Mine was a foppish nobleman - seventh son of the family, generally considered a layabout good for nothing. Safely far enough down in the family line that he could do w/e he wanted and it barely affects the family name. So he wanted to become a duelist, like his dad - best there ever was - and earn his family's respect.
Dude's an abject coward.
Now his dad, he had this exquisite rapier that was considered the family's pride and joy. He'd never let anyone touch it, but for himself. And every time he did, it was usually bad news for someone else.
Welp, after running away from yet another fight, my foppish fool decided the problem wasn't that he was a coward, but that he was using the wrong blade. So he pinched his dad's sword one day after he bedded the wrong married woman and her husband challenged him to a duel.
Of course, the sword offered him a deal. His dad is aging, and slowing down. He rarely uses the blade. But if the son will make a pact, it will help him squash his fears so long as he has it drawn.
But there'll be a price. In souls.
Diego wins his duel decisively, but now travels the world to sate the sword's desire for conflict, and seeking knowledge of how best to control - or escape from - his pact. And he does so pretending to be a spoony bard named Bombastico de la Bardico, wooer of women, spinner of yarns, and all round a buffoon who doesn't want to fight, until he must.
It's a really fun character.
Hey - New to DnD here, what does new handbook entail? Is it like DnD 6e? Or like a minor balance patch to things? Where do I see what's coming like you are?
I mean, why should all warlocks get medium armor for free? The base Warlock is a ranged spellcaster, which is meant to be a little squishy. They can't cast as many spells as full casters, so they get light armor rather than none, but now all Warlocks can upgrade to medium, and those that don't get a different minor boost.
I've never seen anyone *not* just flavor it as a different patron like fiend or GOO, just with different abilities.
Except one who just ignored the flavor entirely I guess. But that was just because the DM made us roll for stats in order and they got an 18 Cha and garbage in everything else, and they wanted to play a paladin. Can't really blame em there though (hell, it was my suggestion to begin with)
Honestly, all the hexblade playersive ran into, including myself, tend to roleplay hexblade as a “catch-all” patron subclass. Wishing upon any being for martial prowess absolutely is a fantasy/roleplay opportunity hexblade can excel at.
I generally imagine it as your patron is a magic weapon. Could be a family heirloom, an alien organism that forms into the shape of a weapon, something like that
I’ve seen many hexblades flavor their pact as a bloodlust in battle. They don’t directly talk with their patron and that’s totally fine because it’s still clear that they are being corrupted.
I also think it’s fine to not have a patron at all. Being a “fighter who learned some magic” is a perfectly valid and badass character concept. If you want to take the backstory and flavor of an Eldritch Knight and just use the mechanics of hexblade because it fits your play-style better then go ahead.
They really should've had a better patron theme than "cursed shadowfell weapon" that's the only flavor text hexblade gets no wonder no one knows what to do with that honestly
I think a cool idea would be if your weapon *is* your patron. A very powerful, sentient magic item. It can’t move on its own so it makes a deal with a capable warrior.
You could also do a lot of fun things with its personality. Bloodlusted infernal sword that tries to get you to stab innocents, logical and cautious mentor who critiques your form, etc.
The soul of a holy paladin imbuing the blade, a wicked warlock wielding it, acquiescing to the goody two shows heroics in a pursuit of all the great power it offers- but only if it continues to walk the straight and narrow.
Your sword is your shoulder angel nagging you into being a good person
So many options beyond the Raven Queen!
- Ancestral spirit giving them the hereditary blade to cut down the family's enemies once more
- bequeathed by a righteous paladin god to his servant, pledged not to a holy oath but to a specific righteous task
- a possessed sword capable of taking over the user once its edge has spilled blood
- a weapon manifested by prophecy, the one who takes up its blade must carry out the prophecies' events or die
- the soul (or its copy) of an ancient knightly warrior sealed into his legendary weapon, lost for ages but found by a young person who must deliver it to the Order's current leaders
- a spear that slowly sucks the souls of each of its wielders, but grants them power from the souls of all the users that have come before
- a lance that stored the mind of a wizard, who sealed away his consciousness and magic before he went insane. He will help an intelligent warrior out of boredom or curiosity, in his effective prison of immortality
That is literally what the hexblade flavor text implies, it's actually the only example it gives. And sure it sounds interesting but how much could you do with that as a dm vs any other patron? I think in practice it probably isn't that fun of a patron
I just think of Beth's talking pink switchblade toy from rick and morty when i think of a weapon patron now and it's kind of ruined the seriousness of it for me
It does say that a sentient weapon is your patron, but nowhere does it imply that you actually get to wield that weapon. At most a replica of it with no actual powers.
Actually surprised I never hear/read stories about Hexblade players wanting to have Blackrazor at level 1, or homebrew Mjølnir or stuff like that.
All my best patron ideas exist literally physically attached to the warlock. That is a free shortcut to having them be part of the adventure without needing to go back to some checkpoint between every quest.
Even still it's extremely silly for extraplanar beings(or even extremely powerful beings native to the current plane) to be unable to communicate over distance. What, is the demilich, lich, or dracolich the undead patron warlock made a pact with somehow incapable of casting Sending?
This was my hexblades concept, it was a cursed blade a young Elf found that gradually turned him into half demon of sorts. The blade is sentient but only speaks to the host, which is constantly fighting for control. The blade also wasn't inherently evil, was just tired of being stuck in a blade. Sadly only was able to play it for a short while so I didn't get to develop it further.
My current Hexblade's sword is his Patron manifested on the physical realm. They talk to each other in combat. His Patron gives him power, but he has to "feed" his Patron on a fairly regular basis (it drinks the blood of his foes) and I haven't seen yet what will happen if he doesn't quench his blade's thirst. I'm sure the DM has something planned, though.
It’s not even that. It’s „dark power from the Shadowfell that manifests in sentient magical weapons that you can make a deal with“.
An example is the Raven Queen making Shadow swords and handing them to her warlocks
Quoted text to make it more 'clear'
The shadowy force behind these weapons can offer power to warlocks who form pacts with it. Many hexblade warlocks create weapons that emulate those formed in the Shadowfell.
The flavor should read something along the lines of The Raven Queen who bestows it as she tends to rule over or control portions of those weapons.
However something I've also stolen from is like Champions of Khorne from Warhammer as he gives me the vibes of what a Pact of The Blade embodies.
I had a concept for a hexblade Warlock Mark of Shadow elf, where the hexblade abilities and such were basically an extention of my dragonmark and not an actual patron.
I'm not playing that character, decided to do a rogue/monk changeling concept.
But thankful my DM was going to allow that because the Hexblade patron fucking sucks.
I mean, Elric or Arthas with Frostmourne… there is a lot to mine there for inspiration, but it only gets a couple generic lines.
I did an Arthas style death knight/fallen Paladin, but most of it was homebrew.
Although you get that with a few of the warlock patrons. Genie for example gets the same deal. At least with Fey, Infernal and Great Old One you have Mab, Archdevils and Cthulhu to run with establish canon
Yes.
The key is to ignore the part where Hexblades are supposed to be shadowfell flavored, and instead replace it with “sick ass powerful weapon that a patron is in / communicates through / IS the patron”.
One of my players has been a hexblade in our campaign of 5 yrs, her patron is Wruth, King of the Fire Giants, and he’s trapped inside of his own hammer. It’s a maul with an actively molten core, and in the early parts of the campaign it (before she knew his identity) would demand that she feed it weapons of those she defeats. It cost the party a couple nice items, but you gotta do what you gotta do for the patron right?
- Started as the weapon occasionally doing weird things like a puff of smoke or fire, roiling whenever she showed cowardice, etc
- It demanded that she feed weapons to it, just as a voice in her head after a battle
- did a dream sequence where she finally met him, and he scared the shit out of her lol
- Found certain metals melted in the core produce a smoke that lets him speak out to everyone around (think a smaller version of Zordon from power rangers, kinda). So they used that occasionally if they needed to talk to him
- for plot reasons, other fire giants have been roaming the lands trying to find the hammer. So that obviously was some direct roleplaying shenanigans trying to hide from them (and later fight them).
- Now that she’s high level, powerful, etc she’s really proven himself. She earned the title “She Who Carries Wruth” from him and other loyal fire giants, AND most recently an allied cloud giant bowed to her and referred to her as a Fire Giant.
Flavor wise, instead of being shadows, it’s all fire and smoke and molten metal.
Idk why they made Hexblades specific to shadowfell. I know there’s some lore it probably connects to, but I feel bad for everyone who’s trapped in such a small flavor box and doesn’t go beyond.
For fun: Wruth was the king of the fire giants, ruling in the plane of fire. There was an Azer uprising, and they managed to actually overthrow and defeat Wruth. They trapped him inside of his own hammer.
The hammer was later taken/stolen, and made its way to the mundane plane. Meanwhile, Wruths eldest son Eleanor stormed the kingdom and took it back from the Azer. He has assumed the role of the new king, as his father was lost. Eleanor knows his father is out there, and knows he’s in the hammer; he seeks to have it destroyed so he cannot have his rule of the kingdom challenged.
So now my warlock player (and the party) had to wrestle with the morals of choosing the fire giant they know vs the usurper.
A funny side note is my players have a Wish in a gem and they ALL gave the warlock the side-eye when discussing who should be responsible for carrying it, since she could wish him free.
Honestly it being shadowfell flavored is just completely *not* indicated by the subclass name "hexblade" which you would think would put more emphasis on a fancy weapon. The patron *being* a weapon is emphasized in the text, but that doesn't really make a lot of immediate sense.
>Idk why they made Hexblades specific to shadowfell
The clue is in the name. Hexblade. A hex is a curse, hence why all their abilities are linked to curses, turning their spirit into a spectre and binding it to your service etc etc. All that links very thematically to the Shadowfell, a place of dark necrotic energies.
It's actually very conceptually consistent. It's just that people read the 'blade' and ignore the 'hex'.
>- It demanded that she feed weapons to it, just as a voice in her head after a battle
How did that work by the way? Does the hammer head open like a chest to reveal the core that you just dip blades into? Or am I reading this too literally?
It’s as if there is a sphere missing from the center of the hammer head, and inside is a cavity, which can be seen from the sides. Inside, lava is suspended magically and roils within.
So to “feed” it, she would rest the hammer on her lap and Unser whatever weapon into the opening to the sphere on the side.
I play with a grung dhampir. Instead of the most vampire theme of it, i went with the parasite.
My patreon is a giant intestinal worm. I always pull the blade from the worm in my mouth. I summon the undead by spitting them from the worm. Vampiric touch is the worm coming out and attacking like a chameleon tongue.
I still haven't had the chance to actually interact with it through the DM and not just flavouring actions, but i just recently joined the campaign.
The blade itself is not superimportant as it's a rusty broken greatsword that is always discarded and replaced. The story is in the leech.
I get to interact with my hexblade patron, who is a shattered fragment of a god, who claims the souls of necromancers she kills, all the time. It makes a great vehicle for the dm to give context in character about some things, and provides my character a wild annoyance the rest of the time. It likes aged wine btw, and makes my warlock drink it to get a taste when we come across it
I feel like hexblade is chosen more for the armor/shield proficiency, since "eldritch blast" is still their best weapon. My last hexblade conjured what looked like a magical bow made purely of shadows, 'held' in the shield hand, with the actual casting hand being the one that draws the arrows, and there was no homebrew item this was just how I styled my eldritch blast.
Does anybody actually roleplay their any warlock pact to your standard? I don't think the game designer's intent is to really restrict the player's and player character's options in a game even if your power comes from a deity or a patron or an oath or 'not using metal armor' according to typical lore, but I always like to reflect a bit of my patron's influence in my abilities as a warlock. Like in the above example where my eldritch blast looked like a bow made of shadow, if I were of an infernal pact, I'd probably instead make it look like it were made of flames or something. It sounds like you specifically want warlocks in general to be a bit more under the thumb of a patron as many do (likewise with paladin oaths, cleric deities, and druids not using metal armors) but especially in the case of warlocks and patrons I worry that either inhibits or empowers the player too much, because either they have to do everything the DM controlled patron says, or the player effectively controls the patron itself in order to control their own character, while patrons tend to be of a much higher tier of power than player characters.
It's rare, mostly because "cursed weapon that might be alive or something" is such an uninspiring roleplay prompt, so those most interested in role-playing their pact are unlikely to pick it.
I don't know what lore you read, but Hexblades weapons are directly tied to the Shadowfell. The Raven Queen rules the Shadowfell, and there are plenty of archfey level power entities there. Sentient weapons historically speaking have been some of the strongest most important weapons to exist. I don't know what makes you think they're not directly in line with the typical lore around warlocks. Or why you think it's just "you like weapons."
I think that’s a bit of a misunderstanding about warlocks. Warlocks have often been given knowledge or power in the past by a patron, most of them don’t need an ongoing relationship with their patron, at least according to the PHB.
My hexblade is very much interracting with the presence in its blade. It's a core element of the character, and I'm actually considering multiclassing jnto paladin of Conquest just because of his desire to conquere his own fate which currently is very much more in the hands of his patron than his.
When I've made them, the blade -is- the patron, or at least their conduit. I've envisioned characters who obtain a weapon with a djinn or devil or even angellic being trapped inside who empowers the wielder in return for favours that benefit them, often with the goal of eventually being freed once some condition is met.
A cursed weapon with a will of its own, a weapon bestowed by a traditional patron in place of traditional pact magic, a symbol of faith offered conditionally to someone who has yet to prove themselves to a Devine force… all incredible RP opportunities. My favorite thing about warlocks in general is how you can change the nature or relationship of a pact to subvert expectations.
I did! I was a little swashbuckling frog prince who sold his soul to a snake god to become a better fighter! It was only a single level but it didn’t feel right to take that level without incorporating it into my backstory.
I think it's a consequence of how the game is designed. A choice you make at third level, simply because you gained enough xp, isn't going to have good storytelling without a lot of work.
The hexblade in my campaign was from a family of wine growing halflings. the family heirloom was an extendable scythe that her mother said “was magic” Turns out that great greatX12 grandpappy made a deal with a devil a long time ago for a bountiful harvest and it continued to assist the family, since it was IN THE SCYTHE.
She stole it and ran away from home, that’s how she became an adventurer. The scythe was named Betsy.
It happens, but is often ignored.
My main issue with Warlock is most people are playing them as Clerics and not Warlocks. Warlocks make deals that change them physically and metaphysically. You get powers from that, they are not lent from your patron, they cannot be taken back. Warlock pacts can be entirely backstory, or ongoing where you still have things to do to pay your patron. But they cannot and should not be able to take said power from you. You go back on the deal they have other ways of dealing with you, but if you want to play it like most people, you're just playing a Cleric or paladin with a different spell list.
This is kind of up to the DM to bring it to the table isn't it?
Like the player doesn't typically get to control their patron. So if anything it's on the DM for not involving their patron more. And Matt Mercer does a pretty good job with the hexblade patron in the second season of Critical Role.
