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2017-12-05, 07:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
5e Bard's Guide
5e Fighter's Guide
5e Paladin's Guide
5e Ranger's Guide
5e Sorcerer's Guide
5e Warlock's Guide
Magic Items
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2017-12-05, 11:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
The following is a bit harsh but also deserved as you should not be making guides.
You really need to be comparing features to what you are giving up to get them. I don't want to write a book so here is one example.
Take Hexblade. It is overpowered and I will not be using it (though it's not game breaking, just completely overshadows every other patron so I understand why others are okay with it).
Compare Hexblade's Curse and Hex Warrior to:
(in order of strength)
Telepathy to 30ft
1/short rest charm/frighten for 1 round.
Temp HP on creature death
While the last one is quite good it is nothing compared to:
Medium Armour and Shields (Martial Weapons are superfluous) This alone is worth a half feat and is better than anything else other patrons get at 1st level
Cha to hit/damage
Super Hex 1/short rest.
The Super Hex itself has one ability which is just a bit worse than the Fiend's 1st level ability. That is all the Fiend gets and the Fiend is the strongest one.
Both the patron and the pact boon are minor abilities which add up to a typical subclass. Hexblade is ridiculously overpowered compared to every other patron.
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2017-12-05, 12:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-12-05, 12:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
Out of context (odd to make this assumption) it is bad. In context (trying to make a fundamentally ranged class a melee one) then yeah, it is not nearly as bad. They realized that bladelock was pretty much inferior to blastlock at every turn, so they needed a real way to incentivize it. This is what they came up with.
What I don't understand is why they decided to make superhex apply to all hits and not just hits with the pact weapon(s).
Also, warlock are just frontloaded and a little bit broken anyway. THE LURE OF POWER and all that.Last edited by krugaan; 2017-12-05 at 12:54 PM.
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2017-12-05, 12:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-12-05, 01:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
If they took hexblade for just the armor, why not take fighter and get a fighting style too? or Paladin, or Cleric, or what have you? Unless their stats are so abysmal they can't multiclass...
edit: 99% of the problem with warlocks would just go away if it was an INT based class instead of CHA based...Last edited by krugaan; 2017-12-05 at 01:06 PM.
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2017-12-05, 01:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-12-05, 01:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-12-05, 01:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
I never undestood why they should be CHA based.
Sure you may have had to convince a planar being to give you power, but how did you find them, summon them or know about them. Int makes sense. Not only that but if they were super charismatic they would have gotten better deals.
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2017-12-05, 02:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
Great guide! All things considered, I think you did a wonderful job with it.
I admit, however, that I am one of those people who is extremely disappointed with the Arcane Archer. I wouldn't rate it red, but certainly not blue either. Only ever getting 2 uses of your signature ability outside of higher levels is just lame. I don't care how powerful the Shots are. Personally, I see it as a thematically awesome but mechanically disappointing Battlemaster. Some of the Shots are more powerful than the Maneuvers, but there's fewer Shot options, and you can only use it twice.
This is especially egregious on a class who's really big feature is getting Extra Extra Attacks. Assuming a 5 round combat encounter, once you hit Tier 3 play, you're looking at 15 attacks, 13 of which are no more special than anyone else since first level. Comparatively, a ranged Battlemaster can use one third of its attacks (5/15) on maneuvers at the same level. And it gets a 6th at the same level the Arcane Archer sort-of gets three.
Don't get me wrong. Thematically, I love it. It's so damn cool. But that just makes the mechanics that much more disappointing to me.Insert Clever Signature Here
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2017-12-05, 02:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
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2017-12-05, 02:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
Charisma is no longer just "good at talking" ... it's more like force of will.
The way I always see it is the physical stats have mental counterparts. Int is mental dex, wisdom is mental con, cha is mental str.
Your explanation is as good as any, but they could also dominate or charm planars through force of will.
edit: apparently mephnick beat me to it. humph.Last edited by krugaan; 2017-12-05 at 02:05 PM.
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2017-12-05, 02:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-12-05, 02:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
The idea is that they didn't have to 'learn' magic, they just had it 'awakened' in them; in ways similar to a Sorcerer (which were, at the time, the first full Charisma spellcaster) and most other 'natural/unlearned ability' casters were the same way.
I agree it was a 3.5ism that could have been moved on from, but that is the origin of the idea
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2017-12-05, 02:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-12-05, 02:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
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2017-12-05, 02:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
Last edited by krugaan; 2017-12-05 at 02:23 PM.
Argue in good faith.
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2017-12-05, 03:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
You are making the same mistake as the OP, not comparing it to other options.
The armour proficiency alone is better than the other patrons. Hexblade is the strongest patron by far, even if you don't use any weapons.
The only ability that relies on a weapon is Cha to hit/dmg instead of str/dex. Everything else can be used with Eldritch Blast which already gets Cha to hit anyway.
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2017-12-05, 03:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
Ok, lets look at it again.
The armour proficiency alone is better than the other patrons. Hexblade is the strongest patron by far, even if you don't use any weapons.
The poor thing about Hexblade, IMO, is that your slots and concentration and higher level abilities are all going to be spent on hex and eldritch smite, and preclude you from using those slots to do any kind of controlling. Which is totally fine and great if that's what you want. Hexblade goes great with sorlock.
There are other ways to get armor that don't involve you locking yourself into a subclass that doesn't really offer anything to more controlling / utility locks.
It seems to me that you're just considering the warlock dips and not the higher level stuff.
The only ability that relies on a weapon is Cha to hit/dmg instead of str/dex. Everything else can be used with Eldritch Blast which already gets Cha to hit anyway.
They should have designed lock better from the ground up if they wanted to make blade pact more viable. As it is, hexblade is just the default "damage" pact, period.Argue in good faith.
