a hawk that's more or less a damage over time spell (he hits reliably, hasn't been hit in combat yet, but does minimal damage) to something with more clout.

I went with the leadership feat for flavor reasons (The game is set several years later than usual, and Karrnath is undergoing a restructuring of government. My character is among the people trying to restore 'old Karrnath', and is gathering followers for that reason.) but if I hadn't, I probably would've gone with the dark companion feature & then snagged [Obtain Familiar] with my level 6 feat.

Swooper
2008-05-15, 11:12 AM
I'm playing a Marshal 4/Hexblade 8//Dragon Shaman 12 in a gestalt PbP game here on these forums. It just recently went off and is starting kind of slowly so I can't tell you how efficient it is in practise, but in theory it looks very nice. I'm not focusing all that much on the hexblade, but it's an essential part of the build nevertheless.

Some advice... let's see. Obviously, boost your charisma as high as you can. You have tons of stuff flowing off it - spells, curse, saves and bonuses to many of your class skills. Ability Focus: Hexblade's Curse is worth the feat I think, it's a +2 to the DC of an ability you'll be using all the time (assuming the semi-official fix here). The Dark Companion is pretty good, but don't underestimate the familiar. Hexblade is arguably the best class to actually use a familiar, especially if you get the Improved Familiar feat for something nasty like a Winter Wolf. The reason? Familiar uses your BAB, saves and half your hit points. You have full BAB, amazing saves (or wait, do they get the Charisma bonus or only the base save? Still good if they don't) and d10 HD. When you get second level spells, be sure to pick up Whirling Blade. It's from Complete Arcane, reprinted in Spell Compendium. It's a bit confusing though, the CArc's list of Hexblade spells is in a sidebar on page 94, not with the rest of the spell lists for some reason. It's a truly amazing offensive spell if you have a strong melee attack. The best part though? It only affects enemies :smallbiggrin: (YMMV depending on how your DM reads the spell)

Edit: If anyone's curious, there's a link to my build in the sig - Kabrain.

Keld Denar
2008-05-15, 11:48 AM
When you get second level spells, be sure to pick up Whirling Blade. It's from Complete Arcane, reprinted in Spell Compendium. It's a bit confusing though, the CArc's list of Hexblade spells is in a sidebar on page 94, not with the rest of the spell lists for some reason. It's a truly amazing offensive spell if you have a strong melee attack. The best part though? It only affects enemies :smallbiggrin: (YMMV depending on how your DM reads the spell)


No, there is no depending, unless your DM is making up new rules. WB hits creatures you designate that are included in the 60' line. This is both a blessing and a curse though. Sure, it protects you from friendly fire, but it also means that you can't hit creatures you can't see (and therefore target). That, and the fact that its blocked by a Lesser Globe of Invulnerability are really the only 2 weaknesses of that spell. I love WB. Anyone who reads this list should realize that WB and Solid Fog are possibly my 2 most favorite spells.

A fun thing to do with your WB is to grab a couple different Lesser Metamagic Rods, and use them with WB. Empower Spell is a great one to use. Since weapon damage is variable, the spell has a variable damage component and can be empowered. Since Empower Spell multiplies the end result of the spell, ALL of the other weapon factors are multiplied as well. Str bonus, enhancement bonuses, damage from enhancements, feats like Weapon Specialization, Melee Weapon Mastery, and Power Attack (2handed) are all multiplied by 1.5. Sculpt is arguably valid as well, since while line is an area, Sculpt only applies to bursts, cones, and spreads. Its not a hard stretch to add lines to that list though. Maximize is less good than Empower, but not bad if you have a lot of dice you are throwing (+1 Holy Shocking, Visious, Bane Greatsword is 9d6 alone). Twin and Quicken straight up double your damage, which is good, but not really worth the extra cost increase over Empower.


Oh, and regarding Familiars. If you are going to go straight Hexblade, consider the Polymorph subschool of spells from PHBII and Complete Mage. Trollshape is a swift action to turn your familiar into a frothing hungry maniac, and Displacer Shape is pretty decent too. Of course, if you get an imp/hellhound or other outsider, you can Alter Self it into something big and nasty as well.

Swooper
2008-05-15, 12:04 PM
Hmm, I suppose. When I looked it up last I remember thinking that it was a bit ambiguous, but reading it again I see that it really isn't. "You hurl a weapon held at the time of casting, and it magically attacks all enemies along a line to the extent of the spell’s range." Not much space for interpretation. :smallsmile:

Again, thanks for pointing this spell out to me lussmanj.

Nohwl
2008-05-15, 03:30 PM
hexblade looked like an interesting class to play. i keep wanting to play one, but i never get around to making one to play.