I really want to put together a Tiefling Hexblade now. The Hellish Rebuke and Darkness racials would be good for an actual melee warlock. And hexblades get so many of their goodies right away at level 1. I'd have to rethink spell selection a lot though.
Hex, and Armor of Agathys are not bad calls for a melee warlock
Armor of Agathys is one of the strongest spells in the game
I really want to put together a Tiefling Hexblade now. The Hellish Rebuke and Darkness racials would be good for an actual melee warlock. And hexblades get so many of their goodies right away at level 1. I'd have to rethink spell selection a lot though.
Hex, and Armor of Agathys are not bad calls for a melee warlock
Armor of Agathys is one of the strongest spells in the game
Only out of a higher-level slot, though.
Something like Hex is going to give you way more mileage out of a level 1 slot.
Agathys only starts to get silly when you're able to consistently deal its damage several times before they break through the temp HP, which generally isn't until 3rd level slots at the earliest.
All this talk about the difficulty of using the exhaustive spell lists in the PHB makes me wonder what kind of Monty Haul games you've all been playing. Someone just leave the Haynes manual for the Weave lying about, did they? In my day, you had whatever spells you stole from your college/mentor on the way out the door to the tavern, and whatever you managed to copy out of the singed, waterlogged scroll cases you pilfered off the corpse of that Kobold "shaman", etc. etc.
No need to worry about alphabetizing the four spells your DM lets you find.
Yeah hex is kinda fuckin insane especially if you are dual wielding with a pact blade and a standard weapon benefiting from the hex warrior feature. Which is seemingly a thing you can do, as pact weapon gets it for free, and you can still touch one weapon you are proficient with that lacks the two handed property. Throw in the hexblade's curse and you have a pretty decent crit fishing build.
So speaking of, has anyone thought of any build ideas that does not choose the blade pact if you are a hexblade? It meshes so well with it that I'm having trouble thinking of why you wouldn't use blade pact if not playing as a hexblade.
So speaking of, has anyone thought of any build ideas that does not choose the blade pact if you are a hexblade? It meshes so well with it that I'm having trouble thinking of why you wouldn't use blade pact if not playing as a hexblade.
Zelda build
Sword, shield, sprite familiar
Also gift of the ever living ones so all life gain dice (including hit dice) are Maxed
Have an invisible sprite that's always holding a potion to pour down your dying throat, or heck a healing wand of some kind. The thing has int 14.
Edit: gift of the ever living one is all healing is maxed. Just take a feat to learn cure wounds as a bard and use your warlock slots to cast it
So speaking of, has anyone thought of any build ideas that does not choose the blade pact if you are a hexblade? It meshes so well with it that I'm having trouble thinking of why you wouldn't use blade pact if not playing as a hexblade.
Zelda build
Sword, shield, sprite familiar
Also gift of the ever living ones so all life gain dice (including hit dice) are doubled
Have an invisible sprite that's always holding a potion to pour down your dying throat, or heck a healing wand of some kind. The thing has int 14.
Invisible Sprite healing buddy is insanely strong, I speak from experience.
Also even without the pact of the blade insanity, greenflame blade with hex is a pretty consistently good move so like the best part is you could just not go pact of the blade and do weird kooky warlock stuff instead while still remaining effective
So my dnd group is back on a biweekly schedule and I am super excited to maybe finally find a certain lost mine. I am also excited to coax my dm to adopt Xanathar's Guide to everything.
Moot point when talking about Warlocks. They always cast at their highest slot.
Right. My point is that Agathys starts getting good when your highest slot is a level 3 or 4 slot, IE at level 5 or 7.
You don't want to be casting it at warlock levels 1-4 even though it's a level 1 spell because it will underperform compared to your other options.
I think with the new pact of the blade and hex support in xanathars hex is more competitive, but at 5th level spells, and until the monsters are doing enough damage to noticeably reduce the number of hits it takes to dig through the shield, agathys is pretty nuts. I'm also just ballparking
I've been doing research on sea-related D&D content as well as real world marine myths, legends and folklore for my setting and discovered a couple of easy to implement ideas for anyone interested.
