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Aug 23, 2012 -- 8:11AM, svendj wrote:

Aug 22, 2012 -- 8:15PM, Frederick_the_Great wrote:

..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />Thank you for all of your help! I've been looking at Bards, Skalds, Warlocks, and Hexblades. I have a few more questions (short ones first this time):

1. Would it hurt me to do a ranged Skald/Bard: someone who attacks using a crossbow is what I was thinking. This would mean that I would have to go Cha/Dex... will I lose out on enabling my allies if I am at range?

You can also build a Fake Skald by being a regular Bard with the Skald Training feat so you get the aura. Then you have the choice between Staggering Note and two of the Skald at-wills if you're a human. All the awesomeness of a Skald and a regular Bard (Bardic Virtue!) for the low price of one feat.

You can start with 17/15 Cha/Dex, adding your racial bonus to your Dex so both stats progress equally.

My impression of Hexblades was that they didn't have multi-attacks, minor attacks or off-action attacks, so you can't really nova and only have charging (bo-ring!) as their means of doing lots of damage. Never paid much attention to the class, though, so I could be wrong.

The fake skald is a very interesting option, spend a few feats, get the best of both worlds, mostly. I like that a lot. Mostly leader-y, a lot of control, some striker. Just don't get hit and you're golden!

And with hexblades, you're right, which I'll be touching on a bit later. Makes me sad.

My wife plays a fey hexblade.  Combat is mostly teleporting and charging, and while her damage is consistently good, she's got no nova.  It's sort of a one trick pony in combat, using the same encounter power over and over (charge in and Skewer).  That said, it's a good trick.

 

You might also want to consider a rogue.  They get to build for DEX+CHA, have good striker damage, good skill coverage and more interesting options in combat.  There's single target control, an option to go ranged (or divide focus between range and melee for relatively little cost) and some good minor action awesomeness.  If you really have to have a sprinkle of magic in there, the right theme and some refluffing will turn the trick.  

Yeah, the charge damage is good, but you're right: they really can't do much else in combat. The encounter is OK but you get just one multiple times(not to mention I can now make my charging at-will outperform it at level one), the dailies are practically all control-oriented (even if some, like the Tentacles of Cryonax one, are pretty awesome).

I would be considering rogue if rogues didn't seem so... generic. unfortunately, generic seems to be what has good feat support

Me: *splurts drink all over laptop* you have an at-will that does how much damage at lvl 1? now, i've never looked at hexblades before, so i don't know the first thing about their stuff, but i know a lvl 6 striker who can't do that kind of damage with an at-will. of course, he far surpasses it when using encounters or dailies, but my point is that i've never seen that kind of damage from an at-will. sir, i solute you, and advice you visit the CharOp forum. not my cup of tea, but sounds like you'd be really good at that kind of thing.

yeah, my current party's longbow-ranger's average DPR at level 5 works out to the equivalent of 1d10+9. Best I could do with feats at level one was 2d10+9, but the problem is that this never really changes. I can't increase die sizes, and tacking on extra statics reaches a wall. By Level 5 I was hitting 2d10+15 which is good but I know I'm not cut out for charOp, their current Level One DPR King does something like 44 DPR. For Kaganfindel: it is a rogue. My conclusion is that Hexblades are probably wonderful in heroic but lose major steam in paragon. Multiclassing might fix that a tad. I wish there was a hybrid Hexblade.

So I’m going to take a quick break from the mechanics, and think about backstory a bit. I came up with a general one that I think is at least decent for a human Fey Pact Hexblade:

The character (no name as of yet) was the only son of a merchant whose ideas were always bigger than his capability to carry them out. The merchant was convinced to take his family and some of his business associates to the feywild, and set up a cross-planar emporium, dealing on one side with the fey and on the other with the mundane. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have the funds to hire a wizard with the proper knowledge to create a self-sustaining transplanar gate, and in the middle of the harsh winter, the portal collapsed with the merchant and his family on the feywild side.

     The merchant disappeared looking for food, and the death of the child looked certain until representatives of the local archfey arrived. Since the child was innocent, they would save him- but since he owed them his life, he would pay off his debt in service. The young child was thus spared his father’s folly, but grew up in a fey citadel, cut off from others of his own kind.

     When the young boy showed his nascent talents with arcane energy, it was decided that he would expunge the circumstances that had brought him to the feywild in reverse: instead of an interloper from the material plane representing commercial interest, he would go from the feywild out as the human envoy of his patron archfey. A binding, magical covenant was formed between the boy; too young to understand what was being decided for him; and his patron. A few favors were called in and the boy showed up on the doorstep of the White Lotus Academy. Since his source of arcane power (rather than mere potential) came directly from his patron, as the boy became a man he became more and more adept at negotiating for greater power and responsibility [fits in with the general theme of the hexblade, I think- CHA-based since all powers are derived from negotiation]

     Since his graduation, he is free to roam the world as he pleases. The power granted him by his patron keeps him safe and gives him useful skills. Free to do as he would, that is, save this: if ever an agent of his patron should call upon his aid, he is bound to do all that they ask: the power that made him, can unmake him; he who gave him life can always take it away once again.