D&D 5E Half Caster Arcane Warrior?

[Staffan]

I think it's a difference of perception. I see this as supporting my case: the EK should have the option to forego killing stuff to cast a spell that will be effective, form time to time. There's just no incentive to do so with the third-caster progression.

The effect of third-caster progression is basically to make you use utility spells or buffs, and maybe the occasional AOE against large numbers of low-level opponents. Something like darkness or gust of wind can still be useful at 7th level, but Agannazar's scorcher probably won't. That's also why abilities like Divine Smite are so strong: they let you add damage that automatically hits (or rather where the hit has been determined before the resource expenditure) and doesn't cost additional actions. Compare using a 1st level spell on Divine Smite (average damage 9, no action cost) and on casting magic missile (average damage 10.5, uses an action).

That's one of the reasons I like the swordmage idea so much: it integrates magic into the fighting, providing level-appropriate magical effects in an overall martial package.

 

[Staffan]

You're pretty close right there. If some version of elemental weapon was available to EKs at 3rd level we wouldn't have these threads.

I think the closest version to my vision of a swordmage is the Arcane Archer subclass. Except I'd want one that's (a) more melee-focused and (b) isn't built on the fighter chassis, because that puts a lot of power in the actual weapon use and doesn't leave much for magic (the options are basically just like using two Battlemaster superiority dice at once, which makes sense balance-wise but is kind of dull).

 

[Kobold Stew]

The effect of third-caster progression is basically to make you use utility spells or buffs, and maybe the occasional AOE against large numbers of low-level opponents. Something like darkness or gust of wind can still be useful at 7th level, but Agannazar's scorcher probably won't.

I think we are agreeing here: what 3rd level spell is useful for a thief/fighter by the time they reach 13th level? What's the payoff for sticking that far into the subclass?

 

[Blue]

So with 5E winding down we'd didn't get an arcane half caster warrior. Closest is probably steel defender.

Anyway I was thinking of three archetypes.

Dragon disciple
Duskblade
Sword Mage

Two from 3.5 1 from 4E.

All would get weapons as some sort of arcane focus. Dragon disciple gets to funnel spell slots into draconic type stuff, duskblades bit more Fighter/Mage, Sword Mage is both more tanky uses intelligence to hit.

Thoughts?

Thoughts? In the most common 1-10 campaign, the difference between our existing 1/3 Eldritch Knight and a 1/2 arcane warrior is not even a full spell level. At 12th is when it's 2 class level - one full spell level - different. What about this character can't be done in a smaller way - subclasses instead of classes, perhaps with some multiclassing with existing classes?

 

[Aldarc]

The 5e paladin's smite would fit pretty perfectly on an arcane gish class, with possibly even more options for how to expend spell slots to perform a variety of alternative effects like "smite."

 

[Horwath]

I’m all for ditching variable spell progression rates and having all classes learn spells at the same set of levels but have different spell level caps and number of slots. I’m just saying I don’t think that’s a good argument for it.

I came up with this little variant for it:

Left table is current half-caster, right is with faster progression.
Last column in both tables is spellpoint variant and comparison that sum of spell slot value is as close as possible.


In addition, 1/3rd caster variant:

This variant gets few more spell points at low levels(+4 at level 5&6), as it was very hard to give full caster progression to 1/3rd caster and keep the spell point budget mostly the same.

But, it's so few spell slots, it should not be a bog problem.
At level 10, it's only +1SP, so that is almost perfect.