Hexblade Class?

[Ecoski]

A melee character that misses out on the bonus feats, but gets abilities that mimic spells that are supposed to work as debuffs? That's what the dark monk is, and almost no one actually uses those debuffs, mobs die too fast or get dcs that will prevent the spell from landing unless you drop everything to focus on spell dcs. If a good debuff melee was required, just fix up the dark monk's debuffs instead please

(Ninja Spy III would be awesome too :3 )

[Xenostrata]

First priority: Druids.

After that, whatever. However, I do find the idea of a debuff-focused melee intriguing. At the very least it could lead to some interesting tactical play.

[DrakeD77a]

Dark monks does have some of that but just not in the same way as a hexblade would i think. but interesting.

[Terminus-Est]

Hexblades are essentially speaking, the low-power cousins to Duskblades. Even the names are similar; its not a coincidence.

Hexblades were written when the designers of D&d were very leary of letting a class with full BAB cast -any spells at all-. So they gave them mediocre abilities and a mediocre spell list, because they were afraid of them say, being strictly better than fighters (too late, everyone is) or possibly bards/rangers/paladins (success!)

The in theory was a magic-using melee combatant, the in-practice was a ranger who specced in Emo rather than TWF or Bows. Their curses were in pen and paper, terribly lousy. Their shadow companion started out lousy but got an alternative version that wasn't terrible. Mettle was awesome and the only good thing about the class.

And the roll of time went on.

And then they revisited the idea of having a melee spellcaster with Duskblade and they figured it out pretty much perfectly.

What does a spell-caster in melee want to do? DAMAGE thats what. Damage while he swings his weapon around as a reusable, time-efficient resource and access to unique magical defensive and offensive buffs.

The in theory was a magic-using melee combatant with an even mix between buffs, direct damage and crowd control.

The in practice was a magic-using melee combatant who tended to specialize in buffs or crowd control, but had a few high-quality direct damage spells available for ranged engagements.

They didn't get mettle (alas, alas), but they got the ability to cast a spell while full attacking. Cast a spell while full attacking. You know how artificers can charge up and release their rune-arm while full-attacking? Imagine you had full bab, better HP and instead of doing 10-100 damage with your spell, your casting Hold Monster or Polar Ray or Disintegrate. Seems a little more useful to me.

So if we need a Gish class, give me a duskblade over a hexblade any day. Mettle would be hard to code anyways

[Talias006]

psionics is ebberron? i thought they were dark sun. But true they may or may not need to have higher priority since they might be part of the setting but also think they would also be a lot harder on game mechanics to balance and to animate.

/start tangent derailment
While not positive, I think Dark Sun re-invented Psionics for D&D.
If you've ever played Grey Moon Waning, you'll have heard the classic DM speech:
"It doesn't take a Kalashtar to know..."
Kalashtar are a primary Psionic race.

Not sure how they all relate to each other, but most Kalashtar I've read about seem to be on the side of good.
Or at least keeping the slavish Quori away from Eberron for everyone's best interests.

Also, Illithids (Mind Flayers) are a predominantly psionic race.
They have oodles of powerful magic users among them as well IIRC, but their first attack is usually to try and psionically enslave the hero and make them fight their friends.
Much like the spells Dominate Person or Charm Monster/Person.

/end tangent derailment

[DrakeD77a]

Thanks Talias.

Anywqays about Hexblade being a underpowered class that may or may not be. But they are different from duskblades flovor wise at least. Duskblades are good out mixture of spell and melee, but Hexblades are spell and melee in attack form but are a little like rogue is skill and mentality.

[Phidius]

...
So if we need a Gish class, give me a duskblade over a hexblade any day. Mettle would be hard to code anyways

You peaked my interest, so I did a little research. Yeah, duskblade sounds like a lot of fun.

Maybe we should start a Duskblade thread

Edit: too late - adding duskblade as a character class

[binnsr]

sorry, i'd rather they finish up all the PrEs first

This!

[Uska]

Sorry rather have druids first then just about anything else over hexblade they seem rather ho hum to me.

[DrakeD77a]

Hmm, as i said its not for everyone. but this verstile classes are my favorite. I favor teh rogue and front runnner mentality.

[Eso]

Here is a idea for a update. Bring in the Hexblade from D&D 3.5 in. The Hexblade is a close combat fighter with limited spellcasting ability, mostly using it to debuff or lower stats of his enemies. This ability is through "curses" or "hexes" and at higher levels gets a aura of unluck which gives enemies miss chances against him because they caught bad luck. Luck is a central theme in their backgroud. Supposely they are such unlucky people they had t learn how to make that bad luck affect their enemies instead of them. They lose the fighter feats for this limited ability but i think its a cool idea.


