[3.5] YAHR - Yet Another Hexblade Revision [PEACH]

[Pikazul]

Hi, I know there are already a lot of hexblade fixes out there, but no-one really satisfied me, so I tried to re-imagine it as a Tome of Battle class.
This hexblade has a much better version of the curse based mainly on the feat found on dragon, an aura that is actually useful and his cha-to-saves ability does not longer scream for a paladin-dip for absurd saves.
They are strong class feature, but limited in scope, and he has some dead levels.
Martial maneuvers are, well, always good, I tried to balance the whole class by giving him access to only 3 disciplines, the smallest number on maneuvers known (on par with the warblade) and a unreliable recovery method.

He also loses his spellcasting ability, I think that having both maneuvers and spells would be excessive, and if I was interested in using my standard actions to cast spells, I would have made a spellcaster instead.

His supposed role is to be a sort of aggressive bard, focused on making the life of his allies easier debuffing their enemies, while still being able to smack them once they are crippled enough.

Hexblade

Hit dice: d10.
Alignment: Any nongood.

{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Maneuvers Known|Maneuvers Readied|Stances Known|Special

1st|

+1

|

+2

|

+0

|

+2

|

3

|

3

|

1

|Hexblade's curse
2nd|

+2

|

+3

|

+0

|

+3

|

4

|

3

|

1

|Fate Manipulation
3rd|

+3

|

+3

|

+1

|

+3

|

5

|

3

|

1

|Mettle
4th|

+4

|

+4

|

+1

|

+4

|

5

|

4

|

2

|Dark Companion
5th|

+5

|

+4

|

+1

|

+4

|

6

|

4

|

2

|Aura of unluck 30ft
6th|

+6

|

+5

|

+2

|

+5

|

6

|

4

|

2

|---
7th|

+7

|

+5

|

+2

|

+5

|

7

|

4

|

2

|Bonus Feat
8th|

+8

|

+6

|

+2

|

+6

|

7

|

4

|

2

|Greater hexblade's curse
9th|

+9

|

+6

|

+3

|

+6

|

8

|

4

|

2

|---
10th|

+10

|

+7

|

+3

|

+7

|

8

|

5

|

3

|Bonus Feat
11th|

+11

|

+7

|

+3

|

+7

|

9

|

5

|

3

|Selective Aura
12th|

+12

|

+8

|

+4

|

+8

|

9

|

5

|

3

|---
13th|

+13

|

+8

|

+4

|

+8

|

10

|

5

|

3

|Bonus Feat
14th|

+14

|

+9

|

+4

|

+9

|

10

|

5

|

3

|---
15th|

+15

|

+9

|

+5

|

+9

|

11

|

6

|

3

|Dire hexblade's curse
16th|

+16

|

+10

|

+5

|

+10

|

11

|

6

|

4

|Bonus Feat
17th|

+17

|

+10

|

+5

|

+10

|

12

|

6

|

4

|Greater Aura
18th|

+18

|

+11

|

+6

|

+11

|

12

|

6

|

4

|---
19th|

+19

|

+11

|

+6

|

+11

|

13

|

6

|

4

|Bonus Feat
20th|

+20

|

+12

|

+6

|

+12

|

13

|

7

|

4

|Master of misfortune[/table]

Class Skills (4 + Int modifier per level, x4 at first level): Bluff, Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Hide, Intimidate, Martial lore, Move silently, Profession, Ride, Tumble.

Class Features

Weapon and armor proficiency: As an hexblade you are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, light, medium and heavy armor and all shields.

Maneuvers: You start with three maneuvers at first level, the disciplines available to you are Diamond Mind, Shadow Hand and White Raven. You must meet the prerequisites to learn a maneuver and you must ready it before you can use it. You learn additional maneuvers as shown in the table, at level 4th and at every subsequent even-numbered hexblade level you can swap any maneuver you know with a different one for which you meet the prerequisites. You can swap only a single maneuver at any given level. Your initiator level equals your class level.