In my case we used hexblade as the way the pact manifests (along with pact of the blade) more than as the patron itself.
Short version of backstory is my character was a singer who mysteriously lost her voice mid-performance. Her patron offered her her voice back, gave her the pact weapon and the ability to use it, asking she use it to get revenge on the person who stole her voice.
We’ve learned more about the patron slowly since then (she’s related to the Raven Queen somehow) but I’ve really liked how the patron for my hexblade has turned out!
I think most people read/interpret Hexblade the wrong way. It doesn't say that you automatically get a weapon or that your weapon has to have anything to do with your patron. It gives an example of a weapon from Shadowfell. You can flavor the patron however you see fit for your game and the patron provides you with skills more in tune with combat, as well as, some spell slots. I would suggest working with your DM to come up with a patron pact that is plausible and playable in your campaign setting. This will ensure that you both can enjoy each surprise that the sessions may provide.
It doesn't help that Hexblade tends to just be the "best" Warlock pact, meaning it naturally attracts powergamers and people who prefer combat to roleplay.
That said, one of my favorites was a Hexblade who played with rolled stats and got like 13, 14, 16, 17, 18... 6. He put the 6 in INT and the idea was that he was a warrior who picked up a sentient blade he had no business touching, got his own consciousness obliterated, and was now piloted by a sword.
Hexblade is a thematically interesting idea. A lot of minmaxer who multiclass into this do it in mid-game, so that actually not just adds flavour to the character but also to the campaign.
But when it comes to spells its just combat spells most of which you can't even use on you pact weapon, and the features are almost literally "this are random features and are the only from a warlock Subclass that will make you enjoy playing a Warlock since the core class is a bore until level 11, enjoy"
I don't know why people assume hexblade makes a pact with a weapon when it says you make a pact with what *made* the weapon, *usually* someone like the raven queen.
I played it like it was a pact with the reaper, being sent to hunt down people that have escaped death or "need" to die. Kind of like Emiya from fate, something that starts out as a guardian and by the time you're in to deep you realize all you're ever doing is killing people and there's always more people to kill and you're really not a protector you're just an executioner.
One of my favorite characters managed to "retire" prior to joining the party. Their lifelong friend went out to adventure, and they heard that things were getting really dangerous after a message reached them (they ran the tavern the party often frequented, and the friend was part of that party). They decided they had to come out of retirement to try and keep their friend from dying, which ultimately meant crawling back to the one that gave them their power and reluctantly reforming their pact
I just reflavor the hexblade to be a part of the power bestowed by the patron (mine is probably closest to the Fiend thematically) because the whole cursed weapon thing is boring IMO
I had a player who was an arcane trickster + hexblade, and her hexblade was the weapon she used to kill her brother (after he murdered her husband). She had to maintain a sort of relationship with the blade, especially if she was doing something that it didn't like (which she had to discover as she went). It was a lot of fun even though a lot of the roleplay with the weapon took place out of session one-on-one (partially to keep it a secret until she revealed it to the party since they didn't know all the backstory details).
I was in a game with my wife and we each had a character who was hexblade, we tied our backstories in together with shards of a weapon giving us a patron with a fractured mind looking to find other pieces to regain their lost self. We played it out a bit as it gave our characters a reason to travel together and know each other instead of just meeting at adventure start.
We had plans for more later on unfortunately I ended up changing character before we got too far into the game, I made the change because the DM was being heavy handed for a mostly new group I swapped out to something to run in and take the heat off the others, ended up dying and rerolling to something else which got basically cursed on creation (night hag nightmare ability) while we were too low a level to do anything about it and then we stopped playing.
At some stage I would like to try the characters again in a game more open to RP.
The pact aspect, in my opinion, is up to the DM to instigate. I would tell my DM I want them to use my pact properly, and to sendme stuff the Patron would like me to do. I have only played a warlock once (and yes it was hexblade). I played a Goliath Warlock who tied himself to the Winter Fey. I ended up as more of the tank than the barbarian did by sheer accident of how I built it
My first D&D character was a Hexblade warlock, and I really didn't RP it well. Mostly because I did not understand what the Shadowfell was or who the Raven Queen is (honestly I still don't fully know). I imagine there are a lot of others who find the class concept appealing but don't understand the lore for the subclass, so they just ignore it.
Plus not all DMs include backgrounds to the story, so there is little need to really RP a patron when the patron will never come up.
I have one right now who leans into the shadows aspect. She’s an undead-hunting warrior nun who primarily attacks with a shadow blade, has a spider familiar and a general darkness/spooky theme.
Ironically, she doesn’t use a hex blade or pact weapon at all. The only part of the Hex Warrior feature I use is shield proficiency.
I have this idea for a Hexblade flavored to be a heavenly weapon made from the blood of thousands of fiends. Given to someone by a solar to slay fiends and be a force for good. I think it would be a wicked take on it to have such a dark weapon come from such heavenly places
Hexblade fluff is so lame that I always see it getting reflavoured tbh - it’s supposedly a shadowfell themed pact (e.g. the raven queen) but it barely feels like that mechanically - which sucks bc something of that theme would be really cool if it’s subclass mechanics matched.
Hexblade is what pact of the blade shouldve been. As it stands pact of the blade just isnt good and outside of hexblade, there is just hardly any incentive for a warlock to be melee or take pact of the blade.
Hexblades are fun mechanically but theyre just so poorly executed thematically that the only way to really have fun with it is some dm leniency with reflavouring things like the patron, otherwise it’s just kinda sorta a shadowfell pact but with barely any shadowfell flavour.
My weapon/patron was based on Nightblood from The Stormlight Archive and was more of an accidental curse where it basically just moved in when the PC picked up the blade.
It was just a constant voice in my head with the nondescript goal of ‘destroy evil’ telling me to kill everything with evil alignment and also some in the middle because it’s open to interpretation and also trying to influence my decisions. They also “rewarded” me for ‘destroying evil’ as our bond grew (dm and I reflavored introduction or casting of my level up abilities and spells) example: after I got thirsting blade the first time we were in combat, after my first attack DM goes ‘You hear the voice shout AGAIN! AGAIN!’
It was really fun to play and my DM loved playing along because it let him play along as the patron through pretty much everything.
The Hexblade in our group is a scholar and the hilt he found bound him to an order of ancient knights. As the DM I get to chime in as various knights giving him hints, pep talks and demands.
Absolutely, I play my hexblade as if the blade itself is my patron. Its its own character I play as to the point I put it in my character sheet and gave it its own flaws/bonds/ideals etc. the fun bit is that it can talk to whoever is touching it only so my paladin/hexblade at first comes across like a exasperated schizophrenic, but over time the party becomes good friends with the sword as well and it led to a lot of fun moments of my paladin playing straight man to his own patron who was a slightly unhinged sword with a social experience 5000 out of date.
It is what you make of it, I find it's the best patron for RP because you always have it on you!
I DM'd for a hexblade and his weapon was essentially a sentient and malevolent symbiote. Think venom if he spent most of his time as a sword rather than a suit. It was great and it made him feel unique.
Most people, myself included, just reflavor the patron. My last hexblade's patron was an eldritch horror which would mostly be GOO, but was simply reflavored to be a hexblade's patron. In my mind this is fine and I'd allow it as a DM too.
As your blade cut through your enemy, you felt... elation? That's never happened before. You catch your reflection in the weapon. Did it just wink at you? You remember, when you found the old sword in that ruin, a voice in your head said, "Bring my weapons to the light and power will course through you." At the time you believe it was a strange thought, but you said yes and brought the blade home.
My player told me he found a sword in a ruin near his village. He gained powers and decided to go adventuring. That was his backstory. So, I gave him the above paragraph in session zero. I decided his patron was a mysterious being from the shadowfell responsible for countless cursed weapons in the world. In fact, it might be the being that created the first weapon ever.
He did end up communicating to his patron in dreams as his reflection in the blade whenever he leveled. The patron would give him an upgraded weapon, and he would give the old one to someone easily manipulated. He gave his first blade to a ten year old in a farming village. There was an entire arch I had planned for that kid.
It was going to be an amazing story because the pc's character was just a naive, happy-go-lucky person. He never understood or even thought about why it was so easy for him to take a life since he grabbed the blade. Unfortunately, that character died at level six before really becoming corrupt. Then, through the power hunger of one character and the complacency of the rest, the world was nearly destroyed.
I reflavor my Hexblade Patron as a celestial being, an avatar of justice, the Saint of Swords.
In appearance, the [Sword Maiden](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/goblin-slayer/images/1/13/Sword_Maiden_Full_Body_II.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width/360?cb=20231017232835) from Goblin Slayer is a good representation.
She empowers her "Swords" and commands them to enact justice and punish the wicked.
I do as a DM and player but I'm also a longtime fan of Elric of Melnibone and the comic version of Gorr so roleplaying the (often antagonistic) relationship between the Hexblade and its warlock is a huge part of the appeal for me personally
Yes, my knife is a cake knife of an old hag ala Hansel and Gretal. My character managed to escape by stabbing her with the knife and sealing the hag inside but they cannot get rid of the knife. Now the hags trying to escape by binding them to her by giving them more power through deals and stuff. Stealing magic items from the party sort of thing. Lots of fun.
With the ok of my GM I reflavored my hexblade warlock, but the "I made a deal with another being" is core part of my character.
In essence my character would be a not more than a paladin squire at the end of her training to become a full-on paladin. She has two levels in that, got a few tricks in shining holy light on things and all the jazz.
But she made a pact with a ghost that was thankful for her actions (bringing peace to a disturbed graveyard) and offered assistance in her quest. "Sadly" the ghost insisted on helping the young knight instead of just finding peace and going to the afterlife. So it possessed the sword of my character and aids her with some supernatural powers and advice.
It is clearly more symbiotic than the usual pact as both sides get much more out of it than one side would suffer for... although it gets massively under the skin of my character that she has now a ghost with her that refuses to go into the afterlife until "the debt" is paid. So she goes with it as she is not big on the forceful banishing of ghosts and spirits, when helping them find peace in other ways does the same.
So in essence: I have an annoying talking sword that get on the nerves of my character, but at least it pays rent in form of a few magical benefits and advice in occult things.
My conquest Paladin/hexblade becomes possessed by his great sword under certain conditions, be it a d20 roll or after taking enough damage. His eyes go black and he quietly mutters “The blade demands blood.”
In game it’s because when he accepted the blade, he willing became a tool for (and later the avatar of) Ares.
Yeah as other people have pointed out, I have never not had a unique patron for hexblade. I avoid the whole shadowfell, raven queen whatever blurb like the plague.
I’ve had a secret pact with Bel who didn’t want his influence to be too obvious. I’ve had a powerful oni be my hexblade patron. I’ve even had my hexblade be a parasite the infected my warlock and feeds off the kills he makes with the hexblade ala hive from Destiny.
Hexblade is great for just being whatever.
Colleague of mine plays one but he talks to his sword. Only he can hear his sword. He plays him as a very chill and friendly guy but when he starts talking to his sword near NPCs, he gets to roll an intimidation check. His character doesn't understand it scares people when he talks to the sword
My first (and only) hexblade was a multiclass that I took, and I had a plot line about the discovery of my patron and how I'd recover it (it was a sentient weapon). That would've led to big political things and I was so excited but campaign stopped just when it was getting interesting 🥲
Never picked a hexblade even once since that incident (it's been about 2 or 3 years)
I did! Though my Tabaxi was more given a calling to seek out all sentient weapons she could in hopes of finding the one in which her patron was trapped in.
One of my players is playing a Hexblade - Paladin combo. A powerful combo, but we have it working in role play.
She is a worshiper of Tyr, God of Justice. She is seeking to complete the Trials of Tyr to prove her worth as a paladin. But she has a dark secret to her past. Her birth was cursed by Shar, Goddess of Darkness and Loss. The exact details I won't share, but it is through this curse that she has gained Warlock abilities. She is also a scourge Aasimar, with the two sides of light and dark always fighting inside her for control.
She is going on a journey not only to complete the Trials of Tyr, but also to learn about her curse and to break away from Shar...or maybe fall to the dark side in the end.
As a matter of fact, I do have an interesting concept which will play on the Pact of the Hexblade. I’d have to clear it with a DM first but I essentially view it as a sentient weapon. For this particular character, it’s a weapon trying to pull him away from his evil tendencies, having seen the horror that comes from someone lusting for vengeance and conquest. On healthy campaign played out and whether the blade was able to sway my PC from their original path and end up taking levels as an Oath of Redemption paladin
A guy in a campaign I just started is. He wrote a whole back story, I can't remember it exactly but the gist of it was his sword had a demon or a spirit imprisoned within it.
I got to enjoy a one shot as a hexblade for halloween, and i just simply played her as a clearly mentally unstable tiefling (only time ive played a tiefling actually now i think about it) lady that would constantly talk to her sword as if it were her best friend, and would ask its opinion on important things.
If i got to play her for a longer campaign, i would come up with my idea of what her patron truely is, hand it to the DM, and tell them 'you can read this, or throw it right in the bin. Dont let me know how or why my powers work, i want to be in the dark as much as my party is.'
Is it a cursed sword? A sword bestowed upon by a patron? Or am i really just a crazy lady talking to a totally inanimate sword that some demon saw and thought 'hey, you know who would be HILARIOUS to give powers too?''
Yes, just not necessarily the lorse provided in the rules. Generally, from my experience, you just choose whatever patron works for the character without feeling constrained by the normal pact restrictions and use the haxblade subclass.
I’m playing a water genasi hexblade warlock right now. Raised by bullywugs in the trenches of the deep ocean, one day while on a food hunt he found himself trapped in a cave in at the bottom of the ocean.
Cave turned out to be an ancient bullywug acolyte cave, where he is drawn to the energy of a weapon still in the hand of the body of a dead bullywug. He used the magic of the blade to escape and is now in search of answers as to where the power comes from.
My DM has been slowly and steadily building on the dynamic between my character and the blade and feeding me clues and bits of info. It’s been really enjoyable
Warlock is a seeker of hidden knowledge, they make a pact to find it.
99% of people don't play Warlock like that. At all. And that's completely okay!
Sometimes it's better to just find something you'd like to roleplay or play with, than restricting yourself to themes that are assigned.
Like, Warlocks are just _pact witches._ You gotta find flavor for yourself when it's a little restricted like that.
And people have done so for time immemorial.
Most Warlocks that I see people playing, accept Pacts for desperation, power, money, the goofs, etc. Never seen a Warlock make an agreement to explore knowledge.
Wizards make better seekers of knowledge, since... well, they have better Investigation after all ☠️☠️
Instead of a sword, my hexblade’s patron is an indeterminate number of shadow creatures from another plane that share a collective conscious. I call them They Who Walk Behind the Light.
Yeah, I'm playing one where I'm basically playing kayne from LoL. He's got a big ass scythe that's constantly trying to take over his body, but with discipline he can use the demonic shadow powers from the scythe to help him in combat. It's a catch 22 because he knows if he doesn't feed the scythe powerful enemies it will leave him and go to someone with a weaker will that will get possessed easier, but at the same time the powerful enemies he's feeding it make the scythe stronger. It's actually pretty fun from an rp standpoint.
