Class: Hexblade - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 machmoth Jul 11, 2008 6:01:48	I had enough fun converting a little class, I thought I'd go full fledged. Here, I thought I'd go the challenge of an Arcane Defender. The Hexblade, at least as I'm referencing, is from the 3.5 class book, Complete Warrior. My last 3.5 campaign enjoyed one as a major wildcard NPC who always seemed to have one more secret up his sleeve. The class is an excellent way to play a "sort of evil" or mysterious character with shadowy powers at his disposal while still being the guy on the front line cracking skulls. Since most of the Hexblade's spells in 3.5 were ordinary sorcerer/wizard spells, I've taken a fair bit of liberty in inventing my own. Of course, input on balance and the like is welcome. ============================= Hexblade The Hexblade is a warrior who relies as much on his grasp of magic as his physical prowess. He uses his curses and mental effects to keep his foes constantly at blade's reach and vulnerable. Do not be fooled by his gilded tongue and careful nature. When the Hexblade decides your time has come, no corner is safe. =Class Traits= Role: Defender. You are durable in mind and body. Your curses ensure that enemies play by your rules. Power Source: Arcane. You are skilled in both the sword and mystic arts. Key Abilities: Strength, Charisma, Intelligence Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather, hide Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, military melee, simple ranged Implements: Rods, wands Bonus to Defense: +2 Will Hit Points at 1st Level: 15 + Constitution score Hit Points per Level Gained: 6 Healing Surges per Day: 9 + Constitution modifier Trained Skills: From the class skills list below, choose three trained skills at 1st level. Arcana (Int), Bluff (Cha), Diplomacy (Cha), Endurance (Con), Intimidate (Cha) Build Options: ??? Class Features: Hexblade's Curse, Aura of Unluck =Creating a Hexblade= Hexblades, despite their arcane disposition, spend most of their time in melee and require Strength to hit and damage their enemies. Most of his magical abilities extend from his force of presence and require Charisma. Because, unlike most defenders, the Hexblade has very light armor, he'll need a solid Intelligence to avoid blows. It is also a secondary ability in several powers. =Hexblade Class Features= Class Features: Hexblade's Curse A Hexblade's weapon carries with it a powerful curse that binds the enemy's fate to it. Every time you attack an enemy with a melee attack power, whether the attack hits or misses, you can choose to mark the target until the end of your next turn. While a target is marked, it takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls for any attack that does not include you as a target. A creature can be subject to only one mark at a time. A new mark supersedes a mark that was already in place. In addition, if the marked creature attacks anyone other than you, you deal an extra 1d6 damage on your next attack against it. You must take this extra damage before the end of your next turn or it is lost. The extra damage increases to 2d6 at level 11 and 3d6 at level 21. Aura of Unluck Fate itself warps in the wake of a Hexblade's powerful presence, causing even telling blows to miss. As long as he is wearing light armor and no shield, he gains a +2 Class bonus to AC. This bonus increases to +3 at level 11 and +4 at level 21.
#2 machmoth Jul 11, 2008 6:02:20	(reserved for future use)
#3 machmoth Jul 11, 2008 6:02:57	Update History = July 11, 2008 ==== * Changed Aura of Unluck to be a static bonus. * Removed Level 1 Daily: Skin of My Victim. It was way over-powered. * Added Level 1 Daily: I Am Everywhere You Look. It is very similar to what fighters can already do innately, but because it's a daily, it's a little more powerful by denying the creature shifting entirely. = July 10, 2008 ==== * First draft. Only Level 1 powers done.
#4 olfactatron Jul 11, 2008 9:22:01	I think this is the first hexblade conversion I've seen. Very cool. Some things I noticed... Aura of Unluck is too good as it is. If it wasn't based on an attack stat it would be more reasonable but with, for example, a tiefling, the AC could get out of hand. I see why you did it, I think you were looking for a meaningful way to increase AC while wielding both a weapon and an implement, but seeing as only one power so far uses an implement, it wouldn't be worth taking. And on top of that there are enough Cha powers that I could completely forgo Str, and easily get a tiefling with Cha 20 Int 16, that kept putting his stat points into both ending up with Cha 28 Int24. So that's +11 for +6 elderhide, +9 Cha, and +7 Int and +15 for level. That's an AC of 58 at 30th level barring any other feats or abilities. As opposed to +20 for +6 godplate +2 for heavy shield and +15 for level for a total of AC 47 at 30th for other tanked out defenders. For reference, Orcus has a +37 to attack, so a stock tiefling hexblade is unhitable by the higest level creature in the monster manual. I don't have any good advice on how to fix it sothat it does what you're looking for. I don't think we'll ever see a class that can add two stats to AC for more than a little while, it's just too strong. Oh, and skin of my victim should give a power bonus to AC so it doesn't stack, but even then I think it's probably too strong. I could see wasting that power on a minion and then being completely invincible for the rest of the fight. Hope my comments helped! Edit: Wow, that didn't take long for WotC to make me eat my words. Apparently the new sword mage in the Forgotten Realms book is allowed to add his Int bonus to AC when he has a free hand. Uh. I feel kinda dumb. I'm interested to see how they balance that because if that's all the ability does it's even more subject to abuse than your idea.
