New Character - WOW

[Aaedimus]

My peace loving glamor bard died last week, so I came back with a narcissistic zealot. I did not think he was gonna be so effective! Holy wow.

Ravenite Black Dragonborn

Lvl 3 Rune Fighter
Lvl 5 Hexblade Warlock (bow)

He started with an Oathbow (his only weapon)

We went up against a death knight...
50 damage on my turn,
Than I got to attack him as a reaction and crit....
For 107 damage

Doing a total of 157 as a level 8 multiclass.

It can only work on big baddies on a short rest (stacked smite, oathbow, hexblade curse, giant size damage, fire rune)

But I didn't even action surge. I could have run over 200 on one turn at level 8... and with action surge and attack as a reaction thats 5 attacks, with advantage (the bow) with a crit range of 19 (hexblade).

Just wanted to share because I was like: woah... I did not expect that!

[Silpharon]

Yeah, that's a lot of damage! The oathbow is a big boost to be sure, it makes sense you got it given the circumstances.

That's a lot of abilities too that don't require concentration. I'm surprised you were using wrathful (edit: branding) smite, it doesn't seem worth it next to hex from an efficiency perspective.

In general, when I see Hexblade, I think massive damage. :)

[RogueJK]

I'm surprised you were using wrathful smite, it doesn't seem worth it next to hex from an efficiency perspective.

If you look beyond pure DPR over consecutive rounds, Wrathful Smite can be quite handy thanks to the fear status effect.

If they fail their initial WIS save and trigger the Frightened condition, in subsequent rounds they have to spend their Action to attempt a WIS ability check (not a save, so no proficiency) in order to break free. And because they're Frightened, they have Disadvantage on ability checks as long as you're within line of sight, along with limited movement and Disadvantage on attack rolls. Plus you get a little bit of extra damage in the initial round.

Therefore, it's tough for them to break out because of the Disadvantaged Ability Check vs. a normal save, and they're having to waste their Action(s) just to attempt it. It's not an automatic chance to break free with a save every turn like a lot of status effect spells.

So they're given the choice of spending their Action on debuffed Disadvantaged Attacks, or spending their Action to try to remove the debuff with a Disadvantaged ability check, or fleeing out of your line of sight (likely triggering one or more OAs) before spending their Action to try to remove the debuff with a straight ability check. Either way, they're debuffed or potentially taken out of the fight completely, usually for multiple rounds unless there's a convenient way to break line of sight immediately nearby and they have a good WIS score.

Along with the very high level Banishing Smite, it's easily the best of the Paladin Smite spells, and really the only ones that I see being worth using on occasion instead of simply spending the spell slot on a standard Divine Smite or a different spell. (And it's especially nice on Conquest Paladins.)

[Silpharon]

If you look beyond pure DPR over consecutive rounds, Wrathful Smite can be quite handy thanks to the fear status effect.

If they fail their initial WIS save and trigger the Frightened condition, in subsequent rounds they have to spend their Action to attempt a WIS ability check (not a save, so no proficiency) in order to break free. And because they're Frightened, they have Disadvantage on ability checks as long as you're within line of sight, along with limited movement and Disadvantage on attack rolls. Plus you get a little bit of extra damage in the initial round.

Therefore, it's tough for them to break out because of the Disadvantaged Ability Check vs. a normal save, and they're having to waste their Action(s) just to attempt it. It's not an automatic chance to break free with a save every turn like a lot of status effect spells.

So they're given the choice of spending their Action on debuffed Disadvantaged Attacks, or spending their Action to try to remove the debuff with a Disadvantaged ability check, or fleeing out of your line of sight (likely triggering one or more OAs) before spending their Action to try to remove the debuff with a straight ability check. Either way, they're debuffed or potentially taken out of the fight completely, usually for multiple rounds unless there's a convenient way to break line of sight immediately nearby and they have a good WIS score.

Along with the very high level Banishing Smite, it's easily the best of the Paladin Smite spells, and really the only ones that I see being worth using on occasion instead of simply spending the spell slot on a standard Divine Smite or a different spell. (And it's especially nice on Conquest Paladins.)

So I'm silly, I meant to say branding smite. He couldn't have used wrathful smite with the oathbow. Still, I hadn't seen such a great explanation on wrathful smite, so I appreciate it!

[CheddarChampion]

This would have taken two turns to set up, given that giant's might and Hexblade's curse both use your bonus action right?

This definitely used up most of your resources. Did you have to do anything else between rests? If so, how much did/could you contribute other than two bow attacks per turn or cantrips?

How exactly did you manage to get a reaction attack with a bow?

Lastly it sounds like the Oathbow contributed a lot. How many times would you have hit the AC 20 death knight if you didn't have advantage from the Oathbow?

Spoiler: About 50% of the time right?

Show

(+9 to hit: +4 Cha, +3 Prof, +2 archery fighting style, so you need to roll 11+?)

I don't know many DMs that grant Very Rare magic items to level 8 characters.

[Silly Name]

This would have taken two turns to set up, given that giant's might and Hexblade's curse both use your bonus action right?

This definitely used up most of your resources. Did you have to do anything else between rests? If so, how much did/could you contribute other than two bow attacks per turn or cantrips?

How exactly did you manage to get a reaction attack with a bow?

Lastly it sounds like the Oathbow contributed a lot. How many times would you have hit the AC 20 death knight if you didn't have advantage from the Oathbow?