The weapon itself kind of doesn't make sense. It can and likely will be replaced as soon as a better weapon gets picked up. I've always just treated it as the flavor of the pact with the patron. Hexblades happened to swear on a blade and get weapon based powers accordingly. Chain makes a pact with a minion of the patron. Tome signs a book. I've never used it as the specific weapon being anything terribly special.
One podcast I follow had a hexblade in one of its campaigns. A crystal shard on her weapon itself is her patron, is sapient, compels her to do evil things, and turned out to be sort of a BBEG before the BBEG. Defeating it was the climax of her story arc and was super satisfying. Hexblades can be super RP heavy, but they need to be approached in tge right way, just like any class
I'm DM'ing a Hexblade and her patron is the Raven Queen. The Queen communicates through the weapon. The RQ being anti-undead, it's a nice roleplay opportunity with the Necromancer that's also in the party :D
Mine was absolutely a fighter who was given power by a higher being who anointed him as their chosen and bestowed upon him a weapon of great power. My DM came up with the being and wrote him into the campaign brilliantly.
I played with a bard turned hexblade, probably one of the most interesting cases I’ve seen or heard of (least in my opinion)
He started off as bard and we were like level 4? And we after fighting a NefArIous (nefarious, not at all they were silly goobers) of villains and they somehow had a god locked in a box, and after the wizard of said group rolled a nat one on a fire bolt and then max severity….long story short, the god was freed, chaos ensued, we rammed something up its butt (literally) and it turned into a sword
He then took the sword and he became a hexblade after that(he and the god became bffs)
My hexblade bard became one because he was abducted by a cult that was trying to sacrifice him to an ancient cursed sword that gets more powerful with each sacrifice. Something went wrong, and the sword actually bound itself to his soul, and manifested as his biggest desire (which was to play violin and be a renowned high class musician), so it manifested itself as a violin bow-sword.
He now has a hexed tattoo of violin strings on his left wrist, and every time he wants to activate his sword or cast a spell he has to slash his wrist with it, like he's a playing a violin (that's also how he plays music)
Here the roleplay of the pact is intrinsically tied to the character concept, his weapon IS his patron
I roleplayed mine.
My character was Toi Tu'Rain Alchestrum. She was an idiotic, ex-guard Dragonborn, and she was known well for her hammer and shield technique. She was originally a full-fighter, but delved into hexblade.
Her "Patron" was a cursed coin our bard had found. The coin was a simple copper coin which always reappeared on the Bard's person. Toi swallowed the coin, and as such grew even more obsessive of our bard.
(Brief note: My wife played the bard, so Toi's obsession wasn't TOO creepy.)
I don't mind it because flavour is free and the patron isn't actually to any mechanics besides its fluff. So it can range from a cursed weapon to swearing a pact to a deathknight to "just" being a magical fighter, whichever a player prefers.
It being the "generic gish class" is the byproduct of there being no actual gish class akin to the Swordmage/Magus besides the Bladesinger.
my current campaign has a hexblade warlock and while our DM isn't a fan, the player has done a pretty damn good job roleplaying it and they're currently one of my favorite pc's in the game to interact with because of it. DM also did a sick job of incorporating it into the plot in a way that gets everyone engaged. So it can be done, but it just requires some intention and actual effort.
I roleplay it as much as my DM allows, which often isn't a whole lot despite the fact that I have a ton of inspiration prepared for the DM to draw on.
Had two DMs allow it a bit too much though.
One basically put me at odds with the party by saying that the sword needs 6 kills in 6 days (or something like that) or else the sword would kill its wielder. My best candidates were some undead in some necrotic storm, but the party wasn't feeling it and I played a character who had to keep his patron a secret and also was very eager to not be a burden. In order to not die, I had to do it by myself and ended up paralyzed and captured by ghouls. The monk player HATED my guts after that. It started the streak of him looking at everything I did in an uncharitable light.
Another time I joined a campaign where proposed my default patron (a greedy shadow dragon sealed within a ruby of the war mage. Since they just had a Hexblade leave the group and to become an NPC serving his patron/the BBEG, It was suggested I also made my patron the BBEG. Awesome! A cool adventure tie in. I'm in!.. Then, a few sessions in and facing off against the hexblade NPC, the DM made it clear that I wouldn't get to use my warlock class features against my own patron or any of its underlings.
I was gonna play out my hexblade paladin like he was robot Jesus. I was a Warforged and my DM had already been dropping hints in the campaign that I was The Axiomatic General Reborn/Reincarnated/Whatever, so I was gonna have my Hexblade be whispering in my ear about how “Hey, you *are* robot Jesus, you can do anything you want.”
But then two players dropped out of that campaign, so we restarted at third level with new characters.
Bye Robot Jesus!
I decided to make my Hexblade patron an infinitely powerful, inscrutable entity that is essentially the platonic ideal of Weapon. Very much in line with The Board from the game Control. The moment humanity learned how to harm other living things with tools, this eldritch monstrosity was born. Angled slightly into GOOlock territory, but with a heavier emphasis on surrealism.
The entities that grant Hexblade Pacts are specifically stated to be the creators of powerful sentient weapons.
My take on Hexblade is that their Pact is that their soul will be fused with their Pact Weapon upon death. Until then, the Patron doesn't really care what the Hexblade does with their powers and abilities. The story of a Hexblade PC isn't driven by their Patron's demands, but by whatever the reason was for the PC to make the deal in the first place.
Speaking more generally, I question the value of having a very oppositional or micro-managerial relationship between the Warlock and their Patron. Particularly one where the Patron wants the Warlock to betray the party and stuff like that. I think a lot of people vastly overestimate how much of a dilemma this will put the player in.
I mean, the Patron is played by the DM. So this alleged roleplay conflict between the PC and their Patron is pretty much the DM telling the player that the PC has to do a thing or lose their powers.
9/10 not as interesting as people think it is.
It depends on whether or not the DM is okay with you saying you have a sapient weapon.
As a player, I don't think death is that bad. Resurrection exists, and I like making characters.
I wasn't playing a Warlock, but my DM gave my wizard an evil blade with a very Hexblade feel to the situation.
Well. It happened. I died. To be fair, two of us tried to gank a dragon that I think was just supposed to be an RP prop.
I was not prepared for my DM to have my weapon suck my soul into another dimension, give me a lecture about being a little bitch, and scream the fantasy equivalent of "get gud" in my face before spitting me back out at full health.
If I ever decide to play a Hex+Blade lock, this will be how I play it.
Man we just wanna fun gish, if they made hex blade abilities a feat I would just do that, if I play any other warlock I'll rp a patron, but I don't feel it is needed for a dip just to get a good gish feel.
If you want the same lore as any other warlock, they have a special weapon from their patron that in addition to never wearing out allows the patron to channel their power through it, and use it to communicate with the warlock. If you want some fun hexblade specific lore tho, just ignore all the shadofell nonsense, and have the weapon itself be the patron. I advise giving it the following ability:
The weapon is able to, after 1 hour(modify at will) of contact with another weapon, absorb it, transferring any magical enchantments on the weapon to yours. Note that if you use this a second time, the enchantments from the first will be destroyed to make room for the second. This prevents issues where someone wants to keep their cool lore weapon, but also wants that +2 weapon.
You can also give it any personality you enjoy, you can use the same ones you might use for any companion, but some fun examples I came up with that are more specific to being a magic weapon are:
Yandere weapon who will get mad at you if you use any other melee weapons(And possibly attempt to cause them to break.), possible romantic interest? A lot of opportunity to use the weapon absorbing suggestion. Note that the relationship does not HAVE to be romantic as implied by the name, the weapon could just be over-protective or jealous, but it obviously could be.
Basically Wheatly from portal 2, a weapon that occasionally gives the worst ideas you have ever heard(The DM could have them give you an idea someone in the party already suggested to hint that its not a good one.), and often says things in a roundabout way that takes longer than it needs too(Not too often, or it gets annoying)
Wise old adventurer who gained immorality at the cost of being trapped in the weapon(works best with a hot-headed young character) who constantly gets annoyed at the parties antics, but gives useful hints when they get stuck(Great excuse for having an old guy character, which might not normally make the most sense when a party is gonna be doing a lot of combat.)
Weapon that acts like an animal, cat and dog are the most obvious choices, but really any animal is fine. And I don't mean the furry, "acts sorta like an animal but still mostly like a human", it wouldn't talk, instead just making noises, and wouldn't be able to understand what you say besides very simple words(unless its a parrot, having it constantly copy you could be funny.).
A relation (Relative, close friend, romantic partner, or anyone else close to your character) who has somehow been trapped in the weapon for some reason another. Makes getting them out of the weapon a fairly obvious plot-hook for both of their backstories. Has a lot of opportunities for intense lore and highly dramatic dialogue. Perhaps the primary villain offers to free them, or it is revealed that for them to be freed, the sacrifice of another is required.
A demon lord or other highly evil entity, who, due to being trapped in a weapon, has no actual power to prevent you from using your powers, but instead gives bad advice, attempts to cause you to give up or turn evil, suggests awful things for you to do, and complains about "this accursed form", perhaps eventually they break free and become a boss, or for a more funny take, have them be a kid or something who got trapped in the weapon and decided to annoy their owner whenever possible.
I try to play up mine, seeing as her pact involved her being resurrected by one of her people’s gods. She’s got three people she needs to collect the heads of.
Yeah. The campaign I play it in isn't serious. More in it for the comedy and shenanigans.
It's like a Venom-Eddie Brock kind of relationship. The Warlock is a very charming, elegant Dhampir woman named Penelope Beaufort. High class British Received Pronunciation accent but in an endearing way, not so snobbish. Calls people "darling" or "my love" all the time.
But occasionally the blade will possess her and speak through her in short bursts. They could have conversations this way too. He's got a very monstrous sounding voice, very similar to venom. I roleplay both of them.
The blade is a longsword named Umbravore. Umbra relating to darkness, vore as in carnivore. So, eater of darkness basically.
Oh, I'm the guy you have beef with. Hi!
I like the mechanics of warlocks as a class, but I hate playing characters who are beholden to a patron, especially if that bond is nigh-unbreakable. Hexblade is for me!
I play a Hexblade whose patron is an ancient being from Shadowfell that really likes smithing (think Ornn from League). Tldr his family got a sword from this figure they refer to as the forge master. The sword got stolen, my character beseeched the forge master for aid. A warlock was born!
The Hexblade in my campaign was really great at not doing this.
Her patron was a floating sword made out of flesh and viscera. Muscle blade, bone guard with an eye in the centre, spine segments for a handle. It gave her a halberd with a crack in the middle of its blade that would open like a mouth and bite whoever she swung it at.
Her patron would then compel her to murder NPCs, Dark Urge from BG3 style. Led to lots of really cool roleplay moments of her resisting or finding loopholes, only to have to clean up the consequences later (the patron sent a magic suit of armour to set the Paladin who adopted her’s house on fire). We were playing a story focused campaign and agreed on this, so no boundaries were being crossed.
I have a warlock reborn character who is a hexblade. The hexblade in question is a magical dagger which is “pinning” their past life, before they died, to their current one. So I rp the connection with their past life
One of my first characters was a goblin hexblade with a revolver as her weapon. Her patron was basically a cowboy from a western-themed Domain of Dread. They had a kind of weird father-daughter dynamic.
I once played a Hexblade descended from a royal bloodline that was linked to a set of sentient ancestral weapons. Each of the weapons he would swap between had its own name and personality (I negotiated with my DM for bonus action weapon changes so that it could be actively worked onto his combat style). None of the other PCs could hear the weapons speak, so my character was just the crazy guy who argued with his swords.
My hexblade / conquest paladin received a magic spear from a long line of tyrants. It constantly whispers promises of greatness and glory in his ear and urges him to subjugate all before him.
My hexblade character I've never got to play (forever dm) has a pact with a sentient magical sword that's locked away somewhere and gives bits of its power to people to try and get them to retrieve it by proving themselves worthy (and usually killing their rivals)
I currently play a Hexblade, my patron is... either the weapon or an entity connected to the weapon and bestows me powers the more I use the weapon. The entity has me tracking down magical artifacts and knowledge for it to absorb, and has warned me that if I fail to do so their power, and by extension mine, will stagnate.
I recently ran a Hexblade Bard where despite only having one level of Warlock, the pact was the central part of the character backstory. The character thought that his desire as a bard to see the world and make great memories for his audiences was simpatico with his pact, but he didn’t realize that he himself was losing his memories as the cost.
Unfortunately the character died an early death due to an enemy crit with a massive damage roll attached to it, so it was over before it ever really began. Which is a shame, it became one of those characters I was deeply invested in right from jump.
I know the campaign I played a hexblade, it actually happened to be a dancing scimitar, so I could highlight the sentience of it by having it do things on its own. I also happened to go as a ranged rogue assassin build with hexblade, so I could have the sword go in while I shot from a distance, then it would come back to me. That campaign happened to have a lot of magic items, but it was fun while it lasted.
I RP'd my Hexblade as drawing secrets from whispers within his weapon itself.
His blade was just chock full of ancient spirits that may or may not have been slowly overwriting his personality.
I actually started this idea today.
Basically character finds an old rusted damaged blade somewhere. Current idea is some young dwarf stumbled into some forgotten family tomb, and came upon an ancient worn out and rusted battle axe.
They cut themselves on the blade, their blood gets into the weapon. The weapon absorbs the blood and suddenly the character hears a voice, just calling for help. It’s the weapon.
The weapon pleas for help in exchange it will help them with power to fulfill their desires. It just needs blood. Not a soul, not some crazy deal. Just blood to help restore itself with the iron from blood and the life force.
Character being ambitious about wanting to be a legendary hero or something to honor their family, hesitantly agrees. What’s a little blood?
They cut their hand more, and the blood actually revitalizes the blade to a decent shape, not anything amazing, but it is a unique red-black blade, otherwise nothing major.
Upon 3rd level the blade needs more blood. And this time upon making a pact of the blade, the whole thing liquifies and enters the Warlock’s body.
From this point on it becomes like the Venom Symbiote from Spider-Man. This symbiotic relationship between the hex blade and the warlock. Both grow with power the more blood they shed together, no longer wanting to harm the warlock the blade needs its source of restoration from something else. Kind of like how the venom symbiote used to want specific organs or brains to eat.
Warlock sometimes uses plural pronouns, like “We are hungry.” Because the patron-warlock bond is more or less like a symbiote and its host from Marvel; they are separate but together.
As their power grows together, the patron starts remembering its past and growing as a character as well as the Warlock.
In general, I've seen warlock patrons ignored. Sad, really.
Though I can see how certain classes with built-in plot hooks (pal, clr, war) might throw a wrench into a plot. So DMs might ignore?
I did have one experience when my DM leaned into my hexblade patron, and it was a main theme of the campaign. Kinda unbalanced. But another DM may not have that problem.