- In AD&D there were "crow's nest dragonets", which would, fittingly, sometimes come to live in a specific ships' crow's nest for a time. If the crew of a ship takes good care of a crow's nest dragonet and feeds it fresh fish the ship and its crew will have good luck. If displeased or attacked, though, the crow's nest dragonet releases a fog cloud spell from its mouth to confound the threat and fly away. You might could use pseudodragon stats for these creatures, plus fog cloud once per day.
- In real world folklore committing a maritime theft might actually guarantee good luck. Stealing an item leaves behind a bosch, the physical manifestation of onboard theft. These wretched creatures come into existence after a theft occurs on a ship, and have a lifespan of a few months to a few years, at the end of which they weaken and disappear. During this time they hide in the bow of the ship and make life on board absolutely miserable. As long as a bosch is present, the nets will be empty, the wind will not blow, and bad luck will hound the crew. If a ship finds itself afflicted with a bosch, it can be gotten rid of by stealing an object from a “happy” ship, one whose crew is satisfied and whose catches are always plentiful. The ship should be moored near it, and during the following night the captain sneaks on board the other ship to steal some small object. The bosch will then go to other ship and become their problem.
With improved pact weapon you can make a bow, and still use eldritch smite and thirsting blade. The three dip in fighter gives you a bunch of hit points, second wind, and action surge, as well as a few more tricks to pull between rests to pump up damage, and/or the ability to alpha strike more damage on a single hit. Get a little bursting arrow/Grasping arrow on the pile of short rest abilities.
Personally I think I prefer the various dragon-like monsters over the true dragons of D&D. That is, dragons as monsters instead of NPCs. But I guess intelligent mastermind dragons are more likely to amass a following of monsters and secure underground ruins as bases. I never read LotR as a kid, so I always imagined dragons as having animal intelligence.
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
I like true dragons in D&D but they should be few & far apart.
They are as close as you'd ever get to interacting with a deity.
For everything else I just use drakes for the whole giant fire-breathing flying-lizard monsters.
I like true dragons in D&D but they should be few & far apart.
They are as close as you'd ever get to interacting with a deity.
For everything else I just use drakes for the whole giant fire-breathing flying-lizard monsters.
One of my favorite characters I came up with was a Wyvern named Snakeclaw. He thought he was hot shit and would announce the names of his moves before he used them, such as "SCORPION TAIL," before using his spiked wyvern tail. He would also guard against attacks with his soft underbelly because, of course, the weak parts only get stronger when used. Things like that.
If presented with the information that snakes did not, in fact, have claws, he would accuse you of being stupid and laugh, comfortable in his clear superiority.
His introduction was that the players have to train him to fight some other monster, where they would become friends with this lovable flying doofus.
I realize I was just complaining about D&D dragons, but I was looking through my copy of the AD&D Monstrous Manual and found a tidbit about dragons I really like: As a dragon ages it temporarily inhabits increasingly larger lairs before settling on the one it will reside in for the rest of its life.
I can imagine a scenario where a dragon somehow finds out that the PCs once visited a dungeon it had as its first lair two hundred years ago. Maybe they have a keepsake it somehow forgot to bring with it, or maybe it just wants to wax nostalgic about its first home. Maybe it was attended by an enthusiastic kobold tribe there, one that is now long dead and that the dragon has actually come to miss. Maybe it keeps the kobold chieftan's skull in its lair somewhere, or has even reanimated it as an undead "pet".
but some snakes do have claws (well technically a pelvic spur)
they're used to hook onto the other snake during mating
Which explains why he was laughing at you for trying to correct him.
Not only do you not know as much about snakes in general as Snakeclaw, you don't know nearly enough about snake sex.
I can only hope that telling Snakeclaw that snakes lack claws lead to a long in depth lecture.
Preferably with pantomime and/or interpretive wyvern dance.
At the very least a magic user who's friends with Snakeclaw who's willing to use minor illusion to provide illustrations.
Yeah hex is kinda fuckin insane especially if you are dual wielding with a pact blade and a standard weapon benefiting from the hex warrior feature. Which is seemingly a thing you can do, as pact weapon gets it for free, and you can still touch one weapon you are proficient with that lacks the two handed property. Throw in the hexblade's curse and you have a pretty decent crit fishing build.
