Intelligence hexblade/wizard multiclass advice!

[Grimmonsoon]

Before anyone tells me warlock and wizard has no synergy, please note I am playing an INTELLIGENCE based warlock. About six months into playing the character my amazing GM asked if I would be interested in swapping from charisma to intelligence as it fit the character much better. It's only for that reason that I'm considering this multi-class at all.

Now to the post!

So basically, I have a level 8 hexblade, the build is pact of the blade + polearm master. She kicks absolutely ass in combat, especially once she has her Hex and Hexblade's Curse up and running. With the latest ASI her stats are finally where I want them (got my 20 intelligence, every other stat is acceptable) and really right now the only thing I'm hurting for is spell slots. In particular it's a bit annoying to cast Hex with a 4th level spell slot, and I find I'm not doing any magical shenanigans outside of combat because I've only got the two slots to play with. My GM/table doesn't like taking frequent short rests unless there's a lot of combat, and often there is not.

So, I was thinking a wizard multiclass. More spell slots, more spell versatility, makes sense for the character (she was a wizard before she was a warlock) and this is pretty much the only chance I'd have to do this multiclass because ordinarily warlock and wizard doesn't work at all. My GM has ok-ed the multiclass but doesn't allow unearthed arcana or homebrew and has also disallowed bladesinger for being too strong.

EDIT: ooh I forgot to mention, she's not a blaster-caster. I didn't even take Eldritch Blast, no interest in using it. Melee gish is where it's at! Basically I want the extra spell slots for utility and playing around outside of combat, but I'd still like to maintain my awesome gish build as much as I can.


Incidentally here's the fluff and character concept, if you're interested! This may help explain something about the theme I'm going for:

Spoiler:

Show

To avoid making you read five paragraphs of backstory, she was a student wizard who through magical mishaps ended up being flung into Mechanus. She was picked up by a pragmatic high-ranking modron who looked after her in exchange for her service when she returned to the Material Plane, correcting 'anomalies' there that are serious enough to affect Mechanus' clockwork.

Years spent in Mechanus have made her veeerry logical and clever but somewhat alien when back among normal people. She's one of those who could discuss magical theory for hours but struggles to make small talk. Her bluntness makes the group laugh a lot.

A lot of her magic is related to plane-hopping and time-space stuff, which our campaign has a decent amount of. Her signature spell (aside from Hex, naturally) is Slow, particularly as her weapon lets her cast it for free once per long rest. She also does a bit of necromancy given hexblades have that raise-a-spectre ability, but anything that would normally be Shadowfell-y has been reflavoured as Mechanus-y. Think ticking clockwork and spinning gears and you've got the gist of the theme.

Anyhoo, this is pretty much what I'd like to know:

What level split do you think I should go for? I'd like at least two levels in wizard to get a feature, which gets me two 1st-level spells slots (really only planning to use these for Hex or Shield). If I go to level 3 I get four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots (Hex lasts 8 hours instead of 10 minutes) and if I go to level 4 I get another 2nd-level slot and an ASI (likely to take Great Weapon Master to keep up in the melee damage).

If I put further levels in Hexblade: level 9 gets me 5th-level spell slots (very good to have and I'll be waiting a looong time for 5th-level spell slots otherwise) and level 10 gets me Armour of Hexes, where the enemy you slapped Hexblade's Curse on has 1/3 a chance to miss you. That's... alright, but I'm good at battle positioning / hiding behind our pally tank so I don't usually get targeted.

To an extent it's worth considering what will be fun/useful now because we level soooo sloooowly in this game. For reference, we've been playing consistently for two years and the group is level 8. We play once every 2-3 weeks and our sessions average 8 hours. What will be good at level 20 is less useful to me because our game may never reach that point, and if it does I'm going to be middle aged.

That said I know that's how you quantify the builds so should I be, say... wizard 2/warlock 18? wizard 4/warlock 16? wizard 6/warlock 14?


What wizard subclass do you think works? These two are the strongest contenders imo:

• Divination: Portent is always strong, and guaranteed fails against Slow works very nicely. Downside, I don't have much use for the rest of the features. The 6th level isn't all that useful to me, the 10th level is interesting, but 10 warlock/10 wizard strikes me as a bad level split.
• War Wizard: +2 to AC or +4 to saving throws and +5 to initiative is glorious. I don't see myself using the 6th level Power Surge all that much. 10th level +2 to AC/saves when concentrating is good because I'm always concentrating on Hex or Slow but again... not sure I'd go to wizard 10.