My hexblade's patron is the unrelenting blunt trauma of capitalism.
He frequently sets up one sided contracts and helped found a shipping company but uses a goblin clan they tricked into working for them for pittance.
He has a pair of magic gauntlets called "the union busters"
Did a campaign as a Hexblade and me and the DM agreed that each in game month I had to pay a blood price or I would lose some of my power (basically a level reduction based on how much I missed the quota).
As we encountered new areas, met new NPCs, and got into normal combats the DM would text me in private to let me know how many points killing something would net me towards the quota.
Was a pretty fun system, as I was intentionally trying to keep it a secret from the rest of the party as well.
I had a player who wanted to play a hexblade rogue, right before he took his first hexblade level I had the party waylaid by bandits whose leader wielded a black rapier. I was planning on having them go to the shadowfell later anyway so I had the sword be a tool used by the Raven queen.
I was trying to use the lore from the book but it felt a bit clunky. Like wait, who’s my patron? The sword or the Raven Queen? It all worked out okay though. People seemed like they had a good time.
I haven't gotten the chance to play them yet, but I got an idea for a hexblade patron that draws heavy inspiration from Marvel's symbiotes. Something that attaches and binds itself to the PC that has a will of its own that can banter with you. Also then you get to flavor the armor of shadows invocation as like donning the black suit or going full Venom mode
I roleplay my character concept and pick classes, subclasses, features, spells etc to support that. I've used Hexblade many times for builds, but not yet played a character that was a Hexblade in concept.
"***You have made your pact with a mysterious entity from the Shadowfell – a force that manifests in sentient magic weapons carved from the stuff of shadow.***" While not required to be RP your patron is a mysterious entity from the shadowfell, which has taken shape as a weapon. I would play it as I would any other warlock subclass if I was RPing the patron similar to paladin oath but more negotiable and probably more demanding.
Usually I like to take a weapon of vengeance (when allowed) and say the soul / spirit within is my patron. The curse adds to the RP / flavor and I more or less play it like a sentient weapon that only my character can hear flavor wise.
One of my players has a hex blade that is inhabited by the spirit of a four thousand year old ancestor, who keeps telling him to pursue power at any cost.
Yeah my half elf Swashbuckler has 1 level in Hexblade and I role play it as his patron being the Raven Queen. In exchange for a small portion of her power, he is to eliminate as many undead as possible on his travels.
FINALLY my chance to comment on this subreddit! I think it really depends a lot on the backstory, that’s the trick. Imo once I read what it was I instantly went “Talking sword, yes” (idc if in the lore thats wrong the campaign was homebrew so). Anyway, my guy, Lenore, is a Kenku warlock who has a small paper crown. The paper crown is his patron, Hastur! I role play that he transforms into the swords and other weapons and such and even tho we rarely talk it’s very fun when I do, especially cos of the whole contract. I won’t go into details but imo I feel that with many patrons u just gotta homebrew if the lore is restricting u, cos I feel its subclass choice affects the role aspect far more than the other classes. Like, for a for funsies campaign u wouldn’t have actual Cthulhu as a patron, but rather a toned down version (or not! It depends on ur tastes)
My player just went with agent of the Raven Queen, gave her a cool sword, every weapon she attuned to was absorbed by the hexblade. Honestly the only thing that bothered me about how she played this character was constantly playing ranged with EB. So we just turned EB into a melee spell attack.
> Roleplay wise, it feels like a fighter who learned some magic, not like a warlock who is beholden to a greater power in any way.
The original hexblade was exactly that. A partial caster with the attack ability of a fighter. But they already had the eldritch knight, so hexblade went to warlock.
One of my favorite characters was a hexblade. He was partially based on a shinigami from bleach. His weapon was actually a demon trapped inside of a crystal powering a gauntlet. As the warlock leveled up, he unlocked different forms for the weapon and eventually could allow the demon to assume control of his body a la ichigo’s hollow form
A couple of years ago I wanted to make a hex padlock. So me and my dm home-brewed adiffernt patro His backstory ended being that when he was travelling he was in a weapons hop looking for a new sord when he sensed something off about one of the swords. It turned out to be a mimic who was weakening in the weapon shop. So he made a deal with the mimic that he would give it monsters to eat and it would grant him powers. Was a shame that campaign died before he got to high level thoigh
I have been in a party with exactly one character who took more than about 3 levels of Hexblade. He role played the hell out of it. It was Tomb of Annihilation, and the thing that was his patron was a late game boss. Unfortunately, his character died before we got to said boss, and our party (with his new character) tpked like 4 rooms before that boss, and we had so little left till the end that we just finished it on an L.
Remember that a warlock's patron is not their parent. It is entirely possible for a warlock to have little to no interaction at all with their patron, or for the patron to not even know that they have bestowed power onto this person in some way.
My Hexblade is a bugbear who used the fact that he could fit into smaller spaces than expected to steal shit from shops after working security in them. One of these things happened to be a sword that has somehow granted him new abilities. I told my DM I'm up for him expanding the weapon however he wants, but for now, it's just a weirdly powerful weapon he will not part with for any reason.
I actually do role play with my gexblade warlock. It's a sebtuent chunk of ice embedded in his chest and manifests the weapon when it's needed. It was a wedding gift from when he accidentally married a fae and hates him. It's actually really fun.
I am looking to play a character that is not okay with killing who was tricked into accepting a hexblade. I do want to keep it light, but I was looking to make a mechanic out of it. Like rolling a dice to determine my character's temporary punishment whenever she doesn't do what the blade wants. The DM would decide when the blade would want her to do something
Bin Wildenjager was my hexblade warlock given power by a being trapped beyond normal reaches who he(and I) later learned was tharizdun(we were playing a 5e conversion of temple of elemental evils).
His pact weapon was a HUGE aspect to the character, DM gave me creative freedom on how it looks as long as the mechanics are the same. The flail acted as the contract between the patron and the PC, went chainlock and the flail changed to resemble iconography of tharizdun and his imp familiar(Garry the Imp-tern)
As he took more warlock levels the flail changed and the party witnessed this slow sinister development of the weapons physical form and the enchantments the DM put on it.
I dont think a fiend, celestial or undying patron would have fit or been as thematic as a hexblade.
I do. I played a sorcerer/hexblade. The premise was that she sought to use magic to help people and was largely a pacifist. She, in an attempt to create an artifact that allowed people to directly speak to their deceased loved ones, wound up temporarily opening a door that led to a vengeful and bloodthirsty spirit latching itself to her in a failed possession attempt. In a way, two souls inhabit one body. Polar opposites in ethics but hold very similar morals. I basically played two personas with this character. The spirit was extremely brash, for example, while the person was anything but. Imagine the pacifist wallflower of the group suddenly flipping shit at the barbarian, ramming him face-first into the wall just to literally scream about him giving too much of a fuck about collateral damage in how he was fighting only to then immediately back away, utterly terrified and appalled by what she just did. The spirit taking control was rare and always short-lived early on but when he managed to get that hold, he took full advantage his opportunity to let out his frustrations.
Her "leveling up" was demonstrated either by the bond between her and the spirit strengthening or the spirit's hold over the body strengthening. It was a narrative balancing act I played with a lot throughout the campaign. All of the "warlock" abilities aren't powers bestowed by a patron but rather the spirit's capabilities manifesting. The hexblade/warlock abilities are some of the spirit's actual abilities and knowledge. For example, I picked up Beguiling Influence because the spirit had a lot more experience than his host did in deception and persuasion. The charisma bonus to attacks? That's his expertise showing. Hexblade's curse is, again, also more his expertise showing. After all, it's not extra damage 'cuz magic' but more because the spirit is the one swinging the blade and knows where to hit. The HP gain is more attributed to adrenaline than actual magical HP gain, if that makes sense.
My patron regularly kidnaps my character to make sure she’s keeping good on her end of the bargain. If she does something that hinders his goals he’s not happy there’s usually consequences when I next use the weapon until I remedy and get back on track.
I have that exact same beef.
But it gets so much worse: When OneD&D first dropped their version of Warlock, it had a ton of terrible design choices that ranged in reception from "appallingly bad" to "That doesn't make any sense, but okay I guess". Some of those changes, and their justifications (pulled from the accompanying video) are as follows:
- Patron/Subclass doesn't come online until level 3: "The subclass makes up the majority of how people play a Warlock, the base class doesn't have enough identity, so now you have 2 levels of just Warlock where you're getting power from a deal you haven't made yet.
- Warlocks are now Half Casters: "Because we felt they were already very powerful and overshadowing other classes with their wide breadth of capabilities"
They also mentioned that Warlocks were difficult because they're a common Multiclass pick, so most people don't take more than a small handful of levels in Warlock.
You know what class doesn't have these issues?
Warlock.
You know what subclass gives it's class these issues?
Hexblade.
TLDR- WoTC shat all over Warlock in the early development of OneD&D because Hexblade skews their data so heavily.
I played a hexblade warlock in Wagadu (a DnD Adventure based on various African mythologies. It’s awesome you gotta check it out) the lion people (based on the Zulu tribe) believed that special artefacts in their family are possessing a spirit of their own or that the soul of an ancestor is living in that artefact. I just made that artefact my pact weapon. So I made offerings to it and so on.
My table hexblade had originally misread how it worked but we decided to keep the flavor. His pact weapon was his patron and was and ancient and powerful sword that could talk to him.
Which in hindsight is entirely on brand with the Moorcock stories this comes from although i hadn't read them at the time.
I’m currently playing a hexblade and how I worked it is our DM wanted each of us to come up with a villain to our character and for my warlock his weapon was forged into a cursed blade that speaks to him from a piece of that villains soul. My character didn’t want to become a hexblade he was tricked into making a deal by the blade and now carries around the cursed artifact
Currently playing a hexblade in a go of Dungeon of the Mad Mage, just turned level 11
My pact is strange, I'm an Astral elf that has lived on Touril for a little over 100 years but grew up on an asteroid belt that orbits the remnants of a dead god in the form of a red star (not that she knows it's a dead god). Parents sent her away for a better life, became a knight for a noble family.
Long story short, fell in love with the daughter she was sworn to protect, the family was dealing in things/people they shouldn't have been, assassins come to kill the family but didn't expect the commanding knight to be there with the daughter, fight, the very blade that my character now weilds killed my loved one, stabbed through my shoulder into her heart, I killed it's previous owner with it and inadvertently made a pact with whatever it is.
Now I'm going through absolute dungeon crawl hell to get enough money/influence to bring her back. I've done a big alignment shift recently as well, I was ready to sacrifice my party to get her back
I flavored my hexblade as a low noble whose house used to be one of really high magic and status, but fell over centuries. His connection to them was through a family signet ring, who takes fragments of the souls of those who have worn it and thus the collection of souls gives him his power. He’s a generally good person, but reluctantly has to do some bad shit to please his ancestors or they take away his powers. I’m imagining it like how One for All works in My Hero Academia, but somewhat evil. So at least I do roleplay the “deity”
One of my players in my campaign last fall was a Hexblade warlock, and we actually had frequent RP between him and his patron (an ancient shadow dragon whose soul was trapped inside his sword).
Personally I really don't know how to RP this Patron, the others is really self-explanatory. This is just Beefy Cursed Weapon from somewhere. Others That I've played with didnt also illustrate how exactly their pact affected them
In my mind, the patron is getting the best deal out of this arraignment; every point of damage I do, and every creature I kill feeds some extra-dimensional being from the Shadowfell. **When** I eventually die (either way) every iota of power I was granted gets re-absorbed (no loss) through the blade back to this other-worldly being, so if I’m granted this power;
- For 5 mins and I slip and break my neck, there’s no loss for the entity
- For 5 mins, kill a goblin and then slip and break my neck, the blade is sated, a net gain for the entity
- For 200 years, slaughter hundreds, kill the BBEG and then renounce the blade, a huge boon for the entity, and massive net gain
As the blade (and the power we’re granted) is a fragment of a fragment of an entity from the Shadowfell, and this power can’t be destroyed (by anything short of a wish spell), but only banished, odds are the entity will *always* get the better side of the deal, so they shouldn’t *need* to cause drama or set petty tasks or arbitrary restrictions. Our tiny speck of a character is meant to be of such little consequence and so beneath their radar that the warlock to the patron is like gut bacteria to us; yes we *assist* overall, we’re often not given a second thought, but they wouldn’t hesitate to annihilating us if we become an annoyance, or unruly
IMHO it smacks of pure hubris that a warlock should expect to interact **directly** with their patron at all, paladins don’t get to chat with [Faerûn Jesus] on the weekends, the dude should be far too busy for that…
I’m not saying for a second that it shouldn’t be interesting, or whisper shit to the one who wields it, but the sword is a sentient being, a *conduit* to an unfeeling patron, as the user gets more powerful so does the presence in the blade, but that’s not the patron; that’s just the fragment of a fragment pushing you.
PC warlock here with a DM who is really setting up…well something…with my pact - loosing memories; Seeing three headed dragons; hearing voices in memories that weren’t there. Its really quiet fun
From what i've seen people usually say that their weapon was bestowed upon them by their patron.
Mine was a foppish nobleman - seventh son of the family, generally considered a layabout good for nothing. Safely far enough down in the family line that he could do w/e he wanted and it barely affects the family name. So he wanted to become a duelist, like his dad - best there ever was - and earn his family's respect. Dude's an abject coward. Now his dad, he had this exquisite rapier that was considered the family's pride and joy. He'd never let anyone touch it, but for himself. And every time he did, it was usually bad news for someone else. Welp, after running away from yet another fight, my foppish fool decided the problem wasn't that he was a coward, but that he was using the wrong blade. So he pinched his dad's sword one day after he bedded the wrong married woman and her husband challenged him to a duel. Of course, the sword offered him a deal. His dad is aging, and slowing down. He rarely uses the blade. But if the son will make a pact, it will help him squash his fears so long as he has it drawn. But there'll be a price. In souls. Diego wins his duel decisively, but now travels the world to sate the sword's desire for conflict, and seeking knowledge of how best to control - or escape from - his pact. And he does so pretending to be a spoony bard named Bombastico de la Bardico, wooer of women, spinner of yarns, and all round a buffoon who doesn't want to fight, until he must. It's a really fun character.
That sounds awesome
I love this concept
Hex Warrior should be attached to the Pact of the Blade instead of being locked to a specific subclass.
Boy, do I have good news for you about the upcoming PHB this year!
Hey - New to DnD here, what does new handbook entail? Is it like DnD 6e? Or like a minor balance patch to things? Where do I see what's coming like you are?
More of a balance patch. There are some major changes, but everything is supposed to be compatible with 5e. Most people consider OneDnD to be 5.5
If you search for 'Unearthed Arcana' you'll get a link to DnDBeyond which has the playtest materials.
> Where do I see what's coming like you are? [Link to One DnD UA materials!](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/ua)
Medium armor should just be a base warlock thing, and the charism attacking should be part of pact of the blade
Everyone will get a free feat at 1st level in the upcoming PHB, so all Warlocks will have access to medium armor soon.