Nah. Hex is only OK.
Its a concentration spell. You're almost guaranteed to lose it early unless you've dedicated a lot of resources to not failing con saves. Its good.... but not that good, capping out at 3d6 damage/round. (two attacks + bonus off hand). With only 2d6 in the first round or whenever you have to swap targets (cannot DW + cast or select hex target in the same round because they both eat your bonus action)
I would not expect more than 4 rounds of it up per day per slot. Which puts it between 8d6(swap every round) and 11d6(swap/cast only once) damage spread around a number of targets. This is because either combat will end or because you will take damage and fail a concentration save.
Hunger of Hadar (3rd lvl warlock spell) is also concentration and does up to 4d6 damage/turn in an AoE while also providing control. Hold person/monster allows auto-crits. Etc Etc.
Moot point when talking about Warlocks. They always cast at their highest slot.
Right. My point is that Agathys starts getting good when your highest slot is a level 3 or 4 slot, IE at level 5 or 7.
You don't want to be casting it at warlock levels 1-4 even though it's a level 1 spell because it will underperform compared to your other options.
Nah. Its real good in a level 2 slot even. Especially if you're against enemies that don't hit for >10 damage. If you proc it twice its worth 5.7 d6 equivalent damage in addition to the hit points. That is really good. If you proc it once its still worth 2d6 and change in addition to the hit points. That is easily on the same level of other lvl 2 spells and favorable to what you can expect from Hex at that level (1d6 if you hit the first round, 2d6 if you hit the next two rounds and did not get hit/made your con save)
Yeah hex is kinda fuckin insane especially if you are dual wielding with a pact blade and a standard weapon benefiting from the hex warrior feature. Which is seemingly a thing you can do, as pact weapon gets it for free, and you can still touch one weapon you are proficient with that lacks the two handed property. Throw in the hexblade's curse and you have a pretty decent crit fishing build.
Nah. Hex is only OK.
Its a concentration spell. You're almost guaranteed to lose it early unless you've dedicated a lot of resources to not failing con saves. Its good.... but not that good, capping out at 3d6 damage/round. (two attacks + bonus off hand). With only 2d6 in the first round or whenever you have to swap targets (cannot DW + cast or select hex target in the same round because they both eat your bonus action)
I would not expect more than 4 rounds of it up per day per slot. Which puts it between 8d6(swap every round) and 11d6(swap/cast only once) damage spread around a number of targets. This is because either combat will end or because you will take damage and fail a concentration save.
Hunger of Hadar (3rd lvl warlock spell) is also concentration and does up to 4d6 damage/turn in an AoE while also providing control. Hold person/monster allows auto-crits. Etc Etc.
Moot point when talking about Warlocks. They always cast at their highest slot.
Right. My point is that Agathys starts getting good when your highest slot is a level 3 or 4 slot, IE at level 5 or 7.
You don't want to be casting it at warlock levels 1-4 even though it's a level 1 spell because it will underperform compared to your other options.
Nah. Its real good in a level 2 slot even. Especially if you're against enemies that don't hit for >10 damage. If you proc it twice its worth 5.7 d6 equivalent damage in addition to the hit points. That is really good. If you proc it once its still worth 2d6 and change in addition to the hit points. That is easily on the same level of other lvl 2 spells and favorable to what you can expect from Hex at that level (1d6 if you hit the first round, 2d6 if you hit the next two rounds and did not get hit/made your con save)
Fair you really do have to throw in resilience con and war caster so you don't consistently lose hex. And maddening hex acctually takes two weapon fighting out of the mix as well.
Though at the point that you are rolling anything bigger than a dc 10 concentration save the armor of agathys is getting tapped in 1 hit
Like a hexblade needs nothing but charisma and con. With resilience they get proficiency to their con save. With that and war caster losing concentration becomes less of a thing because you can get it to a point where it is either reliably don't roll a 1 territory, and you have advantage, or hits so big you won't get multiple hits out of armor of agathys anyways.
But you’re level 8/4 before you can have resilience and war caster which means you’ve got level 4/2 slots and are well on your way to 5/3.
Hexblade also needs dex and (sometimes) strength minor* but yes.