These ones might be useful:

• Evocation: Sculpt spells would be excellent for Sickening Radiance, which is one of my favourite AoE spells.
• Transmutation: 2nd level isn't great but 6th level Philosopher's Stone is useful, particularly as I guaranteed cast Slow (which is transmutation) once a day which lets me change the properties.

Anything else? I've probably forgotten to mention something, so let me know if you think of anything else that might help the build.


Thanks for reading!

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Abjuration may be nice.
The ward can save you from needing to roll concentration and you will heal it every time you will use shield.
It can also be set up every morning with the use of alarm as a ritual if you won't have a short rest for you lock spells.

[Skylivedk]

Abjuration is very strong with Armour of Agathys due to the extra mileage it gets. Counterspell, dispel magic and banishment are good spells to use for in-combat recharge.

War Wizard is good if you only want a smaller dip. The iniative boost is massive!

I would very much look at going for 11 or 12 (ASI and life drinker - especially since you have PAM) in Hexblade. My personal experience was that the 3rd slot really changed the game, since it doubled my non-AoA slots (I honestly found AoA so good it was next to mandatory), and once you are at 12, 14-17 are all very tempting.

Armour of hexes is 50% miss chance on one attack. Good against the creeps where AoA is bad.

[Grimmonsoon]

Abjuration may be nice.
The ward can save you from needing to roll concentration and you will heal it every time you will use shield.
It can also be set up every morning with the use of alarm as a ritual if you won't have a short rest for you lock spells.

That's an excellent point. The ward would have 9 HP to start and the enemies we're fighting at level 8 hit a lot harder than that, but every little helps.

[Grimmonsoon]

Abjuration is very strong with Armour of Agathys due to the extra mileage it gets. Counterspell, dispel magic and banishment are good spells to use for in-combat recharge.

War Wizard is good if you only want a smaller dip. The iniative boost is massive!

I would very much look at going for 11 or 12 (ASI and life drinker - especially since you have PAM) in Hexblade. My personal experience was that the 3rd slot really changed the game, since it doubled my non-AoA slots (I honestly found AoA so good it was next to mandatory), and once you are at 12, 14-17 are all very tempting.

Armour of hexes is 50% miss chance on one attack. Good against the creeps where AoA is bad.

I'm actually not using AoA at the minute! Because of my 10ft reach and tendency to position myself where I'm hard to hit I've been using Mirror Image/Blink instead, and usually nothing at all. I had a look at the spell again though and it scales quite well so I'll probably swap it back into my spells on the next level up. Mixed with abjuration it means the ward takes the damage before AoA, and when you cast AoA the ward is replenished, is that right?

Snap you're right, Armour of Hexes is a roll of 4/5/6, not 5/6, which makes it better than I thought. It sounds like at least 12 in Hexblade is strong, but is it worth going to 14 or 16...

[Sorinth]

I'm actually not using AoA at the minute! Because of my 10ft reach and tendency to position myself where I'm hard to hit I've been using Mirror Image/Blink instead, and usually nothing at all. I had a look at the spell again though and it scales quite well so I'll probably swap it back into my spells on the next level up. Mixed with abjuration it means the ward takes the damage before AoA, and when you cast AoA the ward is replenished, is that right?

Snap you're right, Armour of Hexes is a roll of 4/5/6, not 5/6, which makes it better than I thought. It sounds like at least 12 in Hexblade is strong, but is it worth going to 14 or 16...

AoA triggers even if the ward absorbs all the damage which is why it can be such a killer combo when the ward has tons of hit points. However that build is more of a Abjurer with a Warlock dip instead of the other way around.

Divination is a great option because Portent can be very strong. Illusion might offer the most out of combat versatility depending on how creative you are and how the DM treats illusions.

[Skylivedk]

I'm actually not using AoA at the minute! Because of my 10ft reach and tendency to position myself where I'm hard to hit I've been using Mirror Image/Blink instead, and usually nothing at all. I had a look at the spell again though and it scales quite well so I'll probably swap it back into my spells on the next level up. Mixed with abjuration it means the ward takes the damage before AoA, and when you cast AoA the ward is replenished, is that right?

Snap you're right, Armour of Hexes is a roll of 4/5/6, not 5/6, which makes it better than I thought. It sounds like at least 12 in Hexblade is strong, but is it worth going to 14 or 16...