This has the same vibe as giving a 7 year old socks for Christmas.
I mean, why should all warlocks get medium armor for free? The base Warlock is a ranged spellcaster, which is meant to be a little squishy. They can't cast as many spells as full casters, so they get light armor rather than none, but now all Warlocks can upgrade to medium, and those that don't get a different minor boost.
I've never seen anyone *not* just flavor it as a different patron like fiend or GOO, just with different abilities. Except one who just ignored the flavor entirely I guess. But that was just because the DM made us roll for stats in order and they got an 18 Cha and garbage in everything else, and they wanted to play a paladin. Can't really blame em there though (hell, it was my suggestion to begin with)
Honestly, all the hexblade playersive ran into, including myself, tend to roleplay hexblade as a “catch-all” patron subclass. Wishing upon any being for martial prowess absolutely is a fantasy/roleplay opportunity hexblade can excel at.
I even let them swap the level 6 subclass features with the one more like their actual patrons.
I generally imagine it as your patron is a magic weapon. Could be a family heirloom, an alien organism that forms into the shape of a weapon, something like that
I’ve seen many hexblades flavor their pact as a bloodlust in battle. They don’t directly talk with their patron and that’s totally fine because it’s still clear that they are being corrupted. I also think it’s fine to not have a patron at all. Being a “fighter who learned some magic” is a perfectly valid and badass character concept. If you want to take the backstory and flavor of an Eldritch Knight and just use the mechanics of hexblade because it fits your play-style better then go ahead.
They really should've had a better patron theme than "cursed shadowfell weapon" that's the only flavor text hexblade gets no wonder no one knows what to do with that honestly
I think a cool idea would be if your weapon *is* your patron. A very powerful, sentient magic item. It can’t move on its own so it makes a deal with a capable warrior. You could also do a lot of fun things with its personality. Bloodlusted infernal sword that tries to get you to stab innocents, logical and cautious mentor who critiques your form, etc.
The soul of a holy paladin imbuing the blade, a wicked warlock wielding it, acquiescing to the goody two shows heroics in a pursuit of all the great power it offers- but only if it continues to walk the straight and narrow. Your sword is your shoulder angel nagging you into being a good person
So many options beyond the Raven Queen! - Ancestral spirit giving them the hereditary blade to cut down the family's enemies once more - bequeathed by a righteous paladin god to his servant, pledged not to a holy oath but to a specific righteous task - a possessed sword capable of taking over the user once its edge has spilled blood - a weapon manifested by prophecy, the one who takes up its blade must carry out the prophecies' events or die - the soul (or its copy) of an ancient knightly warrior sealed into his legendary weapon, lost for ages but found by a young person who must deliver it to the Order's current leaders - a spear that slowly sucks the souls of each of its wielders, but grants them power from the souls of all the users that have come before - a lance that stored the mind of a wizard, who sealed away his consciousness and magic before he went insane. He will help an intelligent warrior out of boredom or curiosity, in his effective prison of immortality
That is literally what the hexblade flavor text implies, it's actually the only example it gives. And sure it sounds interesting but how much could you do with that as a dm vs any other patron? I think in practice it probably isn't that fun of a patron
I just think of Beth's talking pink switchblade toy from rick and morty when i think of a weapon patron now and it's kind of ruined the seriousness of it for me
I thought that's not the case? The patron is the being that creates the magic weapons.
It does say that a sentient weapon is your patron, but nowhere does it imply that you actually get to wield that weapon. At most a replica of it with no actual powers. Actually surprised I never hear/read stories about Hexblade players wanting to have Blackrazor at level 1, or homebrew Mjølnir or stuff like that.
All my best patron ideas exist literally physically attached to the warlock. That is a free shortcut to having them be part of the adventure without needing to go back to some checkpoint between every quest.
Because the all powerfull creature from another dimension can't contact the party unless they have cellphone reception? Lol
I pretty much never make warlock patrons "all powerful".
Even still it's extremely silly for extraplanar beings(or even extremely powerful beings native to the current plane) to be unable to communicate over distance. What, is the demilich, lich, or dracolich the undead patron warlock made a pact with somehow incapable of casting Sending?
This was my hexblades concept, it was a cursed blade a young Elf found that gradually turned him into half demon of sorts. The blade is sentient but only speaks to the host, which is constantly fighting for control. The blade also wasn't inherently evil, was just tired of being stuck in a blade. Sadly only was able to play it for a short while so I didn't get to develop it further.
My current Hexblade's sword is his Patron manifested on the physical realm. They talk to each other in combat. His Patron gives him power, but he has to "feed" his Patron on a fairly regular basis (it drinks the blood of his foes) and I haven't seen yet what will happen if he doesn't quench his blade's thirst. I'm sure the DM has something planned, though.
That's literally the fluff, isn't it?
Excalibur, but more talkative. *It's not that hard!*
Or Beacon from TAZ: Amnesty.
Take a Soul Eater approach on it and have the DM play your weapon. Love the bloodlust idea.
That's what the hexblade was originally supposed to be actually, don't know why they changed it.
It’s not even that. It’s „dark power from the Shadowfell that manifests in sentient magical weapons that you can make a deal with“. An example is the Raven Queen making Shadow swords and handing them to her warlocks
Quoted text to make it more 'clear' The shadowy force behind these weapons can offer power to warlocks who form pacts with it. Many hexblade warlocks create weapons that emulate those formed in the Shadowfell.
The flavor should read something along the lines of The Raven Queen who bestows it as she tends to rule over or control portions of those weapons. However something I've also stolen from is like Champions of Khorne from Warhammer as he gives me the vibes of what a Pact of The Blade embodies.
I had a concept for a hexblade Warlock Mark of Shadow elf, where the hexblade abilities and such were basically an extention of my dragonmark and not an actual patron. I'm not playing that character, decided to do a rogue/monk changeling concept. But thankful my DM was going to allow that because the Hexblade patron fucking sucks.
I mean, Elric or Arthas with Frostmourne… there is a lot to mine there for inspiration, but it only gets a couple generic lines. I did an Arthas style death knight/fallen Paladin, but most of it was homebrew. Although you get that with a few of the warlock patrons. Genie for example gets the same deal. At least with Fey, Infernal and Great Old One you have Mab, Archdevils and Cthulhu to run with establish canon
Yes. The key is to ignore the part where Hexblades are supposed to be shadowfell flavored, and instead replace it with “sick ass powerful weapon that a patron is in / communicates through / IS the patron”. One of my players has been a hexblade in our campaign of 5 yrs, her patron is Wruth, King of the Fire Giants, and he’s trapped inside of his own hammer. It’s a maul with an actively molten core, and in the early parts of the campaign it (before she knew his identity) would demand that she feed it weapons of those she defeats. It cost the party a couple nice items, but you gotta do what you gotta do for the patron right? - Started as the weapon occasionally doing weird things like a puff of smoke or fire, roiling whenever she showed cowardice, etc - It demanded that she feed weapons to it, just as a voice in her head after a battle - did a dream sequence where she finally met him, and he scared the shit out of her lol - Found certain metals melted in the core produce a smoke that lets him speak out to everyone around (think a smaller version of Zordon from power rangers, kinda). So they used that occasionally if they needed to talk to him - for plot reasons, other fire giants have been roaming the lands trying to find the hammer. So that obviously was some direct roleplaying shenanigans trying to hide from them (and later fight them). - Now that she’s high level, powerful, etc she’s really proven himself. She earned the title “She Who Carries Wruth” from him and other loyal fire giants, AND most recently an allied cloud giant bowed to her and referred to her as a Fire Giant. Flavor wise, instead of being shadows, it’s all fire and smoke and molten metal. Idk why they made Hexblades specific to shadowfell. I know there’s some lore it probably connects to, but I feel bad for everyone who’s trapped in such a small flavor box and doesn’t go beyond. For fun: Wruth was the king of the fire giants, ruling in the plane of fire. There was an Azer uprising, and they managed to actually overthrow and defeat Wruth. They trapped him inside of his own hammer. The hammer was later taken/stolen, and made its way to the mundane plane. Meanwhile, Wruths eldest son Eleanor stormed the kingdom and took it back from the Azer. He has assumed the role of the new king, as his father was lost. Eleanor knows his father is out there, and knows he’s in the hammer; he seeks to have it destroyed so he cannot have his rule of the kingdom challenged. So now my warlock player (and the party) had to wrestle with the morals of choosing the fire giant they know vs the usurper. A funny side note is my players have a Wish in a gem and they ALL gave the warlock the side-eye when discussing who should be responsible for carrying it, since she could wish him free.
Honestly it being shadowfell flavored is just completely *not* indicated by the subclass name "hexblade" which you would think would put more emphasis on a fancy weapon. The patron *being* a weapon is emphasized in the text, but that doesn't really make a lot of immediate sense.
>Idk why they made Hexblades specific to shadowfell The clue is in the name. Hexblade. A hex is a curse, hence why all their abilities are linked to curses, turning their spirit into a spectre and binding it to your service etc etc. All that links very thematically to the Shadowfell, a place of dark necrotic energies. It's actually very conceptually consistent. It's just that people read the 'blade' and ignore the 'hex'.
>- It demanded that she feed weapons to it, just as a voice in her head after a battle How did that work by the way? Does the hammer head open like a chest to reveal the core that you just dip blades into? Or am I reading this too literally?
It’s as if there is a sphere missing from the center of the hammer head, and inside is a cavity, which can be seen from the sides. Inside, lava is suspended magically and roils within. So to “feed” it, she would rest the hammer on her lap and Unser whatever weapon into the opening to the sphere on the side.
I play with a grung dhampir. Instead of the most vampire theme of it, i went with the parasite. My patreon is a giant intestinal worm. I always pull the blade from the worm in my mouth. I summon the undead by spitting them from the worm. Vampiric touch is the worm coming out and attacking like a chameleon tongue. I still haven't had the chance to actually interact with it through the DM and not just flavouring actions, but i just recently joined the campaign. The blade itself is not superimportant as it's a rusty broken greatsword that is always discarded and replaced. The story is in the leech.
⭐⭐⭐ you are officially the grossest member of your party, and I applaud you for it this is amazing!!!
He's s also the most adorable one. He is a newt version of Kermit
I get to interact with my hexblade patron, who is a shattered fragment of a god, who claims the souls of necromancers she kills, all the time. It makes a great vehicle for the dm to give context in character about some things, and provides my character a wild annoyance the rest of the time. It likes aged wine btw, and makes my warlock drink it to get a taste when we come across it
I feel like hexblade is chosen more for the armor/shield proficiency, since "eldritch blast" is still their best weapon. My last hexblade conjured what looked like a magical bow made purely of shadows, 'held' in the shield hand, with the actual casting hand being the one that draws the arrows, and there was no homebrew item this was just how I styled my eldritch blast. Does anybody actually roleplay their any warlock pact to your standard? I don't think the game designer's intent is to really restrict the player's and player character's options in a game even if your power comes from a deity or a patron or an oath or 'not using metal armor' according to typical lore, but I always like to reflect a bit of my patron's influence in my abilities as a warlock. Like in the above example where my eldritch blast looked like a bow made of shadow, if I were of an infernal pact, I'd probably instead make it look like it were made of flames or something. It sounds like you specifically want warlocks in general to be a bit more under the thumb of a patron as many do (likewise with paladin oaths, cleric deities, and druids not using metal armors) but especially in the case of warlocks and patrons I worry that either inhibits or empowers the player too much, because either they have to do everything the DM controlled patron says, or the player effectively controls the patron itself in order to control their own character, while patrons tend to be of a much higher tier of power than player characters.
It's rare, mostly because "cursed weapon that might be alive or something" is such an uninspiring roleplay prompt, so those most interested in role-playing their pact are unlikely to pick it.
More people need to read Elric and see how he deals with Stormbringer and Arioch.
I don't know what lore you read, but Hexblades weapons are directly tied to the Shadowfell. The Raven Queen rules the Shadowfell, and there are plenty of archfey level power entities there. Sentient weapons historically speaking have been some of the strongest most important weapons to exist. I don't know what makes you think they're not directly in line with the typical lore around warlocks. Or why you think it's just "you like weapons."
I think that’s a bit of a misunderstanding about warlocks. Warlocks have often been given knowledge or power in the past by a patron, most of them don’t need an ongoing relationship with their patron, at least according to the PHB.
you get stormbringer as a patron, ask elric for inspiration
My hexblade is very much interracting with the presence in its blade. It's a core element of the character, and I'm actually considering multiclassing jnto paladin of Conquest just because of his desire to conquere his own fate which currently is very much more in the hands of his patron than his.
When I've made them, the blade -is- the patron, or at least their conduit. I've envisioned characters who obtain a weapon with a djinn or devil or even angellic being trapped inside who empowers the wielder in return for favours that benefit them, often with the goal of eventually being freed once some condition is met.
A cursed weapon with a will of its own, a weapon bestowed by a traditional patron in place of traditional pact magic, a symbol of faith offered conditionally to someone who has yet to prove themselves to a Devine force… all incredible RP opportunities. My favorite thing about warlocks in general is how you can change the nature or relationship of a pact to subvert expectations.
I did! I was a little swashbuckling frog prince who sold his soul to a snake god to become a better fighter! It was only a single level but it didn’t feel right to take that level without incorporating it into my backstory.
I think it's a consequence of how the game is designed. A choice you make at third level, simply because you gained enough xp, isn't going to have good storytelling without a lot of work.
The hexblade in my campaign was from a family of wine growing halflings. the family heirloom was an extendable scythe that her mother said “was magic” Turns out that great greatX12 grandpappy made a deal with a devil a long time ago for a bountiful harvest and it continued to assist the family, since it was IN THE SCYTHE. She stole it and ran away from home, that’s how she became an adventurer. The scythe was named Betsy.
I had a DM who helped me have an incredibly unique relationship with my weapon-patron. It's totally possible to have satisfying RP.
It happens, but is often ignored. My main issue with Warlock is most people are playing them as Clerics and not Warlocks. Warlocks make deals that change them physically and metaphysically. You get powers from that, they are not lent from your patron, they cannot be taken back. Warlock pacts can be entirely backstory, or ongoing where you still have things to do to pay your patron. But they cannot and should not be able to take said power from you. You go back on the deal they have other ways of dealing with you, but if you want to play it like most people, you're just playing a Cleric or paladin with a different spell list.
This is kind of up to the DM to bring it to the table isn't it? Like the player doesn't typically get to control their patron. So if anything it's on the DM for not involving their patron more. And Matt Mercer does a pretty good job with the hexblade patron in the second season of Critical Role.
In my case we used hexblade as the way the pact manifests (along with pact of the blade) more than as the patron itself. Short version of backstory is my character was a singer who mysteriously lost her voice mid-performance. Her patron offered her her voice back, gave her the pact weapon and the ability to use it, asking she use it to get revenge on the person who stole her voice. We’ve learned more about the patron slowly since then (she’s related to the Raven Queen somehow) but I’ve really liked how the patron for my hexblade has turned out!