#5 machmoth Jul 11, 2008 15:28:04	I sort of went to sleep last night regretting Aura of Unluck, as it was written. While I'm sure the Sword Mage might actually get something to that effect, I'm going to take a wild guess and assume they're cloth-wearers. Whether the precident eventually sets it or not, I don't really like it. What I think might work just as well is to look at the gear. A shield is +2 and plate begins +5 higher than hide. So, at first level, that's a +7 gap to bridge. Masterwork light armor progresses +1 each stage, where as heavy goes up +3. However, Dex/Intelligence progression in light armor narrows that, with 9 points possible going into it, for a +4.5 AC (1.5 per sub-group). Assuming someone is capable of a +5 Int at first level, just the +2 shield is missing at level 1. The 1.5 extra AC from Int almost meets the +2 advantage of masterwork heavy armor. However, I'm not expecting everyone to be dumping into the Int. So, perhaps a fair boost is +2 AC at 1st level, increased to +3 at 11 and +4 at 21. It would be theoretically possible to out AC heavy armor, but more often, the Hexblade would be lagging a couple of points. My goal isn't really to make a Hexblade "as good" as a fighter, but more to close the gap in serving his defender function. I'm certain I'll be giving him more defensive powers. I warped Skin of My Victim off of the Paladin attack Shielding Smite. Pulling the book back out, I realize it was late, I was tired, and that attack did not do what I thought it did (and is sitting above the Daily powers, where as I thought it was one of them). The attack really is way off. I'll probably drop it for now. But, I like the concept it's made me stumble upon, and that's a sort of totemizing curse. Attacks that curse an enemy into performing some effect on the field after their death. For example, something to the effect of: Bone Brambles Your victim's bones grow branches and thorns inside of them until they fall and grow into a field of boney brambles. Daily * Arcane, Necrotic, Weapon Standard Action Melee weapon Target: One creature Attack: Strength vs. AC Hit: 3[W] + Strength. Effect: Make a secondary attack. Secondary Attack: Charisma vs. Fortitude Hit: Creature takes 5 ongoing necrotic damage (save ends). If the creature dies before saving against the effect, they create a zone of difficult terrain in any squares they occupy or are adjacent to. You and your allies are uneffected by the zone. Thanks for the input.
#6 olfactatron Jul 11, 2008 19:32:23	You're welcome. You should head over to the enworld forums where someone has seen the swordmage and is posting abilities. It's basically doing what you set out to do here, only the effects aren't quite so necro/anti-hero. (Which, by the way, I think is a shame, I'd rather have an updated hexblade than a swordmage. The hexblade fluff and flavor is so much more interesting.)
#7 machmoth Jul 12, 2008 15:38:11	Well, I looked it over (here for those who want to have a look), and I'm not sure what to think. The preview material does seem pretty broken. I want to say that they're getting a flat +3 to AC, like the WotC suggestion for making a monk out of a ranger, and that people are just assuming it's Int because the values matched on the demo character. I may be getting the FR campaign book when it drops, so maybe I'll wait until I have that as a reference. At a glance, it seems to be "more arcane" than what I have in my head for the Hexblade. I guess we'll see.
#8 Goober4473 Jul 13, 2008 18:33:14	"if the marked creature attacks anyone other than you" should be "if a target marked by you makes an attack that does not include you as a target" The class bonus to AC should probably increase at 16 and 26, when base armor improves, rather than 11 and 21. Also, to keep it in line with heavy armor increases, you'd need to make it +2 per increase, since light armor goes up by 1, and heavy goes up by 3. Otherwise, the gap in defenses will increase over time. I'm assuming you want a constant differance (for example, always +4 less [lhide versus scale], plus no penalty for having no shield).
#9 machmoth Jul 14, 2008 1:21:02	I was sort of pondering on that, but since they're a light-armor class, they are capable of putting 1.5 AC worth into Intelligence each tier, so a +2 per tier might actually be capable of being better than heavy by the end.