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2017-12-05, 04:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
Those are 14th level abilities. The vast majority of campaigns won't even see play at that level. Even for the ones that do the total campaign play time at that level or above will be a small % of the rest of the campaign.
The abilities that define a character come into play at most as high as 7th level.
The poor thing about Hexblade, IMO, is that your slots and concentration and higher level abilities are all going to be spent on hex and eldritch smite, and preclude you from using those slots to do any kind of controlling. Which is totally fine and great if that's what you want. Hexblade goes great with sorlock.
Just look at the abilities on their own. None of them require using Eldritch Smite.
They should have designed lock better from the ground up if they wanted to make blade pact more viable. As it is, hexblade is just the default "damage" pact, period.
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2017-12-05, 05:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
Hmm, OK. I'm AFB but there are other non - 14th level abilities which are very good as well. Although the fact that I can't remember any off the top of my head...
Just don't do it. I think Hex is very much overrated as it is. Super Hex though which doesn't use a spell slot 1/short rest is really good. Hexblade gets a free better version of Hex 1/short rest and you are arguing that they will need to waste slots on casting Hex over other Warlocks? That doesn't make any sense.
Just look at the abilities on their own. None of them require using Eldritch Smite.
My personal opinion is that eldritch smite is pretty badass ... no save anything is pretty cool. Not really sure if its worth it, though.
Blade pact is fine as is. The pacts are all minor boons. The mistake is expecting a pact to completely change the character. Blade pact is perhaps the weakest of the 3 pacts but not by much.
Hexblade waspretty muchexplicitly designed as a bandaid for this. But again, all the class features have to do with armor and damage, and none with general utility. At all.Last edited by krugaan; 2017-12-05 at 05:21 PM.
Argue in good faith.
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2017-12-05, 05:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
It's not an either/or. Also, you get HP healing from the Super Hex.
It isn't a "short rest option" that takes the place of another one. It's an extra thing.
Sorry, but isn't it a bit ... disingenuous to say "you're not comparing these to the other options" and then say "look at them on their own?" Your whole point is "compared to other pacts, hexblade is the best, hands down" and my point is "yeah ... at doing what though?"
You need to look at the abilities in comparison to other abilities that you are giving up to take them.
Arguing about whether the Super Hex is better than regular Hex is not comparing them to other pacts.
[/quote]
My personal opinion is that eldritch smite is pretty badass ... no save anything is pretty cool. Not really sure if its worth it, though.
Well, I feel blade pact is really crappy because you have to spend all those invocations, many of which are powerful and unique, to replicate what other classes get for free, basically, on top of requiring you to be in melee, on a class that has generally crappy AC and middling hit points, and requires you to be MAD to really to anything in melee, and still does barely more damage than a regular lock, IF THAT.
Hexblade waspretty muchexplicitly designed as a bandaid for this. But again, all the class features have to do with armor and damage, and none with general utility. At all.
It's a monstrously overpowered patron that, if you care about power, should be taken by all Warlocks.
Most of the abilities of the other patrons are concerned with combat as well. Unless you want to argue that telepathy 30ft is somehow comparable to everything Hexblade gets at 1st level.
One is on the level of a cantrip, the other is worth about 1.5 feats.
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2017-12-05, 05:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-12-06, 12:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
This is a fair point. When I have Hexblade a blue rating I was mentally comparing it to a fiend warlock blaster, and thinking that it doesn't quite stack up. But as you, and others, have pointed out "blaster hexblade" warlock is probably the best warlock build in officially published materials.
When I have some free time I intend to go back and update this guide with some of the suggestions people have made (I already have for quite a few of the spells, but some of the rating I gave bother me a bit).
This is a little uncalled for though, no? I'd stand by 90% of my ratings for this guide. I actually read treantmonks guide recently and was surprised how close a lot of the ratings were (still think he overrates mantle of majesty).
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2017-12-06, 12:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
You shouldn't underestimate it. In practice it plays a lot like a battle-master archer i.e. wants to short rest after every combat. If you do that '2 shots' won't feel too limiting. 1-6 it's certainly weaker, but curving shot makes up for a lot. I played the UA version of this class in a CoS game I was in and it was disgustingly good with sharp shooter since the guaranteed reroll really opens you up to take more risks with the 'power attack'.
Sadly I think Battlemaster is just one of those subclasses, like Lore Bard or Life Cleric, that just seems to tower over all other options in general power.
Thankyou
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2017-12-06, 09:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
I admit I haven't seen it in play yet. Hopefully it holds its own once I do. One of the players in a game I just started is planning to use it, so fingers crossed.
Sadly I think Battlemaster is just one of those subclasses, like Lore Bard or Life Cleric, that just seems to tower over all other options in general power.Insert Clever Signature Here
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2017-12-06, 10:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
Breaking BM: Revised - an updated look at the beast-mounted halfling ranger based on the Revised Ranger: Beast Conclave.
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2017-12-06, 10:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
Last edited by Naanomi; 2017-12-06 at 10:36 AM.
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2017-12-06, 10:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Prose's Guide to Xanathar's Guide to Everything
That's a good point, but that also means we can't say A is better than B unless we have a specific situation in mind. I don't agree with the idea of ranking builds without specifying the conditions.
I think it would be more useful to say "A is good at this, B is good at that." A Hexblade is good at fighting in close quarters and killing individual powerful creatures. A fiend warlock is good at blasting creatures from afar and dealing with creatures succeptible to fire. A great old one warlock is good at manipulating people. And so on.Breaking BM: Revised - an updated look at the beast-mounted halfling ranger based on the Revised Ranger: Beast Conclave.
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2017-12-06, 11:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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