The HEXBLADE Unearthed Arcana: Dnd 5.5 2024

I myself play a level 7 2014 hexblade, thank you very much..
Multiclassing is too much of a head ache for me. Also, character background matters for me.
But i gotta say, hex warrior and pact weapon features are a complete mess.

They took out medium armor and shield proficiency. Thats a really big deal for a character that is suppose to be melee focused.

Great video, thanks - I have a character which started 1st level as Paladin for mechanical (Armor/Weapon Proficiency/2 lvl 1 spell slots/Weapon Mastery etc...) and thematical reasons as I will multiclass Celestial Warlock. However I am wondering if it is worth it to take Pact of the Blade from level 2 to level 5 (before getting Thirsting Blade) as I could choose to use True Strike together with Agonizing Blast. Then I will stop using True Strike and by default take Pact of the Blade when getting Thirsting Blade.

What to do for these early levels? How does Pact of the Blade interact with True Strike and Agonizing Blast, do I get to add twice my CHA. mod to both attack rolls and damage rolls?

Then I plan on taking the Great Weapon Master feat at level 5 (1 lvl of Paladin/4 lvl of Celestial Warlock): can you confirm that True Strike does not work with Great Weapon Master?

I don't get why they are so obsessed with making hex/hunters mark some sort of super special signature to design warlock/ranger around. Sure they aren't bad spells but they also aren't that interesting. Its like deciding Wizard should be defined by Witch bolt and making all their features based on that single concentration based first level spell... Its super boring.

If they want to make the hexblade about hexes - give them some sort of Hex points ,that they can expand to inflict the curses on hits or other conditions.

Which might make them a bit bard like but why not - better than this stuff.

Like a battlemaster/bard/warlock trybrid with some paladin sprinkled in.

Maybe they just made this update horrible so people wouldn't mess with the old hexblade anymore! (cope)

Maybe scaling for hex and hunter's mark should be built in as class features, in addition to those that already exist, to make it palatable for when they want to double down on a spell like that. Make it good for the class the spell belongs to.

Personally, I think the problem is with the spells themselves. You could totally fix Ranger and Hexblade Warlock simply by fixing the spells to make them worth casting from levels 1 to 5. If they are really going to make these spells integral to classes and subclasses, they should playtest them more at each level. I think damage increases, dropping concentration at higher levels, or even looking how it is moved from target to target could all be scrutinized and modified. They could keep this classes and subclasses exactly the same but have everybody happy if they did this right. Honestly, I'd love if they paid a lot more attention to upcast mechanics instead of treating them like an afterthought. Upcasting is great, but often not for the Warlock because of how many spells upcast... or don't.

Sounds like they had a DUMB idea that they stuck with the Ranger and they trying hard to make it Stick.. please fire that person WotC

What would have made Hex more tolerable is if your weapon could apply hex (using your free casts frkm your feature) on a successful hit as a free action and the weapon had concentration for the spell with no concentration immunity. Two turn setup, concentration can still drop, limited uses but you can still cast your spells with slots in the same turn you hex.

I don't want to sound dramatic but like... Why do the designers still not know how to make classes and subclasses that are at least vaguely balanced? This seems... Really bad

The truth we all need to accept is that there are no designers at WOTC now that truly understand how to design within the infrastructure of the game mechanics, and they are not inspired or possess the level of creativity we as a community expect and deserve at that level. They are, at best, swinging away with notions left to them by the veteran creatives that recently left. And those recent notions - which infiltrated much of the 2024 creativity - were already weak. There has never been a greater opportunity for 3rd party creators to step in with their ideas.

One issue with this change is that you can no longer use your charisma for two weapons. It’s a significant nerf for dual wielding hexblades

Honestly, I think the developers of 5e 2024 don't know how to use concentration spells or in general dont understand spellcasting. Like I am glad they fixed CME but it was evident immediately to the community that it was far overtuned. I dont expect them to competely warp their game around the whims of the optimization part of the dnd community...but none of my casual friends use hex as soon as they have better spells available. Especially not with the very few spell slots warlocks have to begin with.

There's just no need for the hexblade now, could have given us a dragon patron instead

I kind of feel like there is a play for a moon bard + 3 level warlock multiclass, with both pact of chain and hexblade. The amount of save manipulation is insane. And a bard chassis (especially with pact slots) doesn't care so much about casting Hex and losing the spell slot.

Why do they keep making this?

Not gonna lie. As someone who loved Ranger (in 3.5 and conceptually but not mechanically in 5e) Seeing the collective apoplectic fits from the community as other classes get saddled with decade old Ranger complaints (key features all competing for bonus action AND concentration; and bow the all-in on Hex/Hunters Mark) makes me smile.

We told you this stuff was trash and yall made excuses and defensed the devs. Now its your turn. 😢

Stymying Mark is OP in combination with another character that can use a save or suck spell or feature.