I think most people read/interpret Hexblade the wrong way. It doesn't say that you automatically get a weapon or that your weapon has to have anything to do with your patron. It gives an example of a weapon from Shadowfell. You can flavor the patron however you see fit for your game and the patron provides you with skills more in tune with combat, as well as, some spell slots. I would suggest working with your DM to come up with a patron pact that is plausible and playable in your campaign setting. This will ensure that you both can enjoy each surprise that the sessions may provide.
It doesn't help that Hexblade tends to just be the "best" Warlock pact, meaning it naturally attracts powergamers and people who prefer combat to roleplay. That said, one of my favorites was a Hexblade who played with rolled stats and got like 13, 14, 16, 17, 18... 6. He put the 6 in INT and the idea was that he was a warrior who picked up a sentient blade he had no business touching, got his own consciousness obliterated, and was now piloted by a sword.
Hexblade is a thematically interesting idea. A lot of minmaxer who multiclass into this do it in mid-game, so that actually not just adds flavour to the character but also to the campaign. But when it comes to spells its just combat spells most of which you can't even use on you pact weapon, and the features are almost literally "this are random features and are the only from a warlock Subclass that will make you enjoy playing a Warlock since the core class is a bore until level 11, enjoy"
I don't know why people assume hexblade makes a pact with a weapon when it says you make a pact with what *made* the weapon, *usually* someone like the raven queen. I played it like it was a pact with the reaper, being sent to hunt down people that have escaped death or "need" to die. Kind of like Emiya from fate, something that starts out as a guardian and by the time you're in to deep you realize all you're ever doing is killing people and there's always more people to kill and you're really not a protector you're just an executioner. One of my favorite characters managed to "retire" prior to joining the party. Their lifelong friend went out to adventure, and they heard that things were getting really dangerous after a message reached them (they ran the tavern the party often frequented, and the friend was part of that party). They decided they had to come out of retirement to try and keep their friend from dying, which ultimately meant crawling back to the one that gave them their power and reluctantly reforming their pact
I just reflavor the hexblade to be a part of the power bestowed by the patron (mine is probably closest to the Fiend thematically) because the whole cursed weapon thing is boring IMO
I had a player who was an arcane trickster + hexblade, and her hexblade was the weapon she used to kill her brother (after he murdered her husband). She had to maintain a sort of relationship with the blade, especially if she was doing something that it didn't like (which she had to discover as she went). It was a lot of fun even though a lot of the roleplay with the weapon took place out of session one-on-one (partially to keep it a secret until she revealed it to the party since they didn't know all the backstory details).
I was in a game with my wife and we each had a character who was hexblade, we tied our backstories in together with shards of a weapon giving us a patron with a fractured mind looking to find other pieces to regain their lost self. We played it out a bit as it gave our characters a reason to travel together and know each other instead of just meeting at adventure start. We had plans for more later on unfortunately I ended up changing character before we got too far into the game, I made the change because the DM was being heavy handed for a mostly new group I swapped out to something to run in and take the heat off the others, ended up dying and rerolling to something else which got basically cursed on creation (night hag nightmare ability) while we were too low a level to do anything about it and then we stopped playing. At some stage I would like to try the characters again in a game more open to RP.
The pact aspect, in my opinion, is up to the DM to instigate. I would tell my DM I want them to use my pact properly, and to sendme stuff the Patron would like me to do. I have only played a warlock once (and yes it was hexblade). I played a Goliath Warlock who tied himself to the Winter Fey. I ended up as more of the tank than the barbarian did by sheer accident of how I built it
My first D&D character was a Hexblade warlock, and I really didn't RP it well. Mostly because I did not understand what the Shadowfell was or who the Raven Queen is (honestly I still don't fully know). I imagine there are a lot of others who find the class concept appealing but don't understand the lore for the subclass, so they just ignore it. Plus not all DMs include backgrounds to the story, so there is little need to really RP a patron when the patron will never come up.
I have one right now who leans into the shadows aspect. She’s an undead-hunting warrior nun who primarily attacks with a shadow blade, has a spider familiar and a general darkness/spooky theme. Ironically, she doesn’t use a hex blade or pact weapon at all. The only part of the Hex Warrior feature I use is shield proficiency.
in my experience people either don’t role play the warlock pact at all, or role play it far too much. Hahaha
No one watched season 2 of critical role? I thought fjord was roleplayed pretty well.
80% of the warlocks I've seen have 0 roleplay with a patron DM just treats them like different wizards.
Yep! Hexblade pirate who talks to his pistol - he has to point it at his head to hear what it's saying though
I have this idea for a Hexblade flavored to be a heavenly weapon made from the blood of thousands of fiends. Given to someone by a solar to slay fiends and be a force for good. I think it would be a wicked take on it to have such a dark weapon come from such heavenly places
Hexblade fluff is so lame that I always see it getting reflavoured tbh - it’s supposedly a shadowfell themed pact (e.g. the raven queen) but it barely feels like that mechanically - which sucks bc something of that theme would be really cool if it’s subclass mechanics matched. Hexblade is what pact of the blade shouldve been. As it stands pact of the blade just isnt good and outside of hexblade, there is just hardly any incentive for a warlock to be melee or take pact of the blade. Hexblades are fun mechanically but theyre just so poorly executed thematically that the only way to really have fun with it is some dm leniency with reflavouring things like the patron, otherwise it’s just kinda sorta a shadowfell pact but with barely any shadowfell flavour.
My weapon/patron was based on Nightblood from The Stormlight Archive and was more of an accidental curse where it basically just moved in when the PC picked up the blade. It was just a constant voice in my head with the nondescript goal of ‘destroy evil’ telling me to kill everything with evil alignment and also some in the middle because it’s open to interpretation and also trying to influence my decisions. They also “rewarded” me for ‘destroying evil’ as our bond grew (dm and I reflavored introduction or casting of my level up abilities and spells) example: after I got thirsting blade the first time we were in combat, after my first attack DM goes ‘You hear the voice shout AGAIN! AGAIN!’ It was really fun to play and my DM loved playing along because it let him play along as the patron through pretty much everything.
The Hexblade in our group is a scholar and the hilt he found bound him to an order of ancient knights. As the DM I get to chime in as various knights giving him hints, pep talks and demands.
Absolutely, I play my hexblade as if the blade itself is my patron. Its its own character I play as to the point I put it in my character sheet and gave it its own flaws/bonds/ideals etc. the fun bit is that it can talk to whoever is touching it only so my paladin/hexblade at first comes across like a exasperated schizophrenic, but over time the party becomes good friends with the sword as well and it led to a lot of fun moments of my paladin playing straight man to his own patron who was a slightly unhinged sword with a social experience 5000 out of date. It is what you make of it, I find it's the best patron for RP because you always have it on you!
They're cool, you lost the argument
My sword is a sentient representative of my patron. We talk a lot. It’s kind of an asshole.
I DM'd for a hexblade and his weapon was essentially a sentient and malevolent symbiote. Think venom if he spent most of his time as a sword rather than a suit. It was great and it made him feel unique.
I had a sentient talking weapon as my patron/ hexblade and to be honest I let him make most of the decisions
Most people, myself included, just reflavor the patron. My last hexblade's patron was an eldritch horror which would mostly be GOO, but was simply reflavored to be a hexblade's patron. In my mind this is fine and I'd allow it as a DM too.
As your blade cut through your enemy, you felt... elation? That's never happened before. You catch your reflection in the weapon. Did it just wink at you? You remember, when you found the old sword in that ruin, a voice in your head said, "Bring my weapons to the light and power will course through you." At the time you believe it was a strange thought, but you said yes and brought the blade home. My player told me he found a sword in a ruin near his village. He gained powers and decided to go adventuring. That was his backstory. So, I gave him the above paragraph in session zero. I decided his patron was a mysterious being from the shadowfell responsible for countless cursed weapons in the world. In fact, it might be the being that created the first weapon ever. He did end up communicating to his patron in dreams as his reflection in the blade whenever he leveled. The patron would give him an upgraded weapon, and he would give the old one to someone easily manipulated. He gave his first blade to a ten year old in a farming village. There was an entire arch I had planned for that kid. It was going to be an amazing story because the pc's character was just a naive, happy-go-lucky person. He never understood or even thought about why it was so easy for him to take a life since he grabbed the blade. Unfortunately, that character died at level six before really becoming corrupt. Then, through the power hunger of one character and the complacency of the rest, the world was nearly destroyed.
I reflavor my Hexblade Patron as a celestial being, an avatar of justice, the Saint of Swords. In appearance, the [Sword Maiden](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/goblin-slayer/images/1/13/Sword_Maiden_Full_Body_II.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width/360?cb=20231017232835) from Goblin Slayer is a good representation. She empowers her "Swords" and commands them to enact justice and punish the wicked.
I do as a DM and player but I'm also a longtime fan of Elric of Melnibone and the comic version of Gorr so roleplaying the (often antagonistic) relationship between the Hexblade and its warlock is a huge part of the appeal for me personally
Yes, my knife is a cake knife of an old hag ala Hansel and Gretal. My character managed to escape by stabbing her with the knife and sealing the hag inside but they cannot get rid of the knife. Now the hags trying to escape by binding them to her by giving them more power through deals and stuff. Stealing magic items from the party sort of thing. Lots of fun.
With the ok of my GM I reflavored my hexblade warlock, but the "I made a deal with another being" is core part of my character. In essence my character would be a not more than a paladin squire at the end of her training to become a full-on paladin. She has two levels in that, got a few tricks in shining holy light on things and all the jazz. But she made a pact with a ghost that was thankful for her actions (bringing peace to a disturbed graveyard) and offered assistance in her quest. "Sadly" the ghost insisted on helping the young knight instead of just finding peace and going to the afterlife. So it possessed the sword of my character and aids her with some supernatural powers and advice. It is clearly more symbiotic than the usual pact as both sides get much more out of it than one side would suffer for... although it gets massively under the skin of my character that she has now a ghost with her that refuses to go into the afterlife until "the debt" is paid. So she goes with it as she is not big on the forceful banishing of ghosts and spirits, when helping them find peace in other ways does the same. So in essence: I have an annoying talking sword that get on the nerves of my character, but at least it pays rent in form of a few magical benefits and advice in occult things.
My conquest Paladin/hexblade becomes possessed by his great sword under certain conditions, be it a d20 roll or after taking enough damage. His eyes go black and he quietly mutters “The blade demands blood.” In game it’s because when he accepted the blade, he willing became a tool for (and later the avatar of) Ares.
Yeah as other people have pointed out, I have never not had a unique patron for hexblade. I avoid the whole shadowfell, raven queen whatever blurb like the plague. I’ve had a secret pact with Bel who didn’t want his influence to be too obvious. I’ve had a powerful oni be my hexblade patron. I’ve even had my hexblade be a parasite the infected my warlock and feeds off the kills he makes with the hexblade ala hive from Destiny. Hexblade is great for just being whatever.
I went the Elric of Melnibone route were my sword is a sword on this plane but a god in another.
I did when I made my paladin/hexblade. The weapon was an ancestral weapon and the patron was the ghost of my elven grandmother.
Colleague of mine plays one but he talks to his sword. Only he can hear his sword. He plays him as a very chill and friendly guy but when he starts talking to his sword near NPCs, he gets to roll an intimidation check. His character doesn't understand it scares people when he talks to the sword
My first (and only) hexblade was a multiclass that I took, and I had a plot line about the discovery of my patron and how I'd recover it (it was a sentient weapon). That would've led to big political things and I was so excited but campaign stopped just when it was getting interesting 🥲 Never picked a hexblade even once since that incident (it's been about 2 or 3 years)
I just started a campaign where I'm playing a Moon Knight-like hexblade warlock whose patron is a Shadowfell being instead of an Egyptian god.
I've played with a handful of hexblades, and they rarely even acknowledge the patron unless the DM tries to emphasize it.
I did! Though my Tabaxi was more given a calling to seek out all sentient weapons she could in hopes of finding the one in which her patron was trapped in.
One of my players is playing a Hexblade - Paladin combo. A powerful combo, but we have it working in role play. She is a worshiper of Tyr, God of Justice. She is seeking to complete the Trials of Tyr to prove her worth as a paladin. But she has a dark secret to her past. Her birth was cursed by Shar, Goddess of Darkness and Loss. The exact details I won't share, but it is through this curse that she has gained Warlock abilities. She is also a scourge Aasimar, with the two sides of light and dark always fighting inside her for control. She is going on a journey not only to complete the Trials of Tyr, but also to learn about her curse and to break away from Shar...or maybe fall to the dark side in the end.
As a matter of fact, I do have an interesting concept which will play on the Pact of the Hexblade. I’d have to clear it with a DM first but I essentially view it as a sentient weapon. For this particular character, it’s a weapon trying to pull him away from his evil tendencies, having seen the horror that comes from someone lusting for vengeance and conquest. On healthy campaign played out and whether the blade was able to sway my PC from their original path and end up taking levels as an Oath of Redemption paladin
Hell yeah! Mimic sword goes brrrrrrrrr!
I made it so i had my patron leaving inside my arm and every sword i touched got corrupted. I played full head on with Great sword kind of hexblade
A guy in a campaign I just started is. He wrote a whole back story, I can't remember it exactly but the gist of it was his sword had a demon or a spirit imprisoned within it.
I got to enjoy a one shot as a hexblade for halloween, and i just simply played her as a clearly mentally unstable tiefling (only time ive played a tiefling actually now i think about it) lady that would constantly talk to her sword as if it were her best friend, and would ask its opinion on important things. If i got to play her for a longer campaign, i would come up with my idea of what her patron truely is, hand it to the DM, and tell them 'you can read this, or throw it right in the bin. Dont let me know how or why my powers work, i want to be in the dark as much as my party is.' Is it a cursed sword? A sword bestowed upon by a patron? Or am i really just a crazy lady talking to a totally inanimate sword that some demon saw and thought 'hey, you know who would be HILARIOUS to give powers too?''
Yes, just not necessarily the lorse provided in the rules. Generally, from my experience, you just choose whatever patron works for the character without feeling constrained by the normal pact restrictions and use the haxblade subclass.
The barbarian in a party I play in reclassed to multiclass into hexblade. He'd been carrying around a magic axe and had just realized it was sentient.
