difference beetween hexblade and pact of the blade ?

[Tony]

Hello,
i havent launch BG3 since a long time, i know patch 8 is coming and bring new sub classes

i don t get the difference beetween hexblade and pact of the blade

both bind weapons and are melee focus.
hexblade seems to have a second attack like the pact of the blade

hexblade has access to a new cantrip : booming blade and summon specter when they kill someone

but both "classes" seems very close no ? is there a major difference ?


thanks

[Millstone85]

At least one difference is that the Hexblade is a patron, like the Fiend, the Great Old One and the Archfey. Thus you could have a Hexblade warlock who also has pact of the blade, or pact of the tome, or pact of the chain.

But I am indeed curious of what reason a Hexblade warlock will have to take pact of the blade. Will the pact still bring anything the patron doesn't already offer?

[Metrod125]

Depends on whether or not the extra attack features stack with each other from the same class. If they don't then you have other options when building a warlock/multiclass.

[Mike Garrison]

The backstory here is that when 5e was first published in 2014, "Pact of the Blade" was one of the choices. It allowed a warlock to have a "pact weapon". The warlock used the weapon normally (ie. with STR or DEX).

Hexblade was an experimental version of warlock that came up with the idea of the warlock being able to use the hexblade weapon with CHA, rather than STR or DEX.

The 2024 version of 5e (which BG3 adopted in this case) got rid of Hexblade but gave the "weapon uses CHA" idea to Pact of the Blade. So BG3 PotB already has what is arguably the signature feature of Hexblade.

But Hexblades remain popular among D&D players, and there were several Hexblade mods for BG3, so Larian decided they would make their own version of Hexblade for Patch 8.

[Hobocop]

Main reason Hexblade is so popular is because it gives you an insane amount of stuff for a single level. Blade Pact requires at least 3 levels for a fraction of the benefit.

[Millstone85]

I just tested if a PotB-bound weapon can be moved to your off hand. The answer is yes.

So if it turns out that patch 8 allows you to have a Hexblade-bound weapon and a PotB-bound weapon, that might open the way to Charisma dual wielding.

[Thomas D.]

Hexblade allows you to go full charisma at level 1, while Pact of Blade does it only at level 3.

Also if you want another Patron (Buff) you can go with Pact of Blade and if you want another Pact but don't care about Patron you choose Hexblade.

Also Hex blade allows you to summon undead a later 😁.

Hexblade allows allows you to heal yourself while Pact of Blade depending on Patron for example allows you to gain Temporary Health or Fear enemies.

The Hex blade gives you medium armour.

Also the spells you can choose differ depending on Patron.

As Hex blade you for example can have a familiar and raise undead after killing others (which allows for a bit of a minion master on top).

The main difference: it allows for different builds. But if the Extra Attacks don't stack (what they probably don't do in Honour, but may in non Honour) choosing both at the same time makes barely any sense.

[Mander]

As far as I understand, mechanically, the difference is that Hexblade in BG3 will have more reaction on successful attacks (accursed spectre, among many).
While “Pact of the Blade” allows a Warlock to “just” bind a weapon and use it with proficiency, while retaining the core aspect of a spellcaster (based on charisma).
Plus a difference between deck of spells to choose.

In short: Hexblade is strongly oriented toward martial use (medium armor proficency). While Pact of the Blade is more of an hybridization between a spellcaster and a vanguard (shock and awe).
I doubt the extra attack from “Pact of the Blade” will stack with the one from “Hexblade”, though: it would be a little too strong I imagine (3/4 attacks per turn on any kind of weapons without dipping in the fighter class…).
Therefore, I think we will have to choose IF we want an Hexblade with summons or more spells OR a Martial Pact of the Blade with a different deck of spell.
Variety is the spice of life, and personal preferences will play an important role in everyone’s choice here.

[FunkyMonkey]

Originally posted by Thomas D.:

Hexblade allows you to go full charisma at level 1, while Pact of Blade does it only at level 3.

Also if you want another Patron (Buff) you can go with Pact of Blade and if you want another Pact but don't care about Patron you choose Hexblade.

Also Hex blade allows you to summon undead a later 😁.

Hexblade allows allows you to heal yourself while Pact of Blade depending on Patron for example allows you to gain Temporary Health or Fear enemies.

The Hex blade gives you medium armour.

Also the spells you can choose differ depending on Patron.

As Hex blade you for example can have a familiar and raise undead after killing others (which allows for a bit of a minion master on top).

The main difference: it allows for different builds. But if the Extra Attacks don't stack (what they probably don't do in Honour, but may in non Honour) choosing both at the same time makes barely any sense.

There are invocations that only Pact of the blade gets, like Lifedrinker that adds your CHA modifier as necrotic damage on every attack. That is a great buff and a good reason to pick Pact of the Blade even as a Hexblade.

[cayseron]

hexblade is a subclass that comes with different benefits based on level like any other subclass, pact of the blade is just one feature.
pact of the blade gives you ability to summon a weapon or bind existing one and as long this effect is in action you are proficient to that specific weapon.
for example if you bind or summon a mace you will be warlock proficient at using that mace but you wont be proficient at using another mace. you would need to go through process of binding to new mace. this makes no difference when it comes to maces but if you are trying to dual wield scimitars without being proficient to them this would only give you proficiency to main hand one while it wont give you proficiency to off hand one.
hexblade on other hand does not bind a weapon to you and instead give you as character a proficiency to not just every martial weapon but also shields and medium armor. so that is first major differnce.
hexblade also comes with hexblade curse feature (which is different from warlock spell "hex")
so TLDR: hexblade is pact of the blade turned into subclass and improved.