Spoiler: About 50% of the time right?

Show

(+9 to hit: +4 Cha, +3 Prof, +2 archery fighting style, so you need to roll 11+?)

I don't know many DMs that grant Very Rare magic items to level 8 characters.

The Oathbow certainly helped, but it's not too hard to have advantage on an attack roll at level 8. The biggest contribute here is the extra 3d6 damage.

[Aaedimus]

I'm surprised you were using wrathful (edit: branding) smite, it doesn't seem worth it next to hex from an efficiency perspective.

The only smite I used was Eldritch Smite. It was the rune knight fire rune that tacked on the damage.

[Aaedimus]

This would have taken two turns to set up, given that giant's might and Hexblade's curse both use your bonus action right?

This definitely used up most of your resources. Did you have to do anything else between rests? If so, how much did/could you contribute other than two bow attacks per turn or cantrips?

How exactly did you manage to get a reaction attack with a bow?

Lastly it sounds like the Oathbow contributed a lot. How many times would you have hit the AC 20 death knight if you didn't have advantage from the Oathbow?

Spoiler: About 50% of the time right?

Show

(+9 to hit: +4 Cha, +3 Prof, +2 archery fighting style, so you need to roll 11+?)

I don't know many DMs that grant Very Rare magic items to level 8 characters.

It's an Eberron Campaign that is almost over, since everyone else was stacked with magic items, he gave me a thumbs up with the very rare bow. Especially since my pc is going to be an npc in the next campaign. I wanted everyone to crap themselves when they realize they're gonna have to fight him.

The reaction attack was because of the Ravenite racial ability (you can attack someone who does damage on you and is within range of your weapon once a day)

Other than the bow attacks, he's got the rune knight runes (cloud rune saved someone’s life) and as a warlock I always have the choice of using utility spells instead of yeeting on them, and because I took fey touched, rune knight, and will be taking shadow touched, it drastically helps with the warlock spell slot limitations.

The nova is a once per day thing. But even without it, I can easily add 2d6 to almost every attack since hex at level 3 is an 8 hour concentration it doesn't detract too much from spell slots, and I get 4 rune knight giant size buffs a day. Since he has the Archery fighting style and the Hexblade gives the bow a +1 to hit, it's +11 to hit. Even without advantage it's rare he doesn't hit. And yes, to get the extra D6 it takes 2 turns to "set up" but that does is icing and you're fine without it. The 107 damage attack didn't have hex in it because i didn't have time to get the second bonus action in.

This is my first "martial" (not full spellcaster) in 3 years. Usually I play wizards, druids, or clerics.

[Keravath]

My peace loving glamor bard died last week, so I came back with a narcissistic zealot. I did not think he was gonna be so effective! Holy wow.

Ravenite Black Dragonborn

Lvl 3 Rune Fighter
Lvl 5 Hexblade Warlock (bow)

He started with an Oathbow (his only weapon)

We went up against a death knight...
50 damage on my turn,
Than I got to attack him as a reaction and crit....
For 107 damage

Doing a total of 157 as a level 8 multiclass.

It can only work on big baddies on a short rest (stacked smite, oathbow, hexblade curse, giant size damage, fire rune)

But I didn't even action surge. I could have run over 200 on one turn at level 8... and with action surge and attack as a reaction thats 5 attacks, with advantage (the bow) with a crit range of 19 (hexblade).

Just wanted to share because I was like: woah... I did not expect that!

Hexblade's curse - bonus action - 1/SR - add proficiency to each attack - +3 for an 8th level character
Branding smite (?) - bonus action - you only have 2 spell slots - "The attack deals an extra 2d6 radiant damage to the target" +1d6 for 3rd level slot
Oathbow - assume base d8 longbow - "If the Attack hits, your Sworn Enemy takes an extra 3d6 piercing damage." 1 creature/LR
Fire rune - "summon fiery shackles: the target takes an extra 2d6 fire damage" - 1/SR
Giant's Might - bonus action - "extra 1d6 damage to a target on a hit." 3/LR at level 8

Also, assuming
Thirsting blade
Improved Pact Weapon
Eldritch Smite - with your other 3rd level spell slot for an addition 4d8 damage (note: the eldritch smite does more damage than the other smiting spells so if the additional abilities of the smite spells aren't needed then eldritch smite is a better choice ... if you are going to pick eldritch smite :) ).

Total damage dice:
Branding smite - 3d6
Eldritch Smite - 4d8
Oathbow - d8 + 3d6
Fire Rune - 2d6
Giant's Might - d6
Improved pact weapon - +1
Stat - +5
Curse - +3

Total: 9d6 + 5d8 + 9 = 9 * 3.5 + 5 * 4.5 +9 = 31.5 + 22.5 + 9 = 63 or on a crit this is 117 damage on average.

It is really cool but it takes 3 rounds to set up since giant size, hexblade's curse, and branding smite all require a bonus action each to get going. It also uses up both of the character's level 3 spell slots. If you get the chance to set it up then go for it :) but it takes a lot of time and circumstance for it to work out like this and you only get to do it once. (but when you get it all to work together it is pretty awesome :) ).

[Aaedimus]

Again, I never used branding Smite. My only bonus action on that attack was from Giant size. The fire damage was from the rune knight fire rune which can just be tacked on.

So, the hexblade/giant size helps build damage for longer conflicts, but your nova works without prep time (it's just not quite AS effective).