Arelith

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 2:16 pm**

Seven Sons of Sin wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 1:56 pm I'd rather see a focused, and lean spellbook if we keep the Full BAB progression. I don't think they should get all the zoos like they did before (Rangers don' t get the full array, and neither do Paladins.). They should get just enough to get by - arguably they should cap out at Improved Invisibility and Haste being their 4th level slots, as being the 'capstone' spells. Also getting GMW seems like a lot.

Or, and what I think would be more interesting is if we:
- give hexblade levels 1-6 and progression like a bard
- drop BAB down to 3/4
- focus a lot on enchantment and necromancy spells (along with some buffs)
- give them access to ESF: Enchantment and ESF: Necromancy

Personally I'd prefer "lean spellbooK" or "no spellbook", meaning a class with unique mechanics rather than another odd arcane caster.

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 4:41 pm**

"But I can't drink healing potions in PvP to win the PvP" is rather niche as far as critiques go, and I don't think it warrants the consternation it's given here.

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 5:12 pm**

It's very unreasonable to request that it get all the self buffing spells that it needs (aside from barkskin). What's your regular round of buffing needs:

Barkskin
Imp Invis
Haste
+STR/CON/CHA (+DEX as needed)
Mage Armour
Shield

Getting all of those in a full BAB class no only gives you auto choices for spells, it lets you ignore needing to buy wands (that won't require UMD for you). An extended shield spell is very different than a 3 minute version you use as needed (i.e. like the abj paladin). A haste (or extended haste) is very different than a 1 minute haste. etc.

It's entirely possible that it will need a bit more than what it currently has, but these getting into spell lists are massive different that a QOL from casting from a wand.

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 8:02 pm**

Why are they evil only? It isn't evil only in any edition. They're any nongood in 3.0, as far as I can tell, but otherwise throughout their many adaptations, they've never been evil only.

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 8:07 pm**

Hexing is an active detriment to living things. No neutral so we don't have any 'misunderstood' hexblade rp.
This is one presentation of what they are. This is not the forum to discuss other classes for the sake of alignment and exceptions.

Get focused on mechanics instead of themes please.
It's locked to evil alignments, operate with that expectation for the purposes of testing.

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 9:00 pm**

Curse weapon effects except for the enhancement bonus only apply to a hexed target.

viewtopic.php?p=225279#p225279

I gotta say this is a massive letdown and kills most reasons to bother with the class.

It also reminds me of taunt skill.

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 9:06 pm**

oof at the post deletion, but surely their mechanical alignment restriction is a part of the class for which feedback is being solicited?

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 9:09 pm**

It's not up for discussion.

Edit: So far I've had to heavily edit the thread for players nit-picking one another and 'ideas'.
If you can contribute something that is related to builds that are restricted by the present alignment of Evil, then go ahead. But everyone has their own perspective it seems on what the alignment system is.

This is a class largely in testing and open to changes as is seen every week now in Announcements. Please help us with those tests.

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 9:11 pm**

So feedback threads are purely for mechanics divorced from roleplay and thematics? Really not trying to be a smartass, but it would help for any future use of this forum segment.

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 9:11 pm**

my feedback is to change the name of the class, then, as it's patently not a representation of Hexblade as portrayed in any edition of D&D. i know we've strayed from P&P plenty here but this one's kind of just a straight up lie

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 9:11 pm**

Void wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 9:00 pm
Curse weapon effects except for the enhancement bonus only apply to a hexed target.
viewtopic.php?p=225279#p225279

I gotta say this is a massive letdown and kills most reasons to bother with the class.

It also reminds me of taunt skill.

Mostly because while customizable weapon effects are cool.... customizable weapon effects that work only against single target are not very cool. Unless I'm misunderstanding how those are supposed to be applied.

Also, the Curse of Worms replacement AOE shoudl probably block ALL healing, including kits, and have scaling duration which increases with class level.

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 10:51 pm**

I didn't like the last changes...

I was thinking the Hex feature would be kind of useless... and instead of fixing it,
the changes kind of broke the rest of the class...

Hex is a little better now, since you can use it for target at a time...
But it will be hell to keep applying it to every enemy to use the features...

Maybe if the Hex would infect other enemies after the first one died, or something like that.
Otherwise, let the curse weapon work without hex.

Also, remove that familiar... lol

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 11:48 pm**

With the last changes, esp only allowing cursed weapon effects to activate on hexed opponents, it feels like the two main class features are being winnowed down to one.

