Making the Most of Hex in D&D 2024 (5.5e)

Analysing the warlock’s signature curse.

How does hex work?

Here’s the full hex spell from the 2024 Player’s Handbook:

Level 1 enchantment (warlock)

Casting time: Bonus action

Range: 90ft.

Components: V, S, M (the petrified eye of a newt)

Duration: concentration, up to 1hr

You place a curse on a creature that you can see within range. Until the spell ends, you deal an extra 1d6 Necrotic damage to the target whenever you hit it with an attack roll. Also, choose one ability when you cast the spell. The target has Disadvantage on ability checks made with the chosen ability.

If the target drops to 0 Hit Points before this spell ends, you can take a Bonus Action on a later turn to curse a new creature.

Using a Higher-Level Spell Slot. Your Concentration can last longer with a spell slot of level 2 (up to 4 hours), 3–4 (up to 8 hours), or 5+ (24 hours).

Player’s Handbook 2024 p285

Basically, you pick a target using a bonus action and deal an extra d6 damage whenever you hit them with an attack roll.

Changes from the 2014 version

Very little has functionally changed between the 2 versions of the spells, but there are a couple of slight changes:

• The 2014 version allowed hex to be removed using the remove curse spell.
• The 2024 version gets an increased duration when cast as a level 2 spell (4hrs).

Advantages of hex

I’ve summarised all the advantages of hex below:

• Damage each time you hit across multiple turns means lots of potential to deal lots of extra damage from the spell.
• It only requires a bonus action to cast or transfer.
• A single use can last an entire combat and more.
• Necrotic damage is normally only resisted by undead.
• Cause disadvantage on some ability checks.
• Warlocks will cast this at the highest possible level meaning the duration could last 24hrs meaning less spell slots used in an adventuring day.

Disadvantages of hex

However, it’s not all good for hex:

• Casting hex prevents using concentration on other spells.
• Requires subsequent bonus actions to apply to new targets.
• Ties you to attacking a single target or reduce your damage output.
• Lacks the explosive nature of paladin smites. The damage can take a whole combat to take full effect.
• Because of the nature of pact magic and upcasting, many other spells get more potent when cast at higher levels, or you can cast higher level spells. Warlocks may not want to expend precious spell slots on a level 1 spell when more powerful options start to kick in.
• Concentration can be broken, which may mean recasting or weakening your attacks.
• Subclass features can compete for your bonus action.

How powerful is hex?

To demonstrate this, I’m going to show a few different builds (as your character build is important for making hex as powerful as possible). This is to show the potential effectiveness of hex, not how it will definitely look for your character. These builds are:

• An eldritch blast build (with the agonizing blast eldritch invocation)
• A pact of the blade build. With eldritch invocations, warlocks can get up to 3 attacks this way which will help increase hex’s effectiveness.
• Finally, I’ll use a dual wielding fighter.

Eldritch blast build

This build relies on taking the eldritch blast cantrip. This works best for hex as it has multiple attacks rolls meaning hex damage can be added on for each attack roll. It’s the only cantrip that does this. We’ll also grab agonizing blast which will add your charisma modifier to each attack roll too. I’ll show damage at each level that eldritch blast gets an extra bolt and we’ll focus ability score increases on maximising charisma first.

Subclass	Average damage per round
Level 1	7.8 (2.3)
Level 5	16.9 (4.6)
Level 11	27.3 (6.8)
Level 17	36.4 (9.1)

Pact of the blade build

This time were going to go for a melee build by taking pact of the blade. You’re proficient in whatever your pact weapon is and since we’re going for maximum damage, we’re going to take a great sword.

We’ll also grab the pact of the blade, thirsting blade, life drinker and devouring blade eldritch invocations at the earliest possible level. We can focus on charisma for both spellcasting and weapon attacks with this build too so will increase this as quickly as possible. This gives us the following damage per round:

Subclass	Average damage per round
Level 1	8.8 (2.3)
Level 5	18.9 (4.6)
Level 9	22.4 (4.6)
Level 12	32.5 (6.8)

Dual wielding fighter

For this build, we’re going to go for maximum attacks to make the greatest use of hex. To do this, we’re going to make a fighter (because of their 4 attacks) and to add in 2 more attacks, we’re going to dual wield. We’ll need to grab fey-touched at level 4 to get hex.