*if you record encumbrance then absolutely, you will push the low strength weight limit pretty easily.
If you have resilience at 4 you are likely looking at a 5 up to make every concentration save, 4 up at the next level (assuming a 16 con). At 5th level you have 3rd level spells, anything forcing a save higher than dc 10 instantly wipes the damage shield, and if the damage comes from anything but a melee attack the shield does no damage. Especially with maddening hex (instead of two weapon fighting), i think there are builds around hex that can be competitive with armor. Like clean of any build factors armor is better, but i think with build hex hangs in there a bit better than before. Like if you catch a full 3x3 with maddening hex, hex just did 27 damage (assuming a 16 cha).
Like i think with build they are situationally competitive
Spell level 3 is 15 HP on the shield, not 10. You lose a point of AC or Attack and damage to have 16 con/resilience at level 4 or an alternate feat. You’re using your concentration when you could be concentrating on a more powerful spell.
You might be marginally better in ideal situations with the hex but the armor is good always.
but some snakes do have claws (well technically a pelvic spur)
they're used to hook onto the other snake during mating
Which explains why he was laughing at you for trying to correct him.
Not only do you not know as much about snakes in general as Snakeclaw, you don't know nearly enough about snake sex.
I can only hope that telling Snakeclaw that snakes lack claws lead to a long in depth lecture.
Preferably with pantomime and/or interpretive wyvern dance.
At the very least a magic user who's friends with Snakeclaw who's willing to use minor illusion to provide illustrations.
The minor illusions are projected on a wall, Snakeclaw calls the different images "slides" and has very specifically made sure every picture has a rectangular background with a color gradient. The friend also makes "swoosh"-sounds between slides.
Half way through the lecture the illusion suddenly displays multiple grey rectangles with text on them in Common. The friend makes a distressed "pong!"-sound.
Spell level 3 is 15 HP on the shield, not 10. You lose a point of AC or Attack and damage to have 16 con/resilience at level 4 or an alternate feat. You’re using your concentration when you could be concentrating on a more powerful spell.
You might be marginally better in ideal situations with the hex but the armor is good always.
To get above a dc 10 concentration check the single hit has to be above 20 damage hence immediately knocking out the shield.
armor of agathys is good if you get hit in melee.
You can get improved pact weapon at 4 as well (retraining) so as to also get a +1 to hit and damage, and if you are utilizing medium armor you don't need a dex above 14.
Spell level 3 is 15 HP on the shield, not 10. You lose a point of AC or Attack and damage to have 16 con/resilience at level 4 or an alternate feat. You’re using your concentration when you could be concentrating on a more powerful spell.
You might be marginally better in ideal situations with the hex but the armor is good always.
To get above a dc 10 concentration check the single hit has to be above 20 damage hence immediately knocking out the shield.
armor of agathys is good if you get hit in melee.
You can get improved pact weapon at 4 as well (retraining) so as to also get a +1 to hit and damage, and if you are utilizing medium armor you don't need a dex above 14.
You simply cannot make it to 18 cha, 16, con, 14 dex (misc Str) on point buy by level 4 if you take resilience. You are necessarily giving up + 1 to your charisma mod. You will be behind in att/dmg until you’re able to cap on ASI
Spell level 3 is 15 HP on the shield, not 10. You lose a point of AC or Attack and damage to have 16 con/resilience at level 4 or an alternate feat. You’re using your concentration when you could be concentrating on a more powerful spell.
You might be marginally better in ideal situations with the hex but the armor is good always.
To get above a dc 10 concentration check the single hit has to be above 20 damage hence immediately knocking out the shield.
armor of agathys is good if you get hit in melee.
You can get improved pact weapon at 4 as well (retraining) so as to also get a +1 to hit and damage, and if you are utilizing medium armor you don't need a dex above 14.
You simply cannot make it to 18 cha, 16, con, 14 dex (misc Str) on point buy by level 4 if you take resilience. You are necessarily giving up + 1 to your charisma mod. You will be behind in att/dmg until you’re able to cap on ASI
Except the +1 to attack and damage from improved pact weapon makes up for that.