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

machmoth

Jul 11, 2008 6:01:48

I had enough fun converting a little class, I thought I'd go full fledged. Here, I thought I'd go the challenge of an Arcane Defender. The Hexblade, at least as I'm referencing, is from the 3.5 class book, Complete Warrior. My last 3.5 campaign enjoyed one as a major wildcard NPC who always seemed to have one more secret up his sleeve. The class is an excellent way to play a "sort of evil" or mysterious character with shadowy powers at his disposal while still being the guy on the front line cracking skulls. Since most of the Hexblade's spells in 3.5 were ordinary sorcerer/wizard spells, I've taken a fair bit of liberty in inventing my own. Of course, input on balance and the like is welcome.

=============================

Hexblade

The Hexblade is a warrior who relies as much on his grasp of magic as his physical prowess. He uses his curses and mental effects to keep his foes constantly at blade's reach and vulnerable. Do not be fooled by his gilded tongue and careful nature. When the Hexblade decides your time has come, no corner is safe.

=Class Traits=
Role: Defender. You are durable in mind and body. Your curses ensure that enemies play by your rules.
Power Source: Arcane. You are skilled in both the sword and mystic arts.
Key Abilities: Strength, Charisma, Intelligence
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather, hide
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, military melee, simple ranged
Implements: Rods, wands
Bonus to Defense: +2 Will

Hit Points at 1st Level: 15 + Constitution score
Hit Points per Level Gained: 6
Healing Surges per Day: 9 + Constitution modifier

Trained Skills: From the class skills list below, choose three trained skills at 1st level.
Arcana (Int), Bluff (Cha), Diplomacy (Cha), Endurance (Con), Intimidate (Cha)

Build Options: ???
Class Features: Hexblade's Curse, Aura of Unluck

=Creating a Hexblade=

Hexblades, despite their arcane disposition, spend most of their time in melee and require Strength to hit and damage their enemies. Most of his magical abilities extend from his force of presence and require Charisma. Because, unlike most defenders, the Hexblade has very light armor, he'll need a solid Intelligence to avoid blows. It is also a secondary ability in several powers.

=Hexblade Class Features=

Class Features:

Hexblade's Curse

A Hexblade's weapon carries with it a powerful curse that binds the enemy's fate to it. Every time you attack an enemy with a melee attack power, whether the attack hits or misses, you can choose to mark the target until the end of your next turn. While a target is marked, it takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls for any attack that does not include you as a target. A creature can be subject to only one mark at a time. A new mark supersedes a mark that was already in place.

In addition, if the marked creature attacks anyone other than you, you deal an extra 1d6 damage on your next attack against it. You must take this extra damage before the end of your next turn or it is lost. The extra damage increases to 2d6 at level 11 and 3d6 at level 21.

Aura of Unluck

Fate itself warps in the wake of a Hexblade's powerful presence, causing even telling blows to miss. As long as he is wearing light armor and no shield, he gains a +2 Class bonus to AC. This bonus increases to +3 at level 11 and +4 at level 21.

machmoth

Jul 11, 2008 6:02:20

(reserved for future use)

machmoth

Jul 11, 2008 6:02:57

Update History
= July 11, 2008 ====
* Changed Aura of Unluck to be a static bonus.
* Removed Level 1 Daily: Skin of My Victim. It was way over-powered.
* Added Level 1 Daily: I Am Everywhere You Look. It is very similar to what fighters can already do innately, but because it's a daily, it's a little more powerful by denying the creature shifting entirely.

= July 10, 2008 ====
* First draft. Only Level 1 powers done.

olfactatron

Jul 11, 2008 9:22:01

I think this is the first hexblade conversion I've seen. Very cool. Some things I noticed...
Aura of Unluck is too good as it is. If it wasn't based on an attack stat it would be more reasonable but with, for example, a tiefling, the AC could get out of hand.
I see why you did it, I think you were looking for a meaningful way to increase AC while wielding both a weapon and an implement, but seeing as only one power so far uses an implement, it wouldn't be worth taking. And on top of that there are enough Cha powers that I could completely forgo Str, and easily get a tiefling with Cha 20 Int 16, that kept putting his stat points into both ending up with Cha 28 Int24.
So that's +11 for +6 elderhide, +9 Cha, and +7 Int and +15 for level. That's an AC of 58 at 30th level barring any other feats or abilities.
As opposed to +20 for +6 godplate +2 for heavy shield and +15 for level for a total of AC 47 at 30th for other tanked out defenders.
For reference, Orcus has a +37 to attack, so a stock tiefling hexblade is unhitable by the higest level creature in the monster manual.
I don't have any good advice on how to fix it sothat it does what you're looking for. I don't think we'll ever see a class that can add two stats to AC for more than a little while, it's just too strong.
Oh, and skin of my victim should give a power bonus to AC so it doesn't stack, but even then I think it's probably too strong. I could see wasting that power on a minion and then being completely invincible for the rest of the fight.