Posted: **Fri May 01, 2020 12:07 am**

Something I'd love to see is some commentary from the developers about the design choices they've made.

For example, I've not read anyone present a reason why the Hexblade should continue scaling linearly, instead of a more staggered approach. In fact, I've only noticed people talking about how the class lacks a fun factor, and seems entirely built around an extremely high level investment. What's the reasoning for this? Am I missing something? Why is that better than the alternative?

Then the dissonance of DC spells on a melee oriented class, along with having a familiar for some reason. There's a lot of choices I struggle to see proper motivation behind.

That said, I love the way new Hex works! Or, how it's supposed to work. Tried on mobs on PGCC, and tried in combat with Death enabled for the arena. Hex never came off cool-down when something was killed. It's also not an instant action. Coming off cool-down upon target death is super cool, if it would work. The Hex is a little underwhelming for anyone who isn't heavily invested, but hopefully being able to experience it as an instant action helps make it feel more useful.

Less bonus feats, and more powerful one-time boons from those feats, seems like a better way to go.

Posted: **Fri May 01, 2020 2:25 am**

CosmicOrderV wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 12:07 am Something I'd love to see is some commentary from the developers about the design choices they've made.

For example, I've not read anyone present a reason why the Hexblade should continue scaling linearly, instead of a more staggered approach. In fact, I've only noticed people talking about how the class lacks a fun factor, and seems entirely built around an extremely high level investment. What's the reasoning for this? Am I missing something? Why is that better than the alternative?

Then the dissonance of DC spells on a melee oriented class, along with having a familiar for some reason. There's a lot of choices I struggle to see proper motivation behind.

That said, I love the way new Hex works! Or, how it's supposed to work. Tried on mobs on PGCC, and tried in combat with Death enabled for the arena. Hex never came off cool-down when something was killed. It's also not an instant action. Coming off cool-down upon target death is super cool, if it would work. The Hex is a little underwhelming for anyone who isn't heavily invested, but hopefully being able to experience it as an instant action helps make it feel more useful.

Less bonus feats, and more powerful one-time boons from those feats, seems like a better way to go.

It's likely that the server hasn't been reset yet which is why hex isn't working properly. I'll go take a look but it's been working fine on the test server.

Posted: **Fri May 01, 2020 2:33 am**

Doing a reset now.

Posted: **Fri May 01, 2020 2:50 am**

So just to clarify some things on what's going on under the hood here:

1. Here is some math on how it stacks up against similar paladin or ranger builds. I used the same weapon across all 3 classes which puts the ranger at a disadvantage since they won't have their normal apr, but it's useful for the sack of math. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing
Note that the damage is calculated assuming no damage vulnerability and also no essences. To fit the vulnerability on a 27/3 build, you would have to give up 1 of the elements, the ac, or the ab debuff. I assumed the 27/3 did not take curse of blood to maximize damage (vamp regen) but the pure on did with their extra feat.

While the damage from a 27/3 hexblade is about on par with a 23/4/3 paladin with less windup, a lot of that extra damage can be blocked by defensive essences or energy buffer. Additionally, hex being single target means that 4 of the calculated ac only applies in a 1v1 scenario.

2. I'm going to revert the change that the damage can only be applied to the hexed target. While I like the idea thematically, in practice this can be an issue. In a groupfight, the person you hex could immediately run away, hips, gsanc, etc., which, when all of your damage is tied to hitting that person, makes you a potato. Getting your debuff wasted hurts you, but it's not completely crippling like having the damage be lost as well is. Additonally, as someone pointed out, being forced to use it against every single trash mob in pve could quickly get tedious.

3. Before it goes on live, I'm going to do another pass over the spellbook to add or remove things as necessary.

4. Lastly, right now it could still use some survivability. I'm planning to add a little bit of physical DI, with a higher bonus on pure hexblades. As it stand right now, a pure hexblade fully self buffed is at 46 ac before hex or expertise, which is on the very low end of viable.

Posted: **Fri May 01, 2020 3:13 am**

Fun fun! For consideration, maybe some temp HP when slaying your Hexed target? Very... "Steal their life-force" vibe as previously described.

Some survivability is totally a good call! Still wonder about the damage scaling, though. Seems like it could be tiered more, to be attractive at lower levels. Familiar persist for reasons unknown as well.