14, 14, 13, 12, 10, 10
STR 12
DEX 13
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 14
Half-Elf
STR 12
DEX 14
CON 15
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 16
At level 4 resilience (con)
STR 12
DEX 14
CON 16
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 16
And then take improved pact weapon as an invocation at level 4 to get the +1 to hit and damage to hold you over till 8 when you just ASI Cha to 18
You could also use the starting line of
15, 14, 13, 11, 10, 10
So that at 12 you can take elven accuracy to hit 20 in cha instead of just another ASI
You don't actually really need to sprint that hard towards 20 in this edition, and the pact of the blade has an accuracy fixer in there for the melee lock to be able to take resilience con in order to be able to stand up to more frequent hits.
Variant human can pull
15, 15, 13, 10, 10, 8
And turn it into
16, 16, 14, 10, 10, 8 with resilience already baked in at level 1 wich easily becomes 18, 16, 14, 10, 10, 8 at level 4
You don't actually have any need for strength as a hexblade, that's the point of the build.
Improved Pact Weapon offsets it, but doesn't change the fact that you're 1 point behind where you could be if you'd taken the ASI and Improved Pact Weapon. Taking the feat is giving up +1 attack/damage compared to not taking the feat, regardless of what other sources of attack bonus or damage you might have.
Improved Pact Weapon offsets it, but doesn't change the fact that you're 1 point behind where you could be if you'd taken the ASI and Improved Pact Weapon. Taking the feat is giving up +1 attack/damage compared to not taking the feat, regardless of what other sources of attack bonus or damage you might have.
Yes but you don't actually really need to worry about it because the game was designed without that ability existing. Like in no way is it required in order to function on level. Like the ASI is barely required at level 4. While yeah you can both have the bonus from stat and the sword, it isn't necessary to because the game doesn't demand much growth past 16 (it's why I default my calculations there), and because normally you couldn't just grab the save bonus, increased hit points, and the +1 to hit and damage. Normally you'd have to trade the +1 to hit and damage for the save and the hitpoints. The improved pact weapon is not required in any sense... It is just gravy. And for real I'm never going to not suggest resilience(con) to any caster that ever wants to use concentration spells. Like if you are just bombing your slots don't worry about it... shatter is fuckin effective, but if you are going to use many concentration spells I'm going to suggest resilience con. Especially because it makes you better at death saving throws. Which are a bunch of things a bladelock in melee needs
Like yes obviously you are trading a stat increase for a feat... Thats how feats work they also are often decent tradeoffs.
Except the +1 to attack and damage from improved pact weapon makes up for that.
Except no it doesn't because taking resilience at level 4 is not a prerequisite for retraining into improved pact weapon. This matters because when you're making a "this thing does minor amounts more damage and is better because of its ability to do more damage" having more attack and more damage matter.
The non-hex using warlock is going to have +1 to attack, damage, and saves. If you hit 60% of the time on average this is worth almost +1d6 worth of damage in and of itself. (1d10+3+1d6) x. 55 + (2d10+3+2d6) x .05 = 7.65, (1d10+4) x .6 + (2d10+4) x .05 = 6.45
Your margin is 1.2 damage/attack/round assuming good hit rates
Edit: There is always a strong trade off here that you are ignoring. And you cannot ignore it in this type of conversation. We aren't discussing whether or not hex is "good enough". Yea it is, loads of things are. We're discussing whether or not its better. And Hex has a lot of drawbacks to do what it does.
Except the +1 to attack and damage from improved pact weapon makes up for that.
Except no it doesn't because taking resilience at level 4 is not a prerequisite for retraining into improved pact weapon. This matters because when you're making a "this thing does minor amounts more damage and is better because of its ability to do more damage" having more attack and more damage matter.
The non-hex using warlock is going to have +1 to attack, damage, and saves. If you hit 60% of the time on average this is worth almost +1d6 worth of damage in and of itself. (1d10+3+1d6) x. 55 + (2d10+3+2d6) x .05 = 7.65, (1d10+4) x .6 + (2d10+4) x .05 = 6.45
Your margin is 1.2 damage/attack/round assuming good hit rates
Edit: There is always a strong trade off here that you are ignoring. And you cannot ignore it in this type of conversation. We aren't discussing whether or not hex is "good enough". Yea it is, loads of things are. We're discussing whether or not its better. And Hex has a lot of drawbacks to do what it does.
