I'm still shocked that the Warlock's Hexblade patron from Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition (D&D 5e) isn't in Baldur's Gate 3. For those unfamiliar, the Hexblade is a Warlock subclass from the rulebook Xanathar's Guide to Everything, focused on mixing martial might with pact magic. It's a perfect spellblade—sometimes called a 'gish' in the tabletop community.
Wyll—the Blade of Frontiers—is clearly meant to be a Hexblade, mixing swordplay with magic in equal measure, but the game's existing Pact of the Blade isn't enough to bridge that gap. Trying to make a melee warlock in Baldur's Gate 3 is just a constant fight against the fact that Eldritch Blast is better in every way, dealing the same amount of damage at range. The Hexblade is also really popular for multiclassing for just about any spellblade, due to a few key features:
- It lets you use Charisma for sword-swinging—though in Baldur's Gate 3, this is also included in its version of the Pact of the Blade. This is huge since it lets you roll up your social skills and your combat power into one stat.
- A specialised hex that increases your crit chance, damage, and gives you a bit of temp HP on a kill.
- Armour proficiencies sorely lacking in the base class, letting you use Medium Armour and a Shield to defend against enemy attacks.
- Some key spells like Shield and Wrathful Smite.
- The ability to rip the ghost out of a recently-slain enemy and bind it to your service. This isn't a part of the spellblade fantasy, I just think it's really cool.
Fortunately, modder Feriat111 of Nexus Mods has righted this wrong with the mod "Hexblade Subclass and New Invocations". The adds a seemingly faithful recreation of the subclass alongside several key Invocations (Warlock exclusive abilities) such as Grasp of Hadar, which lets your Eldritch Blast pull targets towards you, as well as Eldritch Smite, a version of the Paladin's Divine Smite that deals force damage.
- Baldur's Gate 3's accidental PS5 release of Patch 8 has the theorycrafters in a flurry—though I'm just glad D&D's blade cantrips are officially here
- Baldur's Gate 3 Patch 8 testers are whispering that a previously mediocre subclass is now an S-tier war god of infinite thunder smites, but there's no way it can last
The mod uses a separate mod from user DiZ91891, which is also a complete game changer for spellblades of all stripes—a pack called 5e Spells. This adds a bunch of spells from the tabletop version, but most importantly two key ones for the spellblade arsenal: the cantrips Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade.
Both cantrips let you make weapon attacks with a bit of extra magic juice. Booming Blade adds force damage to your blow, further punishing your enemy if they decide to move, while Green-Flame Blade lets you scathe an additional enemy with a dash of fire damage.
Since these spells aren't exclusive to Warlock, this is huge news for spellblades of any persuasion—Arcane Tricksters, Paladins, Eldritch Knights, and especially the "Sorcadin", a Paladin-Sorcerer blend who can now get an extra weapon attack by using a specific Sorcerer metamagic, Quickened Spell, to cast these cantrips as a bonus action.
They also add some extra oomph at lower levels before the Warlock gets its extra attack via the Thirsting Blade Invocation—or, for multiclassing spellblades, they can help lessen the sting of delayed extra attack features, in some cases replacing them entirely.
If you've played D&D 5e, and you're anything like me, you've been yearning for the extra arcane boost these cantrips give you. Well yearn no more: Wyll can finally be the Blade of Frontiers he was meant to be. Or you can just make your custom munchkin sorcadinlock and sweat your min maxing heart out, I'm not here to judge.