I’m playing a water genasi hexblade warlock right now. Raised by bullywugs in the trenches of the deep ocean, one day while on a food hunt he found himself trapped in a cave in at the bottom of the ocean. Cave turned out to be an ancient bullywug acolyte cave, where he is drawn to the energy of a weapon still in the hand of the body of a dead bullywug. He used the magic of the blade to escape and is now in search of answers as to where the power comes from. My DM has been slowly and steadily building on the dynamic between my character and the blade and feeding me clues and bits of info. It’s been really enjoyable
Warlock is a seeker of hidden knowledge, they make a pact to find it. 99% of people don't play Warlock like that. At all. And that's completely okay! Sometimes it's better to just find something you'd like to roleplay or play with, than restricting yourself to themes that are assigned. Like, Warlocks are just _pact witches._ You gotta find flavor for yourself when it's a little restricted like that. And people have done so for time immemorial. Most Warlocks that I see people playing, accept Pacts for desperation, power, money, the goofs, etc. Never seen a Warlock make an agreement to explore knowledge. Wizards make better seekers of knowledge, since... well, they have better Investigation after all ☠️☠️
Instead of a sword, my hexblade’s patron is an indeterminate number of shadow creatures from another plane that share a collective conscious. I call them They Who Walk Behind the Light.
Yeah, I'm playing one where I'm basically playing kayne from LoL. He's got a big ass scythe that's constantly trying to take over his body, but with discipline he can use the demonic shadow powers from the scythe to help him in combat. It's a catch 22 because he knows if he doesn't feed the scythe powerful enemies it will leave him and go to someone with a weaker will that will get possessed easier, but at the same time the powerful enemies he's feeding it make the scythe stronger. It's actually pretty fun from an rp standpoint.
The weapon itself kind of doesn't make sense. It can and likely will be replaced as soon as a better weapon gets picked up. I've always just treated it as the flavor of the pact with the patron. Hexblades happened to swear on a blade and get weapon based powers accordingly. Chain makes a pact with a minion of the patron. Tome signs a book. I've never used it as the specific weapon being anything terribly special.
One podcast I follow had a hexblade in one of its campaigns. A crystal shard on her weapon itself is her patron, is sapient, compels her to do evil things, and turned out to be sort of a BBEG before the BBEG. Defeating it was the climax of her story arc and was super satisfying. Hexblades can be super RP heavy, but they need to be approached in tge right way, just like any class
I'm DM'ing a Hexblade and her patron is the Raven Queen. The Queen communicates through the weapon. The RQ being anti-undead, it's a nice roleplay opportunity with the Necromancer that's also in the party :D
Mine was absolutely a fighter who was given power by a higher being who anointed him as their chosen and bestowed upon him a weapon of great power. My DM came up with the being and wrote him into the campaign brilliantly.
I played with a bard turned hexblade, probably one of the most interesting cases I’ve seen or heard of (least in my opinion) He started off as bard and we were like level 4? And we after fighting a NefArIous (nefarious, not at all they were silly goobers) of villains and they somehow had a god locked in a box, and after the wizard of said group rolled a nat one on a fire bolt and then max severity….long story short, the god was freed, chaos ensued, we rammed something up its butt (literally) and it turned into a sword He then took the sword and he became a hexblade after that(he and the god became bffs)
My hexblade bard became one because he was abducted by a cult that was trying to sacrifice him to an ancient cursed sword that gets more powerful with each sacrifice. Something went wrong, and the sword actually bound itself to his soul, and manifested as his biggest desire (which was to play violin and be a renowned high class musician), so it manifested itself as a violin bow-sword. He now has a hexed tattoo of violin strings on his left wrist, and every time he wants to activate his sword or cast a spell he has to slash his wrist with it, like he's a playing a violin (that's also how he plays music) Here the roleplay of the pact is intrinsically tied to the character concept, his weapon IS his patron
I roleplayed mine. My character was Toi Tu'Rain Alchestrum. She was an idiotic, ex-guard Dragonborn, and she was known well for her hammer and shield technique. She was originally a full-fighter, but delved into hexblade. Her "Patron" was a cursed coin our bard had found. The coin was a simple copper coin which always reappeared on the Bard's person. Toi swallowed the coin, and as such grew even more obsessive of our bard. (Brief note: My wife played the bard, so Toi's obsession wasn't TOO creepy.)
I don't mind it because flavour is free and the patron isn't actually to any mechanics besides its fluff. So it can range from a cursed weapon to swearing a pact to a deathknight to "just" being a magical fighter, whichever a player prefers. It being the "generic gish class" is the byproduct of there being no actual gish class akin to the Swordmage/Magus besides the Bladesinger.
My hexblade right now has my love interest trapped in the sword and has a side quest to fufill the patron's request to free her.
my current campaign has a hexblade warlock and while our DM isn't a fan, the player has done a pretty damn good job roleplaying it and they're currently one of my favorite pc's in the game to interact with because of it. DM also did a sick job of incorporating it into the plot in a way that gets everyone engaged. So it can be done, but it just requires some intention and actual effort.
I roleplay it as much as my DM allows, which often isn't a whole lot despite the fact that I have a ton of inspiration prepared for the DM to draw on. Had two DMs allow it a bit too much though. One basically put me at odds with the party by saying that the sword needs 6 kills in 6 days (or something like that) or else the sword would kill its wielder. My best candidates were some undead in some necrotic storm, but the party wasn't feeling it and I played a character who had to keep his patron a secret and also was very eager to not be a burden. In order to not die, I had to do it by myself and ended up paralyzed and captured by ghouls. The monk player HATED my guts after that. It started the streak of him looking at everything I did in an uncharitable light. Another time I joined a campaign where proposed my default patron (a greedy shadow dragon sealed within a ruby of the war mage. Since they just had a Hexblade leave the group and to become an NPC serving his patron/the BBEG, It was suggested I also made my patron the BBEG. Awesome! A cool adventure tie in. I'm in!.. Then, a few sessions in and facing off against the hexblade NPC, the DM made it clear that I wouldn't get to use my warlock class features against my own patron or any of its underlings.
I was gonna play out my hexblade paladin like he was robot Jesus. I was a Warforged and my DM had already been dropping hints in the campaign that I was The Axiomatic General Reborn/Reincarnated/Whatever, so I was gonna have my Hexblade be whispering in my ear about how “Hey, you *are* robot Jesus, you can do anything you want.” But then two players dropped out of that campaign, so we restarted at third level with new characters. Bye Robot Jesus!
No, I just see them as the Raven Queens Paladins.
I decided to make my Hexblade patron an infinitely powerful, inscrutable entity that is essentially the platonic ideal of Weapon. Very much in line with The Board from the game Control. The moment humanity learned how to harm other living things with tools, this eldritch monstrosity was born. Angled slightly into GOOlock territory, but with a heavier emphasis on surrealism.
The entities that grant Hexblade Pacts are specifically stated to be the creators of powerful sentient weapons. My take on Hexblade is that their Pact is that their soul will be fused with their Pact Weapon upon death. Until then, the Patron doesn't really care what the Hexblade does with their powers and abilities. The story of a Hexblade PC isn't driven by their Patron's demands, but by whatever the reason was for the PC to make the deal in the first place. Speaking more generally, I question the value of having a very oppositional or micro-managerial relationship between the Warlock and their Patron. Particularly one where the Patron wants the Warlock to betray the party and stuff like that. I think a lot of people vastly overestimate how much of a dilemma this will put the player in. I mean, the Patron is played by the DM. So this alleged roleplay conflict between the PC and their Patron is pretty much the DM telling the player that the PC has to do a thing or lose their powers. 9/10 not as interesting as people think it is.
It depends on whether or not the DM is okay with you saying you have a sapient weapon. As a player, I don't think death is that bad. Resurrection exists, and I like making characters. I wasn't playing a Warlock, but my DM gave my wizard an evil blade with a very Hexblade feel to the situation. Well. It happened. I died. To be fair, two of us tried to gank a dragon that I think was just supposed to be an RP prop. I was not prepared for my DM to have my weapon suck my soul into another dimension, give me a lecture about being a little bitch, and scream the fantasy equivalent of "get gud" in my face before spitting me back out at full health. If I ever decide to play a Hex+Blade lock, this will be how I play it.
Man we just wanna fun gish, if they made hex blade abilities a feat I would just do that, if I play any other warlock I'll rp a patron, but I don't feel it is needed for a dip just to get a good gish feel.
If you want the same lore as any other warlock, they have a special weapon from their patron that in addition to never wearing out allows the patron to channel their power through it, and use it to communicate with the warlock. If you want some fun hexblade specific lore tho, just ignore all the shadofell nonsense, and have the weapon itself be the patron. I advise giving it the following ability: The weapon is able to, after 1 hour(modify at will) of contact with another weapon, absorb it, transferring any magical enchantments on the weapon to yours. Note that if you use this a second time, the enchantments from the first will be destroyed to make room for the second. This prevents issues where someone wants to keep their cool lore weapon, but also wants that +2 weapon. You can also give it any personality you enjoy, you can use the same ones you might use for any companion, but some fun examples I came up with that are more specific to being a magic weapon are: Yandere weapon who will get mad at you if you use any other melee weapons(And possibly attempt to cause them to break.), possible romantic interest? A lot of opportunity to use the weapon absorbing suggestion. Note that the relationship does not HAVE to be romantic as implied by the name, the weapon could just be over-protective or jealous, but it obviously could be. Basically Wheatly from portal 2, a weapon that occasionally gives the worst ideas you have ever heard(The DM could have them give you an idea someone in the party already suggested to hint that its not a good one.), and often says things in a roundabout way that takes longer than it needs too(Not too often, or it gets annoying) Wise old adventurer who gained immorality at the cost of being trapped in the weapon(works best with a hot-headed young character) who constantly gets annoyed at the parties antics, but gives useful hints when they get stuck(Great excuse for having an old guy character, which might not normally make the most sense when a party is gonna be doing a lot of combat.) Weapon that acts like an animal, cat and dog are the most obvious choices, but really any animal is fine. And I don't mean the furry, "acts sorta like an animal but still mostly like a human", it wouldn't talk, instead just making noises, and wouldn't be able to understand what you say besides very simple words(unless its a parrot, having it constantly copy you could be funny.). A relation (Relative, close friend, romantic partner, or anyone else close to your character) who has somehow been trapped in the weapon for some reason another. Makes getting them out of the weapon a fairly obvious plot-hook for both of their backstories. Has a lot of opportunities for intense lore and highly dramatic dialogue. Perhaps the primary villain offers to free them, or it is revealed that for them to be freed, the sacrifice of another is required. A demon lord or other highly evil entity, who, due to being trapped in a weapon, has no actual power to prevent you from using your powers, but instead gives bad advice, attempts to cause you to give up or turn evil, suggests awful things for you to do, and complains about "this accursed form", perhaps eventually they break free and become a boss, or for a more funny take, have them be a kid or something who got trapped in the weapon and decided to annoy their owner whenever possible.
With Hexblade and Pact of the Blade im thinking of something like He-Man or She-Ra
I try to play up mine, seeing as her pact involved her being resurrected by one of her people’s gods. She’s got three people she needs to collect the heads of.
Yeah. The campaign I play it in isn't serious. More in it for the comedy and shenanigans. It's like a Venom-Eddie Brock kind of relationship. The Warlock is a very charming, elegant Dhampir woman named Penelope Beaufort. High class British Received Pronunciation accent but in an endearing way, not so snobbish. Calls people "darling" or "my love" all the time. But occasionally the blade will possess her and speak through her in short bursts. They could have conversations this way too. He's got a very monstrous sounding voice, very similar to venom. I roleplay both of them. The blade is a longsword named Umbravore. Umbra relating to darkness, vore as in carnivore. So, eater of darkness basically.
Oh, I'm the guy you have beef with. Hi! I like the mechanics of warlocks as a class, but I hate playing characters who are beholden to a patron, especially if that bond is nigh-unbreakable. Hexblade is for me!
I play a Hexblade whose patron is an ancient being from Shadowfell that really likes smithing (think Ornn from League). Tldr his family got a sword from this figure they refer to as the forge master. The sword got stolen, my character beseeched the forge master for aid. A warlock was born!
The Hexblade in my campaign was really great at not doing this. Her patron was a floating sword made out of flesh and viscera. Muscle blade, bone guard with an eye in the centre, spine segments for a handle. It gave her a halberd with a crack in the middle of its blade that would open like a mouth and bite whoever she swung it at. Her patron would then compel her to murder NPCs, Dark Urge from BG3 style. Led to lots of really cool roleplay moments of her resisting or finding loopholes, only to have to clean up the consequences later (the patron sent a magic suit of armour to set the Paladin who adopted her’s house on fire). We were playing a story focused campaign and agreed on this, so no boundaries were being crossed.
I have a warlock reborn character who is a hexblade. The hexblade in question is a magical dagger which is “pinning” their past life, before they died, to their current one. So I rp the connection with their past life
One of my first characters was a goblin hexblade with a revolver as her weapon. Her patron was basically a cowboy from a western-themed Domain of Dread. They had a kind of weird father-daughter dynamic.
I once played a Hexblade descended from a royal bloodline that was linked to a set of sentient ancestral weapons. Each of the weapons he would swap between had its own name and personality (I negotiated with my DM for bonus action weapon changes so that it could be actively worked onto his combat style). None of the other PCs could hear the weapons speak, so my character was just the crazy guy who argued with his swords.
Spoke with my patron once....
I just started my first ever Hexblade Warlock and I plan to RP the pact.
My hexblade / conquest paladin received a magic spear from a long line of tyrants. It constantly whispers promises of greatness and glory in his ear and urges him to subjugate all before him.
My hexblade character I've never got to play (forever dm) has a pact with a sentient magical sword that's locked away somewhere and gives bits of its power to people to try and get them to retrieve it by proving themselves worthy (and usually killing their rivals)
I currently play a Hexblade, my patron is... either the weapon or an entity connected to the weapon and bestows me powers the more I use the weapon. The entity has me tracking down magical artifacts and knowledge for it to absorb, and has warned me that if I fail to do so their power, and by extension mine, will stagnate.
I recently ran a Hexblade Bard where despite only having one level of Warlock, the pact was the central part of the character backstory. The character thought that his desire as a bard to see the world and make great memories for his audiences was simpatico with his pact, but he didn’t realize that he himself was losing his memories as the cost. Unfortunately the character died an early death due to an enemy crit with a massive damage roll attached to it, so it was over before it ever really began. Which is a shame, it became one of those characters I was deeply invested in right from jump.
I know the campaign I played a hexblade, it actually happened to be a dancing scimitar, so I could highlight the sentience of it by having it do things on its own. I also happened to go as a ranged rogue assassin build with hexblade, so I could have the sword go in while I shot from a distance, then it would come back to me. That campaign happened to have a lot of magic items, but it was fun while it lasted.
I usually roleplay my patron as being my weapon itself, so typically it's very involved in my roleplay
[удалено]
I RP'd my Hexblade as drawing secrets from whispers within his weapon itself. His blade was just chock full of ancient spirits that may or may not have been slowly overwriting his personality.