No i just said it was competitive, as in not outright worse than.
I mean, I think it's competitive because you can usually get pretty good value out of hex just by being willing to roll the dice on the con saves but if you're explicitly giving up attack/damage bonuses in order to guarantee the con save, you're losing a volume of performance that will not be replaced by any spell.
The only way a melee lock who takes resilience in order to boost his hex isn't going to be outperformed by both a melee agathys lock and a melee hex lock who sometimes drops his spell due to con saves is if he's a human and can pick it up as his bonus feat without spending an ASI on it.
And then you're weighing the value of GWM/Polearm mastery vs resilience as your human bonus feat, which is probably not going to come out well for the non-weapon-mastery feat.
Especially since the only clear reason not to be using a mastery feat is if you plan on using Shadow Blade instead, and you can't maintain both hex and shadow blade since they're both concentration spells.
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Armor of Agathys is one of the strongest spells in the game
Only out of a higher-level slot, though.
Something like Hex is going to give you way more mileage out of a level 1 slot.
Agathys only starts to get silly when you're able to consistently deal its damage several times before they break through the temp HP, which generally isn't until 3rd level slots at the earliest.
No need to worry about alphabetizing the four spells your DM lets you find.
Your Ad Here! Reasonable Rates!
Zelda build
Sword, shield, sprite familiar
Also gift of the ever living ones so all life gain dice (including hit dice) are Maxed
Have an invisible sprite that's always holding a potion to pour down your dying throat, or heck a healing wand of some kind. The thing has int 14.
Edit: gift of the ever living one is all healing is maxed. Just take a feat to learn cure wounds as a bard and use your warlock slots to cast it
Invisible Sprite healing buddy is insanely strong, I speak from experience.
So my dnd group is back on a biweekly schedule and I am super excited to maybe finally find a certain lost mine. I am also excited to coax my dm to adopt Xanathar's Guide to everything.
Right. My point is that Agathys starts getting good when your highest slot is a level 3 or 4 slot, IE at level 5 or 7.
You don't want to be casting it at warlock levels 1-4 even though it's a level 1 spell because it will underperform compared to your other options.
I think with the new pact of the blade and hex support in xanathars hex is more competitive, but at 5th level spells, and until the monsters are doing enough damage to noticeably reduce the number of hits it takes to dig through the shield, agathys is pretty nuts. I'm also just ballparking
The best option is to just open with both.
- In AD&D there were "crow's nest dragonets", which would, fittingly, sometimes come to live in a specific ships' crow's nest for a time. If the crew of a ship takes good care of a crow's nest dragonet and feeds it fresh fish the ship and its crew will have good luck. If displeased or attacked, though, the crow's nest dragonet releases a fog cloud spell from its mouth to confound the threat and fly away. You might could use pseudodragon stats for these creatures, plus fog cloud once per day.
- In real world folklore committing a maritime theft might actually guarantee good luck. Stealing an item leaves behind a bosch, the physical manifestation of onboard theft. These wretched creatures come into existence after a theft occurs on a ship, and have a lifespan of a few months to a few years, at the end of which they weaken and disappear. During this time they hide in the bow of the ship and make life on board absolutely miserable. As long as a bosch is present, the nets will be empty, the wind will not blow, and bad luck will hound the crew. If a ship finds itself afflicted with a bosch, it can be gotten rid of by stealing an object from a “happy” ship, one whose crew is satisfied and whose catches are always plentiful. The ship should be moored near it, and during the following night the captain sneaks on board the other ship to steal some small object. The bosch will then go to other ship and become their problem.
With improved pact weapon you can make a bow, and still use eldritch smite and thirsting blade. The three dip in fighter gives you a bunch of hit points, second wind, and action surge, as well as a few more tricks to pull between rests to pump up damage, and/or the ability to alpha strike more damage on a single hit. Get a little bursting arrow/Grasping arrow on the pile of short rest abilities.
up to, and including, dragons.
They are as close as you'd ever get to interacting with a deity.
For everything else I just use drakes for the whole giant fire-breathing flying-lizard monsters.