Hope my comments helped!

Edit: Wow, that didn't take long for WotC to make me eat my words. Apparently the new sword mage in the Forgotten Realms book is allowed to add his Int bonus to AC when he has a free hand. Uh. I feel kinda dumb. I'm interested to see how they balance that because if that's all the ability does it's even more subject to abuse than your idea.

machmoth

Jul 11, 2008 15:28:04

I sort of went to sleep last night regretting Aura of Unluck, as it was written. While I'm sure the Sword Mage might actually get something to that effect, I'm going to take a wild guess and assume they're cloth-wearers. Whether the precident eventually sets it or not, I don't really like it. What I think might work just as well is to look at the gear.

A shield is +2 and plate begins +5 higher than hide. So, at first level, that's a +7 gap to bridge. Masterwork light armor progresses +1 each stage, where as heavy goes up +3. However, Dex/Intelligence progression in light armor narrows that, with 9 points possible going into it, for a +4.5 AC (1.5 per sub-group). Assuming someone is capable of a +5 Int at first level, just the +2 shield is missing at level 1. The 1.5 extra AC from Int almost meets the +2 advantage of masterwork heavy armor.

However, I'm not expecting everyone to be dumping into the Int. So, perhaps a fair boost is +2 AC at 1st level, increased to +3 at 11 and +4 at 21. It would be theoretically possible to out AC heavy armor, but more often, the Hexblade would be lagging a couple of points. My goal isn't really to make a Hexblade "as good" as a fighter, but more to close the gap in serving his defender function. I'm certain I'll be giving him more defensive powers.

I warped Skin of My Victim off of the Paladin attack Shielding Smite. Pulling the book back out, I realize it was late, I was tired, and that attack did not do what I thought it did (and is sitting above the Daily powers, where as I thought it was one of them). The attack really is way off. I'll probably drop it for now. But, I like the concept it's made me stumble upon, and that's a sort of totemizing curse. Attacks that curse an enemy into performing some effect on the field after their death. For example, something to the effect of:

Bone Brambles
Your victim's bones grow branches and thorns inside of them until they fall and grow into a field of boney brambles.
Daily * Arcane, Necrotic, Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 3[W] + Strength.
Effect: Make a secondary attack.
Secondary Attack: Charisma vs. Fortitude
Hit: Creature takes 5 ongoing necrotic damage (save ends). If the creature dies before saving against the effect, they create a zone of difficult terrain in any squares they occupy or are adjacent to. You and your allies are uneffected by the zone.

Thanks for the input.

olfactatron

Jul 11, 2008 19:32:23

You're welcome. You should head over to the enworld forums where someone has seen the swordmage and is posting abilities. It's basically doing what you set out to do here, only the effects aren't quite so necro/anti-hero. (Which, by the way, I think is a shame, I'd rather have an updated hexblade than a swordmage. The hexblade fluff and flavor is so much more interesting.)

machmoth

Jul 12, 2008 15:38:11

Well, I looked it over (here for those who want to have a look), and I'm not sure what to think. The preview material does seem pretty broken. I want to say that they're getting a flat +3 to AC, like the WotC suggestion for making a monk out of a ranger, and that people are just assuming it's Int because the values matched on the demo character. I may be getting the FR campaign book when it drops, so maybe I'll wait until I have that as a reference. At a glance, it seems to be "more arcane" than what I have in my head for the Hexblade. I guess we'll see.

Goober4473

Jul 13, 2008 18:33:14

"if the marked creature attacks anyone other than you" should be "if a target marked by you makes an attack that does not include you as a target"

The class bonus to AC should probably increase at 16 and 26, when base armor improves, rather than 11 and 21. Also, to keep it in line with heavy armor increases, you'd need to make it +2 per increase, since light armor goes up by 1, and heavy goes up by 3. Otherwise, the gap in defenses will increase over time. I'm assuming you want a constant differance (for example, always +4 less [lhide versus scale], plus no penalty for having no shield).

machmoth

Jul 14, 2008 1:21:02

I was sort of pondering on that, but since they're a light-armor class, they are capable of putting 1.5 AC worth into Intelligence each tier, so a +2 per tier might actually be capable of being better than heavy by the end.