[Millstone85]

Originally posted by cayseron:

hexblade on other hand does not bind a weapon to you and instead give you as character a proficiency to not just every martial weapon but also shields and medium armor. so that is first major differnce.

Are you sure?

In the tabletop, Hexblade does it all. You gain proficiency in martial weapons, medium armor and shields, then can enchant a weapon in order to use Charisma for attack and damage with it. Furthermore, "If you later gain the Pact of the Blade feature, this benefit extends to every pact weapon you conjure with that feature" knowing that in the tabletop PotB does not already let you use Charisma. I think this allows for Charisma dual wielding.

On the BG3 wiki, the Hexblade[bg3.wiki] is said to give you both the proficiencies and the Bind Hexed Weapon[bg3.wiki] action. It is unclear to me if "You can only have 1 pact weapon at any time" is a copy-paste error or if it means you can not bind a second weapon through PotB.

[cayseron]

Originally posted by Millstone85:

Originally posted by cayseron:

hexblade on other hand does not bind a weapon to you and instead give you as character a proficiency to not just every martial weapon but also shields and medium armor. so that is first major differnce.

Are you sure?

In the tabletop, Hexblade does it all. You gain proficiency in martial weapons, medium armor and shields, then can enchant a weapon in order to use Charisma for attack and damage with it. Furthermore, "If you later gain the Pact of the Blade feature, this benefit extends to every pact weapon you conjure with that feature" knowing that in the tabletop PotB does not already let you use Charisma. I think this allows for Charisma dual wielding.

On the BG3 wiki, the Hexblade[bg3.wiki] is said to give you both the proficiencies and the Bind Hexed Weapon[bg3.wiki] action. It is unclear to me if "You can only have 1 pact weapon at any time" is a copy-paste error or if it means you can not bind a second weapon through PotB.

i forgot that hexblade warrior also have the features of "pact of the blade" as written on top of the passive proficiency bonuses. and i dont know if they are going to make any changes for bg3 version of hexblade but i believe if you have both pact of the blade and hexblade both effects will apply on same weapon, i dont think you can have one hex and another pact of the blade. but ill have to wait and see as i am not part of testing the patch

[Lily]

I'm curious about this as well. I know there's some mechanical stuff but as far as BG3 goes I'm wondering if Hex weapon or pact weapon will be expanded to include ranged weapons. It's pretty important information. Or alternatively if I can have a pact weapon and a hex weapon so I can duel wield as a Warlock in BG3. All things I need to know.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by Lily:

I'm wondering if Hex weapon or pact weapon will be expanded to include ranged weapons.

Warlock already has probably the best "ranged weapon" in the game, with eldritch blast. PotB and Hexblade are designed to add a melee role.

[iamcorn]

In this it renders pact of the blade superfluous. Tabletop it gives pact of the blade a few more options and works WITH it because the subclass on it's own doesn't get extra attacks.

The subclass getting extra attacks here just feels like pandering, but let's be real people who wanted this subclass are paladin mains that don't want to spend three of their precious levels on warlock to get Cha scaling and are never going to SEE level 5 warlock.

[Raz]

Originally posted by FunkyMonkey:

There are invocations that only Pact of the blade gets, like Lifedrinker that adds your CHA modifier as necrotic damage on every attack. That is a great buff and a good reason to pick Pact of the Blade even as a Hexblade.

No Invocation is specific to the Pacts. All of them are accessible by any Pact. All mods were removed, only Command Console used to gain experience.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3436425682

Originally posted by Millstone85:

I just tested if a PotB-bound weapon can be moved to your off hand. The answer is yes.

So if it turns out that patch 8 allows you to have a Hexblade-bound weapon and a PotB-bound weapon, that might open the way to Charisma dual wielding.

Everyone I have seen post a video on Hexblade has shown that Hexblade does not get Pact of the Blade, they only get Hexpact when they level up even when grabbing Pact of the Blade itself. Now whether this is completely broken and bugged (because right not Extra Attack isn't working as of the recent Patch 8 update for Hexblade but it did before the update) remains to be seen.

Here the guy levels up full Hexblade from 1 to 12 with no mods but a respect mod. It could be the mod messing with things, but other people testing the class all show no Pact of the Blade on their Hexblade neither.

https://youtu.be/QJu_LIvr4cw?t=379

This one shows Bind Pact of the Blade is not something Hexblade can get.

https://youtu.be/YU1k9EP2d_E?t=909

I doubt Summon Pact Weapon works on Hexblade for doing a Dual Wield build because if Hexpact completely replaces Pactblade in function, then it would lead to the assumptiong Summon Pact Weapon will treat Hexpact the same way it treats Pactblade; that is to say you can only have one active at a time.

Wayfaring brings up the bug with Deepened Pact is supposed to give Hexblade triple attack like other Patrons at Lv10 if they got 5 levels in a Martial. This leads me to believe the issue is with how they are trying to block Deepened Pact from working on Hexblade's own extra attack at Lv5 and it's causing it to block ALL other Extra Attack sources no matter what. Their recent update to try and fix this just borked it more by block Extra Attack period on Hexblade.