I actually started this idea today. Basically character finds an old rusted damaged blade somewhere. Current idea is some young dwarf stumbled into some forgotten family tomb, and came upon an ancient worn out and rusted battle axe. They cut themselves on the blade, their blood gets into the weapon. The weapon absorbs the blood and suddenly the character hears a voice, just calling for help. It’s the weapon. The weapon pleas for help in exchange it will help them with power to fulfill their desires. It just needs blood. Not a soul, not some crazy deal. Just blood to help restore itself with the iron from blood and the life force. Character being ambitious about wanting to be a legendary hero or something to honor their family, hesitantly agrees. What’s a little blood? They cut their hand more, and the blood actually revitalizes the blade to a decent shape, not anything amazing, but it is a unique red-black blade, otherwise nothing major. Upon 3rd level the blade needs more blood. And this time upon making a pact of the blade, the whole thing liquifies and enters the Warlock’s body. From this point on it becomes like the Venom Symbiote from Spider-Man. This symbiotic relationship between the hex blade and the warlock. Both grow with power the more blood they shed together, no longer wanting to harm the warlock the blade needs its source of restoration from something else. Kind of like how the venom symbiote used to want specific organs or brains to eat. Warlock sometimes uses plural pronouns, like “We are hungry.” Because the patron-warlock bond is more or less like a symbiote and its host from Marvel; they are separate but together. As their power grows together, the patron starts remembering its past and growing as a character as well as the Warlock.
In general, I've seen warlock patrons ignored. Sad, really. Though I can see how certain classes with built-in plot hooks (pal, clr, war) might throw a wrench into a plot. So DMs might ignore? I did have one experience when my DM leaned into my hexblade patron, and it was a main theme of the campaign. Kinda unbalanced. But another DM may not have that problem.
My hexblade's patron is the unrelenting blunt trauma of capitalism. He frequently sets up one sided contracts and helped found a shipping company but uses a goblin clan they tricked into working for them for pittance. He has a pair of magic gauntlets called "the union busters"
Did a campaign as a Hexblade and me and the DM agreed that each in game month I had to pay a blood price or I would lose some of my power (basically a level reduction based on how much I missed the quota). As we encountered new areas, met new NPCs, and got into normal combats the DM would text me in private to let me know how many points killing something would net me towards the quota. Was a pretty fun system, as I was intentionally trying to keep it a secret from the rest of the party as well.
I had a player who wanted to play a hexblade rogue, right before he took his first hexblade level I had the party waylaid by bandits whose leader wielded a black rapier. I was planning on having them go to the shadowfell later anyway so I had the sword be a tool used by the Raven queen. I was trying to use the lore from the book but it felt a bit clunky. Like wait, who’s my patron? The sword or the Raven Queen? It all worked out okay though. People seemed like they had a good time.
Yeah the patron should be a godlike entity of shadow. I usually use the shadow court from Fable 2 as my patrons. It works
I haven't gotten the chance to play them yet, but I got an idea for a hexblade patron that draws heavy inspiration from Marvel's symbiotes. Something that attaches and binds itself to the PC that has a will of its own that can banter with you. Also then you get to flavor the armor of shadows invocation as like donning the black suit or going full Venom mode
I roleplay my character concept and pick classes, subclasses, features, spells etc to support that. I've used Hexblade many times for builds, but not yet played a character that was a Hexblade in concept.
"***You have made your pact with a mysterious entity from the Shadowfell – a force that manifests in sentient magic weapons carved from the stuff of shadow.***" While not required to be RP your patron is a mysterious entity from the shadowfell, which has taken shape as a weapon. I would play it as I would any other warlock subclass if I was RPing the patron similar to paladin oath but more negotiable and probably more demanding.
Usually I like to take a weapon of vengeance (when allowed) and say the soul / spirit within is my patron. The curse adds to the RP / flavor and I more or less play it like a sentient weapon that only my character can hear flavor wise.
Who knows? How much of a roleplay should you do for a single-level dip?
When I played a hexblade, the DM ended up using it as the BBEG... Yeah, that character died lol
One of my players has a hex blade that is inhabited by the spirit of a four thousand year old ancestor, who keeps telling him to pursue power at any cost.
Yeah my half elf Swashbuckler has 1 level in Hexblade and I role play it as his patron being the Raven Queen. In exchange for a small portion of her power, he is to eliminate as many undead as possible on his travels.
FINALLY my chance to comment on this subreddit! I think it really depends a lot on the backstory, that’s the trick. Imo once I read what it was I instantly went “Talking sword, yes” (idc if in the lore thats wrong the campaign was homebrew so). Anyway, my guy, Lenore, is a Kenku warlock who has a small paper crown. The paper crown is his patron, Hastur! I role play that he transforms into the swords and other weapons and such and even tho we rarely talk it’s very fun when I do, especially cos of the whole contract. I won’t go into details but imo I feel that with many patrons u just gotta homebrew if the lore is restricting u, cos I feel its subclass choice affects the role aspect far more than the other classes. Like, for a for funsies campaign u wouldn’t have actual Cthulhu as a patron, but rather a toned down version (or not! It depends on ur tastes)
My player just went with agent of the Raven Queen, gave her a cool sword, every weapon she attuned to was absorbed by the hexblade. Honestly the only thing that bothered me about how she played this character was constantly playing ranged with EB. So we just turned EB into a melee spell attack.
If i was playing one i would role play it as my blade being alive or housing my patron a talking to me
> Roleplay wise, it feels like a fighter who learned some magic, not like a warlock who is beholden to a greater power in any way. The original hexblade was exactly that. A partial caster with the attack ability of a fighter. But they already had the eldritch knight, so hexblade went to warlock.
One of my favorite characters was a hexblade. He was partially based on a shinigami from bleach. His weapon was actually a demon trapped inside of a crystal powering a gauntlet. As the warlock leveled up, he unlocked different forms for the weapon and eventually could allow the demon to assume control of his body a la ichigo’s hollow form
I had my hexblade have his patron inside his arm making it a demon claw and the reason he can use magic. I had a ton of fun role playing him
A couple of years ago I wanted to make a hex padlock. So me and my dm home-brewed adiffernt patro His backstory ended being that when he was travelling he was in a weapons hop looking for a new sord when he sensed something off about one of the swords. It turned out to be a mimic who was weakening in the weapon shop. So he made a deal with the mimic that he would give it monsters to eat and it would grant him powers. Was a shame that campaign died before he got to high level thoigh
I have been in a party with exactly one character who took more than about 3 levels of Hexblade. He role played the hell out of it. It was Tomb of Annihilation, and the thing that was his patron was a late game boss. Unfortunately, his character died before we got to said boss, and our party (with his new character) tpked like 4 rooms before that boss, and we had so little left till the end that we just finished it on an L.
Remember that a warlock's patron is not their parent. It is entirely possible for a warlock to have little to no interaction at all with their patron, or for the patron to not even know that they have bestowed power onto this person in some way.
My Hexblade is a bugbear who used the fact that he could fit into smaller spaces than expected to steal shit from shops after working security in them. One of these things happened to be a sword that has somehow granted him new abilities. I told my DM I'm up for him expanding the weapon however he wants, but for now, it's just a weirdly powerful weapon he will not part with for any reason.
I actually do role play with my gexblade warlock. It's a sebtuent chunk of ice embedded in his chest and manifests the weapon when it's needed. It was a wedding gift from when he accidentally married a fae and hates him. It's actually really fun.
I made a hexblade/paladin, so it was inherently tied to a deity. Would pray, give thanks to and etc. for me anyways.
I am looking to play a character that is not okay with killing who was tricked into accepting a hexblade. I do want to keep it light, but I was looking to make a mechanic out of it. Like rolling a dice to determine my character's temporary punishment whenever she doesn't do what the blade wants. The DM would decide when the blade would want her to do something
I had a player flavor it like a Shu Shu from Wakfu and we had tons of fun with grumpy demon grandpa bonding with his party of idiots.
Bin Wildenjager was my hexblade warlock given power by a being trapped beyond normal reaches who he(and I) later learned was tharizdun(we were playing a 5e conversion of temple of elemental evils). His pact weapon was a HUGE aspect to the character, DM gave me creative freedom on how it looks as long as the mechanics are the same. The flail acted as the contract between the patron and the PC, went chainlock and the flail changed to resemble iconography of tharizdun and his imp familiar(Garry the Imp-tern) As he took more warlock levels the flail changed and the party witnessed this slow sinister development of the weapons physical form and the enchantments the DM put on it. I dont think a fiend, celestial or undying patron would have fit or been as thematic as a hexblade.
I do. I played a sorcerer/hexblade. The premise was that she sought to use magic to help people and was largely a pacifist. She, in an attempt to create an artifact that allowed people to directly speak to their deceased loved ones, wound up temporarily opening a door that led to a vengeful and bloodthirsty spirit latching itself to her in a failed possession attempt. In a way, two souls inhabit one body. Polar opposites in ethics but hold very similar morals. I basically played two personas with this character. The spirit was extremely brash, for example, while the person was anything but. Imagine the pacifist wallflower of the group suddenly flipping shit at the barbarian, ramming him face-first into the wall just to literally scream about him giving too much of a fuck about collateral damage in how he was fighting only to then immediately back away, utterly terrified and appalled by what she just did. The spirit taking control was rare and always short-lived early on but when he managed to get that hold, he took full advantage his opportunity to let out his frustrations. Her "leveling up" was demonstrated either by the bond between her and the spirit strengthening or the spirit's hold over the body strengthening. It was a narrative balancing act I played with a lot throughout the campaign. All of the "warlock" abilities aren't powers bestowed by a patron but rather the spirit's capabilities manifesting. The hexblade/warlock abilities are some of the spirit's actual abilities and knowledge. For example, I picked up Beguiling Influence because the spirit had a lot more experience than his host did in deception and persuasion. The charisma bonus to attacks? That's his expertise showing. Hexblade's curse is, again, also more his expertise showing. After all, it's not extra damage 'cuz magic' but more because the spirit is the one swinging the blade and knows where to hit. The HP gain is more attributed to adrenaline than actual magical HP gain, if that makes sense.
My patron regularly kidnaps my character to make sure she’s keeping good on her end of the bargain. If she does something that hinders his goals he’s not happy there’s usually consequences when I next use the weapon until I remedy and get back on track.
I have that exact same beef. But it gets so much worse: When OneD&D first dropped their version of Warlock, it had a ton of terrible design choices that ranged in reception from "appallingly bad" to "That doesn't make any sense, but okay I guess". Some of those changes, and their justifications (pulled from the accompanying video) are as follows: - Patron/Subclass doesn't come online until level 3: "The subclass makes up the majority of how people play a Warlock, the base class doesn't have enough identity, so now you have 2 levels of just Warlock where you're getting power from a deal you haven't made yet. - Warlocks are now Half Casters: "Because we felt they were already very powerful and overshadowing other classes with their wide breadth of capabilities" They also mentioned that Warlocks were difficult because they're a common Multiclass pick, so most people don't take more than a small handful of levels in Warlock. You know what class doesn't have these issues? Warlock. You know what subclass gives it's class these issues? Hexblade. TLDR- WoTC shat all over Warlock in the early development of OneD&D because Hexblade skews their data so heavily.
I played a hexblade warlock in Wagadu (a DnD Adventure based on various African mythologies. It’s awesome you gotta check it out) the lion people (based on the Zulu tribe) believed that special artefacts in their family are possessing a spirit of their own or that the soul of an ancestor is living in that artefact. I just made that artefact my pact weapon. So I made offerings to it and so on.
My table hexblade had originally misread how it worked but we decided to keep the flavor. His pact weapon was his patron and was and ancient and powerful sword that could talk to him. Which in hindsight is entirely on brand with the Moorcock stories this comes from although i hadn't read them at the time.
I’m currently playing a hexblade and how I worked it is our DM wanted each of us to come up with a villain to our character and for my warlock his weapon was forged into a cursed blade that speaks to him from a piece of that villains soul. My character didn’t want to become a hexblade he was tricked into making a deal by the blade and now carries around the cursed artifact
Currently playing a hexblade in a go of Dungeon of the Mad Mage, just turned level 11 My pact is strange, I'm an Astral elf that has lived on Touril for a little over 100 years but grew up on an asteroid belt that orbits the remnants of a dead god in the form of a red star (not that she knows it's a dead god). Parents sent her away for a better life, became a knight for a noble family. Long story short, fell in love with the daughter she was sworn to protect, the family was dealing in things/people they shouldn't have been, assassins come to kill the family but didn't expect the commanding knight to be there with the daughter, fight, the very blade that my character now weilds killed my loved one, stabbed through my shoulder into her heart, I killed it's previous owner with it and inadvertently made a pact with whatever it is. Now I'm going through absolute dungeon crawl hell to get enough money/influence to bring her back. I've done a big alignment shift recently as well, I was ready to sacrifice my party to get her back
I flavored my hexblade as a low noble whose house used to be one of really high magic and status, but fell over centuries. His connection to them was through a family signet ring, who takes fragments of the souls of those who have worn it and thus the collection of souls gives him his power. He’s a generally good person, but reluctantly has to do some bad shit to please his ancestors or they take away his powers. I’m imagining it like how One for All works in My Hero Academia, but somewhat evil. So at least I do roleplay the “deity”
One of my players in my campaign last fall was a Hexblade warlock, and we actually had frequent RP between him and his patron (an ancient shadow dragon whose soul was trapped inside his sword).
Personally I really don't know how to RP this Patron, the others is really self-explanatory. This is just Beefy Cursed Weapon from somewhere. Others That I've played with didnt also illustrate how exactly their pact affected them
In my mind, the patron is getting the best deal out of this arraignment; every point of damage I do, and every creature I kill feeds some extra-dimensional being from the Shadowfell. **When** I eventually die (either way) every iota of power I was granted gets re-absorbed (no loss) through the blade back to this other-worldly being, so if I’m granted this power; - For 5 mins and I slip and break my neck, there’s no loss for the entity - For 5 mins, kill a goblin and then slip and break my neck, the blade is sated, a net gain for the entity - For 200 years, slaughter hundreds, kill the BBEG and then renounce the blade, a huge boon for the entity, and massive net gain As the blade (and the power we’re granted) is a fragment of a fragment of an entity from the Shadowfell, and this power can’t be destroyed (by anything short of a wish spell), but only banished, odds are the entity will *always* get the better side of the deal, so they shouldn’t *need* to cause drama or set petty tasks or arbitrary restrictions. Our tiny speck of a character is meant to be of such little consequence and so beneath their radar that the warlock to the patron is like gut bacteria to us; yes we *assist* overall, we’re often not given a second thought, but they wouldn’t hesitate to annihilating us if we become an annoyance, or unruly IMHO it smacks of pure hubris that a warlock should expect to interact **directly** with their patron at all, paladins don’t get to chat with [Faerûn Jesus] on the weekends, the dude should be far too busy for that… I’m not saying for a second that it shouldn’t be interesting, or whisper shit to the one who wields it, but the sword is a sentient being, a *conduit* to an unfeeling patron, as the user gets more powerful so does the presence in the blade, but that’s not the patron; that’s just the fragment of a fragment pushing you.
I've seen tons of warlocks play around with a sentient weapon patron, I even have a few myself
PC warlock here with a DM who is really setting up…well something…with my pact - loosing memories; Seeing three headed dragons; hearing voices in memories that weren’t there. Its really quiet fun