The basic idea for combat would be to use the hexblade's curse, in addition to feats like Dreadful Wrath etc, to lower an opponent's saves to the point that certain essences become more viable, such as hellrime blast or frightful blast for even more curse synergy. Also, a hexblade has access to the magic weapon spells which are (I'm pretty sure) eligible to be used with eldritch spellweave. So you can stack frightful blast onto your melee attacks and really screw people up.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Criticisms? Am I out of my mind?
Anyone at all? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Hexblade 8 / Warlock 4 / Eldritch Theurge 8
4th level Hexblade spells, 1 greater invocation, 3 lesser invocations, 3 least invocations.
Greater Hexblade curse 2/day, Mettle, Arcane Resistance, Dark Companion ACF, bonus feat, Eldritch Blast 6d6, DR 4/cold iron, Fiendish Resilience 2, Spellblast, Eldritch Spellweave, Detect Magic, Decieve Item
BAB +17
saves +5/+5/+16
Details on Selected Spells and Invocations
*Eldritch Spellweave: Puts an essence into a single-targeted spell.
*Spellblast: Puts an area spell into an Eldritch Blast.
Suggested Invocation List
Least: Eldritch Glaive, Devil's Sight, Frightful Blast
Lesser: Beshadowed Blast, Fell Flight, Flee the Scene
Greater: Chilling Tentacles
Commentary: I've picked up several slightly different essences to combine with the spell list to debuff enemies. The Greater Invocation choice is tricky - I wanted an area effect spell to combine with Eldritch Spellweave, but this could easily be Vitriolic Blast, for example, and still be very good.
Suggested Spell List
1 Bloodletting, Undetectable Alignment, Karmic Aura, Catsfeet
2 Arcane Turmoil, Karmic Backlash, Blindness/Deafness, Touch of Idiocy
3 Charm Monster, Vampiric Touch,
4 Fear, Enervation, Solid Fog
Commentary: There is a surprising amount of duplication between invocations and spells here. Mainly, I'm going for spells that would combine ridiculously well with Eldritch Spellweave or Spellblast.
Some combos:
Spellblast:
Eldritch Glaive + Solid Fog (then use Quicken SLA: Flee the Scene, to get out)
Eldritch Glaive + Fear
Vampiric Touch/Enervation/Blindness/Arcane Turmoil + Beshadowed Blast
*Spellblast: Puts an area spell into an Eldritch Blast.
Suggested Invocation List
Least: Eldritch Glaive, Devil's Sight, Frightful Blast
Lesser: Beshadowed Blast, Fell Flight, Flee the Scene
Greater: Chilling Tentacles
Commentary: I've picked up several slightly different essences to combine with the spell list to debuff enemies. The Greater Invocation choice is tricky - I wanted an area effect spell to combine with Eldritch Spellweave, but this could easily be Vitriolic Blast, for example, and still be very good.
Suggested Spell List
1 Bloodletting, Undetectable Alignment, Karmic Aura, Catsfeet
2 Arcane Turmoil, Karmic Backlash, Blindness/Deafness, Touch of Idiocy
3 Charm Monster, Vampiric Touch,
4 Fear, Enervation, Solid Fog
Commentary: There is a surprising amount of duplication between invocations and spells here. Mainly, I'm going for spells that would combine ridiculously well with Eldritch Spellweave or Spellblast.
Some combos:
Spellblast:
Eldritch Glaive + Solid Fog (then use Quicken SLA: Flee the Scene, to get out)
Eldritch Glaive + Fear
Vampiric Touch/Enervation/Blindness/Arcane Turmoil + Beshadowed Blast
Anyway, I see this sword of build as a BBEG killer. Not necessarily good in a frenzied melee (if he's stupid and gets stuck in), but excellent at doing serious damage to one enemy at a time. Drop his saves with hexblade's curse, dark companion and various abilities like Intimidating Strike, slam him with a few eldritch essences that further lower his saves or have some other effect, and they probably wouldn't be long for the world.
