D&D 5E Eldritch Knight

OB1

Jedi Master

• Jul 25, 2017

• #11

I played a Half-Orc EK in Tyranny of Dragons and never felt under powered. Went Greatsword/Platemail/Shield Spell as my primary mode of attack. Added GWM at 6th.

Had a 14 Int that I never went higher with and instead focused on spells that didn't require high Save DC or attack bonus, and focused on Str and Con instead.
Got great utility out of first Jump and then Fly. Enlarge became my go to use of 2nd level slot for the extra damage and ability to control a bit better.

As for the Half-Orc, extra damage on the crit was nice and the ability to drop to 1HP instead of 0 saved my butt a few times.

 

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Dax Doomslayer

Adventurer

• Jul 25, 2017

• #12

BookBarbarian said:

Greatswords are awesome. The great Weapon Master Feat is also awesome, though i find the Great weapon Fighting Style to be a little Lackluster. I typically go Defense fighting style on my Great Weapon Fighters, but that's strictly personal preference.

Regarding breath weapon, it takes getting a few baddies together for it to be worth not taking the attack action in my opinion, and as you get more and more attacks as a fighter, it will be even more situational.

Still, you never know when you'll run into a Lycanthrope and that big ole Greatsword will be all kinds of useless (Happened to my friend's level 1 Dragonborn paladin). Suddenly Breath Weapon is not such a bad idea.

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Thanks for the replies folks!! I was debating with Defense vs. Great Weapon and I was thinking that the Defense option may be a bit redundant once I get the spell shield, blur, mirror image etc. With rolling 2d6 and re-rolling ones, I think that would add a bit to damage (add in there one of SCAG's cantrips BB or GFB) would make it a bit more damage from the outset. The breath weapon does provide a different type of damage and that's a good call on the Lycanthropes etc. I was thinking of using it more as a horde softener and "attention getter" if we run into lotsa little foes maybe Thunderwave to gather the critters together and then breath with Action Surge...I would have probably made this guy a paladin but I already have one and wanted to try something different this time around...I like the idea of Jump / Fly. Definitely was something I was thinking or Expeditious Retreat / Misty Step or Longstrider for battle field mobility.

 

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neogod22

Explorer

• Jul 25, 2017

• #13

Play whatever you think is fun. Trying to optimize characters ruins the game. If you have a concept for a dragonborn eldritch knight, play him. You will have more fun playing the character you want to play than playing a character because he can do 1point more in dps.

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

 

Dax Doomslayer

Adventurer

• Jul 25, 2017

• #14

neogod22 said:

Play whatever you think is fun. Trying to optimize characters ruins the game. If you have a concept for a dragonborn eldritch knight, play him. You will have more fun playing the character you want to play than playing a character because he can do 1point more in dps.

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

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I totally agree neo. I kind of like the concept of a Dragonborn Eldritch Knight. It seems pretty thematic. I just didn't want a PC that was totally ineffective. This looks like it shouldn't be though.

 

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hastur_nz

First Post

• Jul 25, 2017

• #15

As noted, it will be mostly Fighter, but some fun side-spells as you level up. I played one to about 7th level, which is a fair while, and there were not a large number of spells going down except Shield (which is a game-changer, for a Fighter), but I was dual-wielding short swords not greatsword. So you're a Fighter that's hard to hit hence hard to drop, and you have a bit of utility as you level up. As per another poster, I also avoided any spells that gave saves, so my Int was not required for DC's. If you want more spells, you can always multi-class to wizard around 5-7, as long as you have the required Int (which isn't hard). I'm also playing with a dragonborn, and from memory he's used his breath weapon about twice in 8 levels, but for him it's a flavour choice.
Anyway, Fighters are cool and definitely not under-powered no matter what type you run, and EK is my favourite type.

 

Ancalagon

Dusty Dragon

• Jul 25, 2017

• #16

Dax Doomslayer said:

Thanks for the replies folks!! I was debating with Defense vs. Great Weapon and I was thinking that the Defense option may be a bit redundant once I get the spell shield, blur, mirror image etc.

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Well... the thing with AC is that the better you are at it, the more you get out of each extra point of AC.

For example

You're a fighter with Ok-ish armor (AC15), and you have 30 HP. You are being attacked by goblins or some other weak-ish enemies (+4 to hit, 1d6+2 damage). Each attack has 50% chance of hitting you. Increasing your AC by 1 reduces that to 45%. If you do the math, your character used to be able to withstand approx 11 goblin attacks before going down, now can withstand 12 goblin attacks. So it's nice increasing your AC by 1, but it's not huge. (I'm not including crits in this math btw)

Let's now say your Fighter has *good* AC (20). You can withstand 22 (!) goblins attack. That's a sweet place to be... but increasing your AC to 21 would increase your goblin attacks survivability to *27*.

So the more AC you have, the more AC you want!

AC is weird. When your AC is very low, it's usually pretty easy to raise it a bit so it's worth it (put on some light armor, cast mage armor etc). At medium AC levels though, it often involves trade-offs that aren't worth it. But if you specialize in AC, then you want to go all in.

 

Dax Doomslayer

Adventurer

• Jul 25, 2017

• #17

Thanks for the replies hastur and ancalagon! I think I'll probably stay a fighter rather than switch over to mage. I'm really not into multi-classing for the most part. I'll focus on self-buffs for AC and movement perhaps and go from there. My Intelligence is 14 and that's as high as it gets - lol.
I hear you Ancalagon on the AC front. The one counter to that is that if you are impossible to hit, you'll be ignored and thus intelligent creatures will move on to easier, squishier teammates - lol. With a good constitution and a pretty high AC either way and with second wind, that helps offset maybe getting hit a bit more. Plus with a little more offense, you'd be dropping creatures quicker which does also help mitigate some damage. With Plate + shield spell + blur/mirror image + stone skin, there's a lot of defense there in different forms that I'm comfortable I think going a little more offensive. Also, the "cool factor" of wreaking havoc with a GreatSword and re-rolling 1s and 2s on 2d6 has kind of caught my eye I'd say!

 

Bolares

Hero

• Jul 25, 2017

• #18

I've played two EKs, one a Strenght Based Human and the other a Multiclass with Bladesinger Dex Based. Both were the hardest to hit in the party, EK is one of the best defensive characters. One thing you should think is, how high do you want your INT to be? Depending on this answer you shoul prioritize your spells. If you want low INT choose spells that don't depend on rolls or saves, but if you get a good INT, you could use something like hold person, and that will skyrocket your damage output. Oh, get haste as soon as possible, that spell is tailormade for an EK.

About the Dragonborn, it's ok... The breath weapon is cool, but weak, and gets weaker every level, you should focus your ancestry choice in the resistance, not in the tipe of breath weapon.

 

Bolares

Hero

• Jul 25, 2017

• #19

About being avoided if impossible to hit... just stick to the enemy, the sentinel feat or warcaster feat + booming blade should help you a lot with that.

 

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Ninja-radish

First Post

• Jul 25, 2017

• #20

EK is serviceable but is very much a one trick pony: Shield spell/Absorb Elements is basically all the class has going for it. On the plus side, you will be very hard to hit. On the negative side, done people think spamming the same spell over and over again is dull. That's up to you to decide.

Dragonborn are mechanically the worst race in the game, and tge competition isn't even close. The breath weapon is largely useless, they don't get Darkvision, and energy resistance is the only decent thing they get. They also don't get a Con bonus, which sucks. They do look cool though, so there is that.