Posted: **Fri May 01, 2020 3:37 am**

I know this is pertaining to the alignment restriction argument and stuff, which we don't really want to talk about, but I feel like this should put it to rest well enough with a better argument than, "It's bad because it's bad." dm rex pls no delet

Whether you use it to make a pact with a foul creature - demon, devil, or something else -, collect the souls of others to draw strength from, or twist your own soul into a corrupted mockery of the life it represented, it can be agreed that horrid powers are at play.

So here we have (roughly) 3 different ideas for how someone becomes a Hexblade:
1) An unholy pact with some outside entity. Essentially, a warlock (which is why I guess it gets Find Familiar, which I would like to again say that I hate it having).
2) Training in a form of blood magic, using the lives of others to fuel your magic. Essentially, a wizard (or a spellsword who's way too into necromancy).
3) The mutilation of one's own soul to attune to and draw from dark energies. Essentially, a sorcerer (but like, a super evil one).

All of these ideas pretty much make sense to me individually as to why they'd restrict someone to the Evil alignment. It's basically the Palemaster argument: The process of becoming a Palemaster (or Hexblade) is so heinous that one cannot be good after having done them.

That said, maybe there's an argument for being able to apply for a neutral Hexblade with DM permission - perhaps a few months down the line after their place in the setting has been well established. The stance of "No neutral so we don't have any 'misunderstood' hexblade rp" is kinda disappointing since that's a perfectly valid avenue for compelling storytelling. People like the Witcher for a reason. I dunno what that reason is, mind you.

Alright, now I gotta talk about mechanics so that this post doesn't get deleted, uhhhh, hmm... Okay, got it:

There's no good reason to go more than 10 levels in Hexblade unless you're going to go pure or 27/3 - or if you're a roleplay builder who isn't interested in having a fun PvP or PvE experience (which is a very slim statistic among evil players and characters, since evil is so likely to find themselves in conflict scenarios and, well, no one wants to look like a clown). Even then, you're taking a huge loss since there are other classes that will serve the same purpose far better with those same 10 levels. That is a problem for build diversity, which, when combined with other limitations such as alignment restrictions, also happens to be a problem for narrative diversity, and limitations in narrative diversity is poison for a class's replayability and the scope of roleplay available to it. Change my mind.

Posted: **Fri May 01, 2020 4:25 am**

magistrasa wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 3:37 am I know this is pertaining to the alignment restriction argument and stuff, which we don't really want to talk about, but I feel like this should put it to rest well enough with a better argument than, "It's bad because it's bad." dm rex pls no delet

Whether you use it to make a pact with a foul creature - demon, devil, or something else -, collect the souls of others to draw strength from, or twist your own soul into a corrupted mockery of the life it represented, it can be agreed that horrid powers are at play.
So here we have (roughly) 3 different ideas for how someone becomes a Hexblade:
1) An unholy pact with some outside entity. Essentially, a warlock (which is why I guess it gets Find Familiar, which I would like to again say that I hate it having).
2) Training in a form of blood magic, using the lives of others to fuel your magic. Essentially, a wizard (or a spellsword who's way too into necromancy).
3) The mutilation of one's own soul to attune to and draw from dark energies. Essentially, a sorcerer (but like, a super evil one).

All of these ideas pretty much make sense to me individually as to why they'd restrict someone to the Evil alignment. It's basically the Palemaster argument: The process of becoming a Palemaster (or Hexblade) is so heinous that one cannot be good after having done them.

That said, maybe there's an argument for being able to apply for a neutral Hexblade with DM permission - perhaps a few months down the line after their place in the setting has been well established. The stance of "No neutral so we don't have any 'misunderstood' hexblade rp" is kinda disappointing since that's a perfectly valid avenue for compelling storytelling. People like the Witcher for a reason. I dunno what that reason is, mind you.

Alright, now I gotta talk about mechanics so that this post doesn't get deleted, uhhhh, hmm... Okay, got it:

There's no good reason to go more than 10 levels in Hexblade unless you're going to go pure or 27/3 - or if you're a roleplay builder who isn't interested in having a fun PvP or PvE experience (which is a very slim statistic among evil players and characters, since evil is so likely to find themselves in conflict scenarios and, well, no one wants to look like a clown). Even then, you're taking a huge loss since there are other classes that will serve the same purpose far better with those same 10 levels. That is a problem for build diversity, which, when combined with other limitations such as alignment restrictions, also happens to be a problem for narrative diversity, and limitations in narrative diversity is poison for a class's replayability and the scope of roleplay available to it. Change my mind.