We’ll then use the nick weapon mastery for the first light weapon attack and then at level 6, we’ll take the dual wielder feat for a second light weapon attack. For this, we’ll wield a scimitar and a shortsword. Then we’ll pump ability score increases into strength or dexterity (whichever is our attacking ability score). We should also grab the two weapon fighting fighting style as well.

Subclass	Average damage per turn
Level 1	8.5 (0)
Level 5	19.5 (6.8)
Level 11	35.8 (11.4)
Level 20	46.8 (13.7)

With this build, it’s worth being aware that casting and transferring hex do require a bonus action, so some turns, there will be 1 attack that can’t be made. It’s also worth noting that I’ve not included action surge in the calculations above, but this will allow you to take the attack action again, increasing your attacks for a turn.

How does hex compare to other spells and features?

I’m going to use divine smite as a point of comparison. It’s also a 1st level spell and a signature spell for the paladin class which it uses to enhance the damage of an attack.

Unlike hex though, it’s higher instant damage that affects a single attack, causing an average of 9 damage per use (when cast as a level 1 spell). This means that when making a single attack with hex, you’ll need about 3 rounds of damage to out perform divine smite for damage (and keep in mind that damage across multiple turns isn’t as effective as instantaneous damage).

However, the more attacks you make with hex, the more the damage magnifies. Once you get 3 attacks per turn, you’ll be outperforming divine smite in one turn.

When it comes to resources, hex is definitely superior. It also generally performs better in overall damage. But when it comes to instant damage, divine smite performs better, particularly at earlier levels.

Alternatively, we could compare it to hunter’s mark, which is essentially the same spell as hex, but for a ranger. The main difference is that hunter’s mark uses force damage, which is resisted less than necrotic damage. However, hex will cause disadvantage on some of the target’s ability checks whereas hunters mark will make them easier to track. Neither of these are overly important for using this spell though.

How to get hex

There are primarily 2 ways to grab hex:

• Be a warlock: Hex is on the warlock’s spell list. You only need 1 level in warlock so this could just be a 1 level dip.
• Take the fey-touched feat: At level 4, you can grab this feat and choose hex as a level 1 spell as it’s an enchantment spells.

In the 2014 rules, taking the magic initiate feat would allow characters to grab hex as you could choose spells from the warlock’s spell list. This is no longer the case in the 2024 rules though.

The 2014 version of the aberrant mind sorcerer could also swap one of their subclass spells for a divination or enchantment spells, which could include hex. This is no longer the case though.

Is hex a good option?

Yes it is, but it depends on circumstances. You need to have plenty of attacks to get the most out of it. But the damage over time for a 1st level spell is quite good.

The biggest problems you have come down to concentration and the nature of pact magic. Concentrating on hex (a level 1 spell) prevents you from concentrating on anything else. This means your concentration is stuck on a 1st level spell instead of something more potent (at later levels) like hypnotic pattern or banishment.

Your other problem is that hex doesn’t become much better when cast as a higher level spell slot. Because pact magic means casting a few spells with your highest available spell slots, they essentially amount to level 3-5 spell slots once you get to level 5+ which feels like a waste on a level 1 spell. This is still the case despite hex getting better with levels.

Overall, hex is a good spell, but it needs to be considered in the context of your other options, and at some point, those are going to become better. At least if you’re a warlock.

If you’re a fighter with nothing else to concentrate on, then hex is about your best option, especially for having just the one or very few spells slots.

I’d also be cautious of using hex against:

• Low hit points enemies (you may have to keep transferring the spell).
• During short encounters (the damage won’t have enough time to make it worthwhile).
• When crowd control is more important than damage. You might be better of using hypnotic pattern or another AoE spells when this is the case.
• Against undead. They tend to be resistant to necrotic damage.

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What do you think of hex? Let me know in the comments below.

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