One of my favorite characters I came up with was a Wyvern named Snakeclaw. He thought he was hot shit and would announce the names of his moves before he used them, such as "SCORPION TAIL," before using his spiked wyvern tail. He would also guard against attacks with his soft underbelly because, of course, the weak parts only get stronger when used. Things like that.
If presented with the information that snakes did not, in fact, have claws, he would accuse you of being stupid and laugh, comfortable in his clear superiority.
His introduction was that the players have to train him to fight some other monster, where they would become friends with this lovable flying doofus.
they're used to hook onto the other snake during mating
I can imagine a scenario where a dragon somehow finds out that the PCs once visited a dungeon it had as its first lair two hundred years ago. Maybe they have a keepsake it somehow forgot to bring with it, or maybe it just wants to wax nostalgic about its first home. Maybe it was attended by an enthusiastic kobold tribe there, one that is now long dead and that the dragon has actually come to miss. Maybe it keeps the kobold chieftan's skull in its lair somewhere, or has even reanimated it as an undead "pet".
Which explains why he was laughing at you for trying to correct him.
Not only do you not know as much about snakes in general as Snakeclaw, you don't know nearly enough about snake sex.
I can only hope that telling Snakeclaw that snakes lack claws lead to a long in depth lecture.
Preferably with pantomime and/or interpretive wyvern dance.
At the very least a magic user who's friends with Snakeclaw who's willing to use minor illusion to provide illustrations.
Nah. Hex is only OK.
Its a concentration spell. You're almost guaranteed to lose it early unless you've dedicated a lot of resources to not failing con saves. Its good.... but not that good, capping out at 3d6 damage/round. (two attacks + bonus off hand). With only 2d6 in the first round or whenever you have to swap targets (cannot DW + cast or select hex target in the same round because they both eat your bonus action)
I would not expect more than 4 rounds of it up per day per slot. Which puts it between 8d6(swap every round) and 11d6(swap/cast only once) damage spread around a number of targets. This is because either combat will end or because you will take damage and fail a concentration save.
Hunger of Hadar (3rd lvl warlock spell) is also concentration and does up to 4d6 damage/turn in an AoE while also providing control. Hold person/monster allows auto-crits. Etc Etc.
Nah. Its real good in a level 2 slot even. Especially if you're against enemies that don't hit for >10 damage. If you proc it twice its worth 5.7 d6 equivalent damage in addition to the hit points. That is really good. If you proc it once its still worth 2d6 and change in addition to the hit points. That is easily on the same level of other lvl 2 spells and favorable to what you can expect from Hex at that level (1d6 if you hit the first round, 2d6 if you hit the next two rounds and did not get hit/made your con save)
Fair you really do have to throw in resilience con and war caster so you don't consistently lose hex. And maddening hex acctually takes two weapon fighting out of the mix as well.
Like a hexblade needs nothing but charisma and con. With resilience they get proficiency to their con save. With that and war caster losing concentration becomes less of a thing because you can get it to a point where it is either reliably don't roll a 1 territory, and you have advantage, or hits so big you won't get multiple hits out of armor of agathys anyways.
Hexblade also needs dex and (sometimes) strength minor* but yes.
*if you record encumbrance then absolutely, you will push the low strength weight limit pretty easily.
If you have resilience at 4 you are likely looking at a 5 up to make every concentration save, 4 up at the next level (assuming a 16 con). At 5th level you have 3rd level spells, anything forcing a save higher than dc 10 instantly wipes the damage shield, and if the damage comes from anything but a melee attack the shield does no damage. Especially with maddening hex (instead of two weapon fighting), i think there are builds around hex that can be competitive with armor. Like clean of any build factors armor is better, but i think with build hex hangs in there a bit better than before. Like if you catch a full 3x3 with maddening hex, hex just did 27 damage (assuming a 16 cha).
Like i think with build they are situationally competitive
Edit: fucked up the area oon maddening hex
You might be marginally better in ideal situations with the hex but the armor is good always.
The minor illusions are projected on a wall, Snakeclaw calls the different images "slides" and has very specifically made sure every picture has a rectangular background with a color gradient. The friend also makes "swoosh"-sounds between slides.