I would think this would wed nicely into current ddo animation abilities since it is not asking for much more in the way of animation besides normal casting rites or something, because most of the affects are invisable just affecting the luck of the enemy. balancing those hard fights.

what about fvs?
fvs aura debuff enemys,lower stats (if you want)use curses,spells etc,melee dps,spell dmg and plus self heal.
lol

[DrakeD77a]

I like FvS but them being divine and completely different in mentality and development for one is more spell caster than Hexblade, not to mention divine instead of Arcane. And the skill set is completely different. And hexblades have more weapons choice.

[DrakeD77a]

Well now we have Druid, now what do people think?

[Blank_Zero]

+1

I'm irritated that we got another new class with yet another unfinished PrE. Having a blast so far with the arti, but it really does drive me nuts that we only got battle engineer 1

Necroing to add to this.

While only getting BE1, I think it was a mixed blessing. The fact that there is only 2-3 "optimal" Arty levels (6/18/20) made it very easy to forgo the usual "How can I optimize my PrE?" questions and instead offered "How can this 1 rank of PrE mesh with other PrEs?"

I love seeing 6/6/8 builds personally. BE1 made it easier to see that for others.

[Delssar]

Iv been thinking about this.

Why not make a new class and call it along the lines of "arcane warrior" and have the Hexblade / Spell Sword / Something else as its prestieges.

[ArcaneMelee]

Iv been thinking about this.

Why not make a new class and call it along the lines of "arcane warrior" and have the Hexblade / Spell Sword / Something else as its prestieges.

I'd much rather that they ditch the "Wild Mage" PrE, and substitute a "Duskblade" PrE instead.

Just thinking about it gives me a warm feeli... dang it, gotta go change now.

[licho]

I have much lower expectacion from Duskblade than being full caster with melee option. (lol)

It will be enought if:
- It has a very melee feeling, so medium armor, sword, full BAB.
- It could really switch its combat time between offensive casting (blasting) and swinging stick. However, that dosnt mean full tier 9 spells (lol). The 5th is enought. (maybe with some downgrade in similar way as bard)
- Channeling spell! Ability to trigger spell effect with succesful blow (like eneveracion on hit, or shocking grasp, or chain lighting) or just channel raw eldrich energy into to power blows (burning mana to have some +nd of force dmg similar to Paladin)
- I really like the debuffing aspect, simply becouse debuffing in this game is nearly no existing, since fights are short, and if you can debuff you could be easier to just instakill it. And if the curse will be scalling with the class level to something like: -10 to all stats, -5 to all saves, and cut the hp by half + slow, this will be something worth using,. So this class should have lots of debuffs.
- Generally the casting aproach should be similar to Artificer, so some 1or2 cc spells, maybe more blasting than buffing, and some utylity spells.
- Some interesting abilities like Mantle will be a asset.

However such a class shoudl not have:
- Be a trapmonkey, this is for Bards and Articifer, that means also no inherit UMD
- Have a perfect self healing even for a p2w race, we have enought of this.
- Participate in the doting and instadeath madness.

Now, for many such a class will be to hard to play, but for others it will be very fun.

Note: The 16/2/2 is not the substitute of this class, neither melee specced fvs.
It will be more like fighter version of articifer without specialist part. (and no healing, even for WF) And not a repeater user but more melee.

[Calebro]

It will be overpowered if:
- It has a very melee feeling, so medium armor, sword, full BAB.
- It could really switch its combat time between offensive casting (blasting) and swinging stick.
- Channeling spell! Ability to trigger spell effect with succesful blow (like eneveracion on hit, or shocking grasp, or chain lighting) or just channel raw eldrich energy into to power blows (burning mana to have some +nd of force dmg similar to Paladin)
- I really like the debuffing aspect, simply becouse debuffing in this game is nearly no existing, since fights are short, and if you can debuff you could be easier to just instakill it. And if the curse will be scalling with the class level to something like: -10 to all stats, -5 to all saves, and cut the hp by half + slow, this will be something worth using,. So this class should have lots of debuffs.
- Generally the casting aproach should be similar to Artificer, so some 1or2 cc spells, maybe more blasting than buffing, and some utylity spells.
- Some interesting abilities like Mantle will be a asset.

fify
Full casting, full BAB, and that would only just be "enough"?
Sorry bro, but it's never going to happen. That would just be WAY OP.
There would be zero reason to ever roll anything other than a WF version of whatever you just created, other than possibly a rogue or monk splash of that abomination.

[Monkey-Boy]

No Warblades. Ever.

What's a Warblade?

[licho]

What's a Warblade?

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x...060802a&page=2

Thats said, i dont understand why smb can not love warblades.
Warblades (and generally Tome of Battle classes) are what melee classes should look like from the biggining.