14 allows you to move Hexblade's Curse. Super valuable. That's +5 damage per hit and crit range. Also forcecage is a level 7 spell and one of the game's best disables.

Against multiple attack opponents or many creeps, I've on purpose tanked quite a lot. In darkness they can't even see what's killing their friends. I've had many encounters where AoA led the damage charts. 25 damage is about 7d6 worth of damage. If you can squeeze a few procs out of it, that can end up being a lot. I dropped mirror image for the same reason.

AoA triggers even if the ward absorbs all the damage which is why it can be such a killer combo when the ward has tons of hit points. However that build is more of a Abjurer with a Warlock dip instead of the other way around.

Divination is a great option because Portent can be very strong. Illusion might offer the most out of combat versatility depending on how creative you are and how the DM treats illusions.

I think portent makes more sense than illusion for a dip. At least I've found the static image part to be a huge downside of minor illusion to a degree where most of my minor illusion uses are plain sound anyway.

War Wizard probably takes the cake if it's only 3 levels of dipping

Thank you for emphasising how AoA and abjuration work together. I've wanted to build and Abjuration oath of conquest Paladin just for this

[Skylivedk]

I'm actually not using AoA at the minute! Because of my 10ft reach and tendency to position myself where I'm hard to hit I've been using Mirror Image/Blink instead, and usually nothing at all. I had a look at the spell again though and it scales quite well so I'll probably swap it back into my spells on the next level up. Mixed with abjuration it means the ward takes the damage before AoA, and when you cast AoA the ward is replenished, is that right?

Snap you're right, Armour of Hexes is a roll of 4/5/6, not 5/6, which makes it better than I thought. It sounds like at least 12 in Hexblade is strong, but is it worth going to 14 or 16...

14 allows you to move Hexblade's Curse. Super valuable. That's +5 damage per hit and crit range. Also forcecage is a level 7 spell and one of the game's best disables.

Against multiple attack opponents or many creeps, I've on purpose tanked quite a lot. In darkness they can't even see what's killing their friends. I've had many encounters where AoA led the damage charts. 25 damage is about 7d6 worth of damage. If you can squeeze a few procs out of it, that can end up being a lot. I dropped mirror image for the same reason.

AoA triggers even if the ward absorbs all the damage which is why it can be such a killer combo when the ward has tons of hit points. However that build is more of a Abjurer with a Warlock dip instead of the other way around.

Divination is a great option because Portent can be very strong. Illusion might offer the most out of combat versatility depending on how creative you are and how the DM treats illusions.

I think portent makes more sense than illusion for a dip. At least I've found the static image part to be a huge downside of minor illusion to a degree where most of my minor illusion uses are plain sound anyway.

War Wizard probably takes the cake if it's only 3 levels of dipping

Thank you for emphasising how AoA and abjuration work together. I've wanted to build and Abjuration / Oath of Conquest Paladin just for this. I would need some godly stats though :)

[Nagog]

How RAW is your DM? Considering the outlawing of UA, I'd typically lean towards very RAW, but they also have allowed you to swap Cha for Int on a Warlock (not OP, but not RAW).

That said, Conjuration may be an interesting subclass for Wizard. I say such because if you can set up Flanking with a summoned creature, you can combine that with Hexblade's Curse to make a great Crit Fishing build, then use spare higher level slots from Warlock to smite for massive single target damage.
That said, a good enough Familiar can also provide flanking if the Paladin from the initial post isn't providing it. If either of those are the case, I'd go Divination, and still pick up Eldritch Smite. If you get a 19 or 20 on Portent, that's an automatic crit on a Cursed target, at which point you can Smite to blow them straight to Avernus.

[Bobthewizard]

3 level dip in wizard gets you second level spells, 6 spell slots and still have access to 9th level spells eventually.

If you have another arcane caster that can get those 9th level spells, then 5 or 7 levels of wizard might work well. There are some 3rd level spells that are amazing and don't need to be upcast - hypnotic pattern, fear, slow, thunder step, counterspell. You'll get 7th level spells as a warlock but more flexibility with the wizard spells. I like mass suggestion and force cage too much to forego any more hexblade.

For subclass, I'd vote War or Evocation. Abjuration works better with more levels in wizard. Portent gets less useful as legendary resistance becomes more of a problem. I like Illusion better at higher levels. War has some basic mechanical goodies. Evocation with sickening radiance is amazing if your DM lets you exclude yourself.