Maneuvers readied: You can ready all three maneuvers you know at first level but as you learn more maneuvers you must choose which ones to ready. You ready maneuvers by meditating for 5 minutes and occasionally by exercising your powers trying to influence the outcome of the roll of a wood-carved twenty-sided dice.
You begin every encounter with all your readied maneuvers available to you, when you use one of them that maneuver is expended and isn't available to you for the duration of the encounter unless is recovered in some way. Every time you kill or destroy an enemy and every time that an enemy inflicted with your curse is killed or destroyed (even by you) all your readied maneuvers became unexpended and available to you.
For the maneuvers to be recovered the enemy's CR must be high enough to give you XP.

Hexblade's curse (Su): Your signature ability as as hexblade is the power to alter the fortune of your opponents, greatly reducing their own abilities. Choose two curses from the list, these are now available to you. As a swift action you can curse any enemy within 60ft with one of your available curses, the enemy must succeed in a Will save against 10 + half your hexblade level + your Charisma modifier, or take the associated penalty. If the save is successful the enemy is still cursed, but this curse only causes a penalty against curses from the same hexblade.
You can use your hexblade's curse a number of times per day equal to 1 + half your class level + your Charisma modifier.
At first level the standard penalty that your curse causes is -2, at 8 level it increases to -4 and at fifteen level it increases to -6.
Curses from the same hexblade, even different ones, do not stack, a new curse always cancels the other, note that the penalty against curses caused by a successful save does count as a curse.
Your curses vanish after an hour and can be removed by any effect that remove or dispels curses.


Fate manipulation (Su): Starting at 2nd level you can manipulate fate to benefit you, as such you can add your Charisma modifier to all your saves. Gods don't support this kind of alteration by mere mortals and thus this ability doesn't stack with Divine Grace and other similar abilities.

Mettle (Su): At 3rd level you have learned how to reverse causality itself, if you make a successful Will or Fortitude save against an effect that would normally have a lesser effect on a successful save, you instead completely negate the effect as if it never happened.

Dark Companion: As the PHP2 ACF

Aura of unluck: (Su): Starting at 5th level you can expend one of your curse uses to activate a malevolent aura. You choose one of your available curses and cause every creature in a 30ft radius around you to suffer the effect of that curse at half the penalty. Activating the aura is a free action and there is no save against its effect. The aura last for a number of round equal to your Charisma modifier. The penalties from your aura always stack with the penalties from your curses. You cannot have more than an aura active at the same time.

Bonus feat: At 7th level and every 3 level thereafter ( 10th, 13th, 16th and 19th) you gain the benefit of a feat chose from the following list.
Additional Curse, Empower Curse, Persistent Curse, Irresistible Curse, Extra Curse, Bad Luck.


Selective Aura: At 11th level you can choose which creatures are affected by your aura and wich are not.

Greater Aura: At 17th level your aura extends up to 10ft for point of charisma modifier.

Master of Misfortune: At 20th level you are the undisputed master of bad luck. Once per encounter you can do one of the following:
You can activate an aura that impose a standard penalty instead of a halved one.
You can inflict a stronger curse which causes the effects of two of your available curses. The target makes a single save at DC+5.

CURSES

{table=head]Name|Effect
Curse of Weakness|Target takes a standard penalty to AC, attack bonus and Saves.
Curse of Incompetence|Target takes a double penalty to skill check, ability check, level check and caster level check.
Curse of Distraction|Target must cast defensively and takes a standard penalty to his concentration check. If used as an aura targets do not take a penalty
Curse of Sloth|Target movement speed decreases by 10ft for point of penalty
Curse of Dullness|Target takes a double penalty to weapon damage.
Curse of Paranoia|Target is always flanked, flanked bonus granted to you and your allies is equal to the standard penalty. If used as an aura flanked bonus does not increase
Curse of Amnesia|Target loses access to some of his spell slots as if he gained a number of negative levels equal to a standard penalty
Curse of Softness|Target's Damage reduction is reduced by twice the standard penalty.
[/table]



FEATS

ADDITIONAL CURSE [HEXBLADE]
Prerequisite: Hexblade's curse
Benefit: Choose two curse that aren't available to you. Now they are.

EMPOWER CURSE [HEXBLADE]
Prerequisite: Hexblade's curse
Benefit: When you use one of your curse you can expend additional uses to improve the penalty by 2. This feat can't be use in conjunction with Aura of unluck and the total penalty can't be over twice the standard one.

IRRESISTIBLE CURSE [HEXBLADE]
Prerequisite: Hexblade's curse
Benefit: When enemies make the save against your curse they must roll two dice and take the worse result.