Originally, I was only thinking of taking one level of warlock, then letting Practiced Spellcaster increase the eldritch blast damage so it could still qualify for theurge. But deceive magic item is pretty handy. Hmm...
Yes, that would be the next type to be put in, but I just wanted to put up the simplest, least DM-dependent, most general use build first. With Practiced Spellcaster, one could trade 2 levels of Hexblade for those last 2 levels of Eldritch Theurge (lost: Greater curse, gained: Fiendish Resilience - 1 more point, Greatreach Blast - put a touch spell into your eldritch blast, saves and BAB are a bit different). Or, at the extreme, Practiced Spellcaster on both sides could make this Warlock 1 / Hexblade 4 / ET 10 / anything 5 (likely 5 will be spellcasting, though; Eldritch Knight is a simple example) - this loses out on so many really solid class abilities, though, that I'm not sure its worth it... EDIT on that: Warlock 1 / Hexblade 4 / ET 4 / Nar Demonbinder 2 / ET +6, using early entry tricks for ND, would be very interesting.
Anyway, I see this sword of build as a BBEG killer. Not necessarily good in a frenzied melee (if he's stupid and gets stuck in), but excellent at doing serious damage to one enemy at a time. Drop his saves with hexblade's curse, dark companion and various abilities like Intimidating Strike, slam him with a few eldritch essences that further lower his saves or have some other effect, and they probably wouldn't be long for the world.
The selection of Invocations and Spells that I've picked actually makes this much better against mooks than BBEGs. It can't break SR at all, for example, which is a major problem (for all Hexblades, actually, if they use spellcasting). The advantages here are that you can use Eldritch Spellweave with some serious debuffing to mess up lower-level enemies (Enervation + Chilling Tentacles, for example, though SR is still an issue).
EDIT: put in some musings on Practiced Spellcaster usage for early entry builds.
EDIT:
Maybe cheese is necessary...
Hexblade 7 / Warlock 1 / Sorcerer 1* / Nar Demonbinder 1 / Eldritch Theurge 10 (* or cleric, or anything w/ Sum. Mon.)
Feats: Heighten Spell, Earthspell, Versatile Spellcaster, Iron Will, Spell Focus: Conjuration, Precocious Apprentice
Trick: all feats needed by 9th level, which means human and flaw or 2 flaws; uses Hexblade 2nd level slots while standing on ground to cast a 4th level arcane spell
Or
Illumian Naenhoon
Hexblade 7 / Cleric 1 / Warlock 1 / Nar Demonbinder 1 / Eldritch Theurge 10
Feats: Heighten Spell, Precocious Apprentice (Warlock), Iron Will, SF: Conjuration
Trick: casts a 4th level spell when Heighten Spell is used with Hexblade spells and the Naenhoon ability is used (possible w/ Cleric spells, too). Ends up with full ND casting and casting as a L10 Hexblade and 11th level Warlock invocations. BAB +14.
*******
Reflavored Eldritch Theurge:
Require L2 Vestiges instead of L2 spells, let Spellweave / Greater Spellreach / Eldritch Spellweave apply to vestige granted abilities (that are targeted in the same way), advances EBL instead of Binding. Since vestige abilities don't require SR checks, Fiendish Resilience and DR advance 1 level slower (ie, remove the 1st time it advances).
Incidentally, having Practiced Spellcaster for warlock would get you an extra level for invocations, letting you snag one more greater invocation. ^^
Hexblade 4 doesn't qualify for ET. You need to be able to cast second level arcane spells, and the earliest a hexblade can is level 8. Kind of sucks, but at least you can bump your BAB and your HP with more hexblade levels. Speaking of HP, I'd definitely pick up Improved Toughness from CW to make him a little beefier. The d4 hit die from ET really hurts over ten levels.
The spells I'd pick up on the hexblade side of things would probably focus more on keeping me alive, such as protection from good/evil/whatever, with some of the save or suck spells thrown in for good measure. Any kind of damage spell they have (I'm too lazy to go through their list right now) kind of pales in comparison to the eldritch blast with appropriate shapes/essences.