[Grimmonsoon]

How RAW is your DM? Considering the outlawing of UA, I'd typically lean towards very RAW, but they also have allowed you to swap Cha for Int on a Warlock (not OP, but not RAW).

That said, Conjuration may be an interesting subclass for Wizard. I say such because if you can set up Flanking with a summoned creature, you can combine that with Hexblade's Curse to make a great Crit Fishing build, then use spare higher level slots from Warlock to smite for massive single target damage.
That said, a good enough Familiar can also provide flanking if the Paladin from the initial post isn't providing it. If either of those are the case, I'd go Divination, and still pick up Eldritch Smite. If you get a 19 or 20 on Portent, that's an automatic crit on a Cursed target, at which point you can Smite to blow them straight to Avernus.

Variable on RAW, but I'd say he's against min-maxing on principle, and tends to clamp down on munchkin tactics. I couldn't get away with the Darkness/Devils Sight wombo-combo, for example. He does love my character though which is why he proposed swapping Charisma for Intelligence, but I wouldn't want to push for any more flexibility.

Ahh, we don't use flanking rules, and conjures aren't really the character's style anyway.

Divination is really tempting. I don't have Eldritch Smite yet because again I'm using all my high-level spell slots on annoyingly low level spells like Hex, but I'd like to pick up the Invocation eventually.

[Grimmonsoon]

3 level dip in wizard gets you second level spells, 6 spell slots and still have access to 9th level spells eventually.

If you have another arcane caster that can get those 9th level spells, then 5 or 7 levels of wizard might work well. There are some 3rd level spells that are amazing and don't need to be upcast - hypnotic pattern, fear, slow, thunder step, counterspell. You'll get 7th level spells as a warlock but more flexibility with the wizard spells. I like mass suggestion and force cage too much to forego any more hexblade.

For subclass, I'd vote War or Evocation. Abjuration works better with more levels in wizard. Portent gets less useful as legendary resistance becomes more of a problem. I like Illusion better at higher levels. War has some basic mechanical goodies. Evocation with sickening radiance is amazing if your DM lets you exclude yourself.

Agreed that while abjuration has huge potential, it needs more of a wizard dip than I think I'm going for, which is probably 6 levels in wizard max - it sounds like hexblade 14 is worth holding out for, and 15th level would get me an 8th level spell. I can live without 9th level I think.

We have a GOO warlock in the group as well actually, but he's going down the well-trodden path of cthulu madness so I'm not sure he's going to make it to 9th level spells haha. But we have a druid too.

Evocation is so tempting for use with Sickening Radiance but it's the only Evocation spell I currently have and this character isn't the fireball and lightning bolt flinging type. But gooosh Sickening Radiance is so good, it's completely melted our enemies every time I've used it.

[Misterwhisper]

Celestial warlock 2 / abjurer X.
Take armor of shadows and agonizing blast.

Gets you a little pocket healing And a new spell or 2.
At will mage armor to refill ward for free.
Agonizing blast for when you want to save spells.

I would combine warlock with artificer personally.

[Aelioran]

I just sat down and went over the pros and cons of the same type of build with a melee Hexblade and Sorcerer multiclass. Lifedrinker seemed to be necessary to keep damage comparable to Eldritch Blast, so I decided to go with at least 12 levels in warlock. At that point there was probably more consistent damage in picking up Master of Hexes than the 4th level sorcerer spells (especially considering the spells wouldn't be available until level 19). In the end I determined that the best bet for me was probably one of these three:

Hexblade 15/Sorcerer 5 for 8th level Arcanum and 3rd level sorcerer spells

Hexblade 14/Sorcerer 6 for 3rd level sorcerer spells and an extra sorcery point
Or
Hexblade 17/sorcerer 3 for Forsight and a 4th warlock spell slot.

I was leaning toward the first option for a bit, but after some thought I think going to 17 for that juicy 9th level spell and pact slot is too hard to pass up and will outweigh the couple extra 3rd level spells that sorcerer has available that the warlock doesn't already get. There are not alot of sorcery points in this build, however, but I could always burn some of the lower level sorcerer slots for a couple extra quicken/twin spells if I need to.

In your case, I would weigh in on how much milage you think you would get out of the extra 3rd or 4th level spells at end game compared to being able to get more crits with your Hexblade's Curse each encounter and eventually get a huge spell to use each day. Foresight is no joke.