Boosting Hexblade..

[Zephyros]

One of my players had a mean-dice-day last session.. (Elven barbarian died to Finger of Death -.- ) So now he is rolling a hexblade.. Thing is that he asked for some boost to the power of the hexy boy. And I am open to suggestions. Currently what I am thinking of allowing is the following:

1. Give him good saves on Fortitude and Will
2. Give him access to bonus fighter feats when he gets a bonus feat
3. Give him the feats that he normally chooses at the aforementioned levels for free. He gets to choose one or two magic schools though. (I mean the foci feats.)
4. Make all the spells on the hexblade list known to him

I have worries about the fourth choice...
He is a very good roleplayer and reasonable person, so am not afraid that he ll abuse the boosts or the spotlight..

Gimme your 5 cents..

Zephyros

[PinkysBrain]

I'd keep the saves and give him duskblade casting progression with access to both the hexblade and duskblade spell lists.

IMO all the half casting progressions were a daft idea, they got it right with the bard and the duskblade.

[Dhavaer]

Good Fort save and caster level equal to class level.

[Jimp]

I usually allow the Hexblade to use its Curse ability 3+cha mod times per day instead of the normal amount. Not a huge change, but if his abilty to curse is meant to be so important then why not let him do it with some frequency?

[TheOOB]

Hmm, I usually allow good fort saves, the ability to cast with shields with no ASF, more uses of curse, and more skills/skill points.

[Stevenson]

The dead levels stuff listed on the wizards site.

[Clementx]

1) Expand his spell list as suggested in the other Complete books and several of the Assassin/Bard spells in the SC. There are a lot of gems there that make him very useful- his default list kinda blows. Remove the ones in the original that are save-intensive- your +spell level to saves is HALF of a real caster- talk about pain. Buffs and some utilities are the best, so you can remove the dross to help the player be more efficient.

2) Let him take SF (Illusion) as bonus feats. He has more Illusion spells with saves than Enchantment and Transmutation put together.

The hexblade doesn't need the boosts the OP suggests- in fact, I think they are all individually overpowered/useless. A few more curses available (by default or an Extra Cursing feat along the lines of all the other Extra [Blank] feats in the CW), and perhaps another spell slot per level, added to what is above, is all he needs.

[Merlin the Tuna]

Here are some notes from one of the designers.

[Stephen_E]

Give him the bad luck zone from PHB2 without taking away the Familiar.

Drop 1/2 CL progression and give him standard progression from the level he 1st gets spells. i.e. a standard Hexblade would have CL = class level -3. If you start the spellcasting earlier the CL penalty would reduce.

Otherwise your ideas sound like they'd give a solid PC.

I agree with the comment that someone else made. Basically they completely botched the spellcasting progression for Hexbaldes, Paladins and Rangers. They also completely botched how prestige class spell advancement interacts with them.

Stephen