My solution was to add Eldritch Invocations to give you some Hexblade like effects; Hex Warrior - Requires Pact of Blade. Lets you use the Mastery property of a weapon created with the pact, gives you Prof. with Medium Armor and Shields, and lets you touch a suit of armor to put it on if you're trained in it and aren't wearing it.

Persistent Hexes, can't break concentration on Hex, and you can modify it to require no Spell Slot and have a duration of 1 minute without concentration. Once per Long Rest.

Master of Hexes, while active, you can use a Bonus Action to cause Psychic damage, gaining Temp HP if the target dies while affected, and so forth. The rest of the features I rolled into a new subclass 'The Reaper'.

The Reaper has a Graven Weapon, a Reaping Curse which affects Hex, the ability to steal souls like Soul Cage, cast Summon Undead, and moving the curse around easier like Hexblade. The 3rd level feature of Graven Weapon isn't as good as the Hexblades old one, and I might tinker with it with the new stuff?

Armor of Agathys > Hex
Exponentially

While agree with the general philosophy of the lore being mediocre and the importance of making hunter's mark worth casting, I do think you're overvaluing concentration here. For a subclass focused on martial prowess, the limited pact slots can just as easily be used for a big bomb as it can a concentration spell, especially when you look at the added spell list. Those pact slots are for smites or conjure barrage, not a concentration control spell.

This guy is totally wrong about the old hexblade. LOTS of people took Hexblade, and took it higher than level 3. True, they usually started as Paladin, or Fighter, and then switched to Hexblade but I saw plenty of builds that were something like Paladin 5/Hexblade 15. This guy is saying that no one ever took Hexblade up to level 3 or higher and that's totally wrong. That makes me question everything else he says.

I’d like to see a version that gives you a slightly less powerful version of pact of the blade. There’s no way to dual wield pact weapons, so that would be pretty neat. Maybe they could also stick all of this curse stuff onto the weapon instead of the hex spell.

Ok, so , first, I would not limit the Hex to once a day but make it maybe proficiency bonus times per day. Second, like said in the video, remove the concentration on hex. Third, I would have created new invocations that supplemented Hex like Relentless Hex did in Xanathar's. Fourth, I would increase all the damage done by 1d8 and adding the Warlock level. And, last, I would remove all the saving throws from all the features.

Who asked for the Warlock to have a subclass that turned them into bad rangers?

A lot of people are gonna share their opinions on how to fix this in the survey...I'm open to suggestions if someone has a better idea than this, but I think the most effective and simplest hotfix that can be implemented is a clause under hexblades curse that says "when you cast hex with one of your free uses granted by this feature, it lasts for a full minute and does not require concentration."

Hex blades curse could read if you’re concentrating on a spell that targets a creature other than you, then you get x benefits. That or make an eratta for both hex and hunters mark because nobody uses them but they so obviously want them to be iconic

This Hex concentration issue applies to Ranger with Hunter's Mark. At some level (6?) Hunter's Mark should also no longer require concentration

I’ll stick with the 2014 version of hexblade

each new class feature level could increase the damage of hex or the dice size or some combination of the two. creatures affected by hex when hit with your pact weapon also suffer the effect of any of the eldritch blast meta effects. if level 14 means you can't lose concentration then maybe 6 gives you +CHA to your roll. but as others have suggested, 1 minute no concentration is a better solution, CHA times per long rest.
they also need to figure out how to balance the fact that a lot of tables (probably most?) don't follow the suggested number of short rests per long rest counts but that's just for warlocks in general.

Conjure Barrage! The great Ranger-only spell that the purportedly sucky Ranger gets 4 levels later, making the Ranger even suckier in comparison.

I think they missed the mark thematically by focusing on the Hex spell. Patron relationships are always "iffy," so lean into that and make the Hex Blade's "pact blade" a truly cursed weapon. Maybe have over-the-top benefits that come at a cost -- and then, to counterbalance this, maybe there's some sort of "vampiric" feedback when your hits are successful. But it shouldn't all be based on Hex. If you want to design around spells, lean into customizing all the thematically appropriate melee-based Necromancy spells -- like maybe (1) Inflict Wounds, Wrathful Smite, (3) Bestow Curse, Vampiric Touch -- and then expand to longer-range effects as you go to higher levels, stretching toward and beyond the realms of arcana, maybe like (5) Enervation, (6) Harm, and (7) Finger of Death.

my man, you're looking energetic and healthy in this video. I don't know if you have any lifestyle check, or if you're just a little bit happier today, but that glow looks great! :)

Not sure if anyone commented this, but tou'd think the jexblade subclass would be the subclass to get the blade singer style extra attack, or, at least, an invocation that allows it. Maybe even an invocation that allows you a free hex/curse in place of one of your attacks during an extra attack.