I haven't advertised it because details are still being worked on and it probably won't be until further down the road, but we had plans to eventually allow for non-evil hexblades via reward.

I agree with you on the build diversity. One thing I'll do to help with that is front load more of the abilities. They will still scale, but you'll get most of the power when you take the feat.

For example,
Curse of flames now: 1 + 1 per 4 hexblade levels, capping at + 8 at level 28, and + 7 on a 27 /3
Where I'm rebalancing it: 5 + 1 at 22, 25, and 28. It'll still cap at + 8 at 28, and + 7 for a 27 / 3, but it'll be more frontloaded so that lower level investments still get a good amount of power out of it.

Posted: **Fri May 01, 2020 4:39 am**

garrbear758 wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 4:25 am I agree with you

That's all I needed to hear.

(I actually meant to mention in my last post how I thought the newest update helped a little bit with my earlier concerns about the slow scaling for the exact reason you gave - but I must have gotten so caught up in my self-absorbed preaching that I totally forgot to give credit where credit was due. Whoopsie-doodle.)

Posted: **Fri May 01, 2020 5:21 am**

Statistically speaking regarding the development of the class:-

I would like to suggest that the class veers towards (a proportion of its Hex repertoire) being soft and long term and post-combat debilitating rather than being totally devoted towards immediate drop-dead combat effectiveness (If an opponent wins versus a Hexblade it may well be a 'pyrrhic victory').

I would also like to suggest that the class is balanced statistically towards underperforming with an eye to only releasing live when "sought after" class related equipment is realised and made available. I would suggest via loot drops to begin with.

There is a history in MMO's, by way of example, for classes to be released overpowered (to act as a power draw as the new best shiny) and then their abilities having to be curtailed causing grief all round.

-- Tath.

Posted: **Fri May 01, 2020 9:30 am**

Void wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 9:11 pm
Void wrote: Thu Apr 30, 2020 9:00 pm
Curse weapon effects except for the enhancement bonus only apply to a hexed target.
viewtopic.php?p=225279#p225279

I gotta say this is a massive letdown and kills most reasons to bother with the class.

It also reminds me of taunt skill.
Mostly because while customizable weapon effects are cool.... customizable weapon effects that work only against single target are not very cool. Unless I'm misunderstanding how those are supposed to be applied.

Also, the Curse of Worms replacement AOE shoudl probably block ALL healing, including kits, and have scaling duration which increases with class level.

I think it was changed because it would be OP as all hell, maybe I'm wrong. Replacing it with something even more OP and powerful than what it originally was wouldn't make much sense. Having a class able to do something like that is pretty crazy. I can think of several ways it would absolutely break the game in terms of PvP.

Posted: **Fri May 01, 2020 1:32 pm**

Hazard wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 9:30 am
I think it was changed because it would be OP as all hell, maybe I'm wrong. Replacing it with something even more OP and powerful than what it originally was wouldn't make much sense. Having a class able to do something like that is pretty crazy. I can think of several ways it would absolutely break the game in terms of PvP.

Don't we have anti-magic zone spell or something?

New Spell - Anti-Magic Field
----------------------------------------

When cast this spell creates a 10' radius around the user where no magic can be cast, and all summons become immobile. A major game changer for those seeking an advantage against spellcasters, this spell appears in no spellbooks, but can be found on rare items in the game world, or used by dangerous foes, such as the infamous 'Weave Eater'

This stuff should block healing spells as well, like AoE curse worm replacement and the rest of the magic as well on top of that.

Rather than "OP or not", I'm more interested in "mechanically interesting option". PvP is something I do not normally witness, maybe there's a level 30 pvp club somewhere, but it is apparently well hidden. AOE heal disable would break the mold of situation.

And honestly, overuse of heal kits is ridiculous, when you stop to think about it. See what healing does in PnP, for example:
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/heal.htm

Posted: **Fri May 01, 2020 3:52 pm**

To stand still and use healing kits in PvP is to invite death. You can't outheal any class with decent damage output using those the way you can with healing potions.

Also, why are you bringing up anti magic field, a spell that while incredibly OP (and in my opinion should not be on Arelith at all) exists only on a select few monsters and rare loot drops. Not as a Core class feature

Arelith

Hexblade

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