EXTRA CURSE [HEXBLADE]
Prerequisite: Hexblade's curse
Benefit: You have 3 more daily uses for your curse.

BAD LUCK [HEXBLADE]
Prerequisite: Hexblade's curse
Benefit: Once per encounter you can expend two uses of your curse to make an enemy reroll a die as an immediate action.

PERSISTENT CURSE [HEXBLADE]
Prerequisite: Hexblade's curse
Benefit: You can expend an additional use of your curse ability and make the curse persistent. A persistent curse does not completely vanishes after an hour but lingers indefinitely. Whenever you are within 60ft of the target you can reactivate the curse as a free action.
The only way to dispel this curse is to cast remove curse and succeed in a caster level check against DC 15 + your hexblade level. If the check fails the caster is cursed with the same persistent curse too. A spellcaster cursed this way cannot dispel any of the hexblade curses.

[monkman]

you cant make a base class non-good.
second explain what is

Dark Companion: As the PHP2 ACF

some people dont have that book

[unosarta]

you cant make a base class non-good.

Where exactly, if ever, is that stated officially by the "rules of homebrewing"?
Design doesn't always follow trends, and the Warlock does have the requirement of being non-good.

Also, because no where in any rulebook does it say you have to follow that alignment restriction, and unless the OP feels like adding an ex-Hexblade option, they take no penalty for switching to good after starting with the character.

As for the class itself, I like it. I certainly wouldn't play one, if only because it would be hard for me personally to see all of the nuances in such a character, personality wise. The mechanics are nice and I love adding Tome of Battle.

Well; Warlocks require either evil or chaotic, but my point isn't entirely nullified.

[monkman]

Where exactly, if ever, is that stated officially by the "rules of homebrewing"?
Design doesn't always follow trends, and the Warlock does have the requirement of being non-good.

Also, because no where in any rulebook does it say you have to follow that alignment restriction, and unless the OP feels like adding an ex-Hexblade option, they take no penalty for switching to good after starting with the character.

As for the class itself, I like it. I certainly wouldn't play one, if only because it would be hard for me personally to see all of the nuances in such a character, personality wise. The mechanics are nice and I love adding Tome of Battle.

Well; Warlocks require either evil or chaotic, but my point isn't entirely nullified.

I failed, End of comment.

[Chambers]

The Hexblade (as written in Complete Warrior) is an interesting failure. It's a really cool concept but the execution doesn't work. Making it an initiator class helps a lot, but I'm a little concerned about the recovery mechanic. At low levels it would probably be easy to recover your maneuvers (low HP enemeis), but at higher levels you may burn through your maneuvers in a few rounds and then be out of luck while your party fights some tough enemies.

I like seeing alternate recovery mechanics, but I think they should all maintain the core functioning of the three base recovery mechanics, i.e. recovery is based on something the character does (swift then attack, full-round, out of ungranted maneuvers), not on something that another character does (enemy dying).

OT:

An idea I had for reworking the Hexblade is to imagine the class not as a 20 level class, but as a martial discipline. The Curse would be a progression of strikes, the Unluck Aura and variants are stances, the Arcane Resistance and Mettle are counters/boosts.

[Pechvarry]

Neat stuff. I like your decisions for schools -- at least Shadow Hand and White Raven. The third, being diamond mind, not so sure about but it works for me. Stone Dragon or Tiger Claw makes more sense to me, but to each their own.

The Hexblade (as written in Complete Warrior) is an interesting failure. It's a really cool concept but the execution doesn't work. Making it an initiator class helps a lot, but I'm a little concerned about the recovery mechanic.

OP, I might suggest adding a line somewhere in the class that they can qualify for feats as a Crusader of their level, thus being capable of picking up adaptive style. In this way, late-game Hexblades can pick up the feat if they start running into the above-mentioned problem. And other than that, I think the recovery mechanic is fine and interesting.

An idea I had for reworking the Hexblade is to imagine the class not as a 20 level class, but as a martial discipline. The Curse would be a progression of strikes, the Unluck Aura and variants are stances, the Arcane Resistance and Mettle are counters/boosts.

I think someone did this. It's geared towards hexblades and warlocks in one fell swoop if I remember right.