I mean, you're a hexBLADE, you should be able to get some sort of feature akin to the 2024 eldritch knight extra attack feature (my FAVORITE bit about the eldritch knight update)

What about allowing you to cast curse flavored concentration spells without concentration if you hit a creature with you hexblade you can cast one of these spells by expending a pact spell: blindness/deafness, bestow curse, geas (must be able to cast 5th level spells), or modify memory (must be able to cast 5th level spells),. They don't require concentration and last for one minute or until ended according to the spell's description. Something like this could be a fun niche.

I disagree with a lot of your assumptions regarding why it was done but I think that might be because warlock hexblade as a primary class/subclass was far more popular than you think. I played with a LOT of non-optimizers, call them "vibes" players and over the decade there was always 1 hexblade, often pure with no multiclass, at every table and several times there were debates began two players which was going to get to play it.

Being not great but conceptually thematically intriguing was enough.

To that end they could have just left it in the 2014 world. People who liked what it could do can pick any other subclass now. People who liked the vibes but didn't know or care that it wasn't good would just as likely pick it anyway. I believe it was chosen to be refine not out of a need to fix the old class but because the idea it held from 3.5 and 5 are legitimately intriguing; a spellblade gish who was good at cursing their enemies.

As to your actual review. I think you nailed it perfectly. I like the design space they're exploring but the execution across the board misses the mark.

If I'm concentrating on Hex I'm not concentrating on other spells which give greater control, do more damage, and are more versatile. These features need to let me come out ahead, not just ease the opportunity cost a bit.

Slotless castings are a definite step in the right direction, I can drop one to concentrate on a better spell when needed and it doesn't hurt, that's a big boost, but that's the minimum to make the idea potentially workable.

I want carryover effects that make me not regret concentrating on something else. Each ability is something that is tuned up could be worthwhile but they're all falling short of what I could do with simply concentrating on a different spell.

Let me Hex multiple enemies. Let me non-Hex curse an enemy as a reaction without concentration after hitting them with my weapon. Let me transfer damage done to me to someone I've hexed. Make people I've hexed fail saving throws against my spells. Give me a Hexed Smite.

Why don´t they use Bestow Curse as spell for the features? It could be spelled with the hex weapon by attack or by the cantrip, you choose agonizing blast for. First it uses concentraion too as hex. But as 5 level spell it doesnt use your concentration anymore. So you can cast other nice warlock spells.

They should probably just tie all of those abilities to the Hexblade's Curse ability that 5E addition has at 1st lvl. That way it's not a spell and it isn't concentration. Rather than tying into the spell Hex itself.

You messed up not bringing up True Strike with Radiant Soul. You can outperform Eldritch Blast as your main attack cantrip, and it works ranged or melee.

This was the same crap with Hunter's Mark. If they wanted it to lean on hex, making DIFFERENT hexes would have made for so much design space.

My problem with the new hexblade is the patron, it never made sense that you make a deal with a sword and then don't use said sword. I would much rather they be bottle necked into a melee that hexis ppl with a blade. More like the witch kings dagger less like the all black necro sword.

man the original hexblade was so much better. it actually had pretty unique abilities and even tho they weren't very strong it was fun to play

Is there some kind of publication that shows you how to create not just classes and characters but how to use progressions on certain spells or abilities to make them usable and appropriate? Something like if you take the hex spell and you're going to be using it as a basis for a class or a progression of abilities, is there a guidance to say first remove restrictions then increase the number of uses then increase the amount of damage or give it an extra ability? If not what would be your suggestion to take a spell and then increase it up through the ranks of a class, subclass, or racial ability? For example, hacks for hunters mark, as I see it neither the two problematic spells that don't seem to scale for a subclass in a reasonable way and yet are used a lot. Would the first thing you do is remove it as an concentration spell then increase its damage or its range or its ability to attack? How would you recommend doing it for other spells that you want to make a progression of spells?

I just noticed. in 2024 PHB they gave sample named patrons for all the subclasses. For the Hexblade they did not.

I think the original 5E Hexblade as a Warlock subclass comes from Critical Role and one of the PCs in that game. The Hexblade in CR predated Xanathar's I think?

you know xanathar is me?
& the fish is named
"Wee~~Tsevot"

I just think that warlock spell list sucks. it needs a line of spells that are similar to paladins smites, but instead they should be different hexes and curses and there also should be 6th-9th level spells in that line as well. And than they could make subclasses that are focused on hex spell(S)

Also a cool way to fix hex for warlock would be to add subclass specific ways of upcasting and again that could work with more subclasses.
Like with hex it could be that number of targets hexed could scale with spellslot level. Make it deal more damage if target is hit with a melee-weapon attack. Maybe add effect that would prevent healing or takes away reaction. It could be like at the start of targets turn they make a save and if fail they cant heal or cant use reactions untill their next turn

I could see hexblade being a more combat focused rogue subclass with like magic combat tricks as the hexes