Half way through the lecture the illusion suddenly displays multiple grey rectangles with text on them in Common. The friend makes a distressed "pong!"-sound.
To get above a dc 10 concentration check the single hit has to be above 20 damage hence immediately knocking out the shield.
armor of agathys is good if you get hit in melee.
You can get improved pact weapon at 4 as well (retraining) so as to also get a +1 to hit and damage, and if you are utilizing medium armor you don't need a dex above 14.
You simply cannot make it to 18 cha, 16, con, 14 dex (misc Str) on point buy by level 4 if you take resilience. You are necessarily giving up + 1 to your charisma mod. You will be behind in att/dmg until you’re able to cap on ASI
Except the +1 to attack and damage from improved pact weapon makes up for that.
14, 14, 13, 12, 10, 10
STR 12
DEX 13
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 14
Half-Elf
STR 12
DEX 14
CON 15
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 16
At level 4 resilience (con)
STR 12
DEX 14
CON 16
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 16
And then take improved pact weapon as an invocation at level 4 to get the +1 to hit and damage to hold you over till 8 when you just ASI Cha to 18
You could also use the starting line of
15, 14, 13, 11, 10, 10
So that at 12 you can take elven accuracy to hit 20 in cha instead of just another ASI
You don't actually really need to sprint that hard towards 20 in this edition, and the pact of the blade has an accuracy fixer in there for the melee lock to be able to take resilience con in order to be able to stand up to more frequent hits.
Variant human can pull
15, 15, 13, 10, 10, 8
And turn it into
16, 16, 14, 10, 10, 8 with resilience already baked in at level 1 wich easily becomes 18, 16, 14, 10, 10, 8 at level 4
You don't actually have any need for strength as a hexblade, that's the point of the build.
Yes but you don't actually really need to worry about it because the game was designed without that ability existing. Like in no way is it required in order to function on level. Like the ASI is barely required at level 4. While yeah you can both have the bonus from stat and the sword, it isn't necessary to because the game doesn't demand much growth past 16 (it's why I default my calculations there), and because normally you couldn't just grab the save bonus, increased hit points, and the +1 to hit and damage. Normally you'd have to trade the +1 to hit and damage for the save and the hitpoints. The improved pact weapon is not required in any sense... It is just gravy. And for real I'm never going to not suggest resilience(con) to any caster that ever wants to use concentration spells. Like if you are just bombing your slots don't worry about it... shatter is fuckin effective, but if you are going to use many concentration spells I'm going to suggest resilience con. Especially because it makes you better at death saving throws. Which are a bunch of things a bladelock in melee needs
Like yes obviously you are trading a stat increase for a feat... Thats how feats work they also are often decent tradeoffs.
Except no it doesn't because taking resilience at level 4 is not a prerequisite for retraining into improved pact weapon. This matters because when you're making a "this thing does minor amounts more damage and is better because of its ability to do more damage" having more attack and more damage matter.
The non-hex using warlock is going to have +1 to attack, damage, and saves. If you hit 60% of the time on average this is worth almost +1d6 worth of damage in and of itself. (1d10+3+1d6) x. 55 + (2d10+3+2d6) x .05 = 7.65, (1d10+4) x .6 + (2d10+4) x .05 = 6.45
Your margin is 1.2 damage/attack/round assuming good hit rates
Edit: There is always a strong trade off here that you are ignoring. And you cannot ignore it in this type of conversation. We aren't discussing whether or not hex is "good enough". Yea it is, loads of things are. We're discussing whether or not its better. And Hex has a lot of drawbacks to do what it does.
No i just said it was competitive, as in not outright worse than.
The only way a melee lock who takes resilience in order to boost his hex isn't going to be outperformed by both a melee agathys lock and a melee hex lock who sometimes drops his spell due to con saves is if he's a human and can pick it up as his bonus feat without spending an ASI on it.
And then you're weighing the value of GWM/Polearm mastery vs resilience as your human bonus feat, which is probably not going to come out well for the non-weapon-mastery feat.
Especially since the only clear reason not to be using a mastery feat is if you plan on using Shadow Blade instead, and you can't maintain both hex and shadow blade since they're both concentration spells.