D&D 5E (2024) Breaking The Eldritch Knight (Eberron)

[Ancoulainn]

Not even with mistletoe wrapped round it?

NB this is a leg pull.

Maybe if you wrap your toe around it and fight with it capoeira-style. Of course, preceded by a demonstration in front of the group while wearing a tutu. ;-)

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't see how it can be ambiguous or hardass when it's spelled out in the PHB. The PHB tells you that you can only use an spellcasting focus when you have a feature that allows its use. And the feature Eldritch Knights have says that it works for Wizard spells. Shillelagh is not a Wizard spell. It couldn't be clearer.

But yes, they are not always entirely clear or good with English. For example, the Great Weapon Fighting Style says "When you roll damage for an attack you make with a Melee weapon that you are holding with two hands, you can treat any 1 or 2 on a damage die as a 3." and Divine Smite says "The target takes an extra 2d8 Radiant damage from the attack.", but SAC says "For example, if you have this feat and make an attack roll with a Greatsword, you can treat any 1 or 2 you roll on the weapon’s 2d6 as a 3. If you cast Divine Smite after hitting with this attack, you can’t treat a 1 or 2 rolled for the spell’s damage as a 3." If that's what they wanted to say, it would have been easy to say "When you roll the weapon's damage for an attack...".

But regardless, I think that the situation with the spellcasting focus is more than just bad use of English and I think enforcing the basic rules of spell components is like limiting Berserker Barbarians' Frenzy to once per turn or Great Weapon Master to the attacks made during the Attack Action.

But whether it is rarely enforced or not is not really an argument by itself. Even if it were, is it rarely enforced because DMs don't care about spell components or is it rarely enforced because DMs get tired of players not knowing how to play their build and rather let it go than police or argue with them every 2 seconds because the sessions devolved to the equivalent of pee wee soccer? How many players know that casting Polymorph on a raging Barbarian ends their rage because they lose access to their class features? How many players constantly forget that attacks on prone targets from more than 5 feet away have disadvantage, even if it's a melee attack made with a reach weapon or by a Bugbear or Elemental Monk? And then you want to ask your Eldritch Knight on top of that to consider how spellcasting foci work?

Either way, you don't have to if you don't want to. But that would beg the question why people are discussing builds at all if they just decide to ignore rules they don't like and then try to sneak them past the DM. Just say that Hunter's Mark does 10d6 Radiant Sneak Attack damage on every attack and be done with it.

It RAI vs RAI. A lot of wotc classes dont really work if you enforce RAW and wotc gave a work arounf fr a two handed weapon.
As I said EK casting shield RAW doesn't really work unless they have s spare hand.

Or you buy a 50gp magic item ad ignore it.

 

[Ancoulainn]

It RAI vs RAI. A lot of wotc classes dont really work if you enforce RAW and wotc gave a work arounf fr a two handed weapon.
As I said EK casting shield RAW doesn't really work unless they have s spare hand.

Or you buy a 50gp magic item ad ignore it.

And what exactly is the problem with it not working that way? So, you don't get to use a Shield and the Shield spell without War Caster. It works fine if you use Great Weapon Fighting or Archery. Seems intended to me. There are plenty of things you can't do without having a specific feat. Rogues can't sneak attack with a hand crossbow from melee range without Crossbow Expert, but they can with a Rapier, for example. I could see that it's oversight to not allow Eldritch Knights to use their Bonded Weapon as a spellcasting focus, which I would allow if a player asked me about it, but it would neither help with the Shillelagh nor the Shield + Shield spell without War Caster situation which would also affect Flagship Wizards. So, you have to wait until level 4 and grab War Caster to cast Shield while using a Shield. Big whoop! Until level 4, you only have two spell slots to cast it anyway, so 3 uses max if you grabbed the Shield spell via Magic Initiate (Wizard). Not exactly an impact worth crying about. Plus, as you pointed out, the Ruby of the War Mage is cheap. 100 gp if you buy it or 50 gp and 40 hours if you make it with Arcana Proficiency and Proficiency in Jeweler's Tools.

It's not automatically unintended just because you don't like it. Besides, we were talking about Shillelagh as an Eldritch Knight which doesn't even work with War Caster which was clearly intended. But in the end, you can overrule at your table whatever you want, homebrew whatever you want, and enforce whatever you want, but RAW, it is what it is.

 

[Zardnaar]

And what exactly is the problem with it not working that way? So, you don't get to use a Shield and the Shield spell without War Caster. It works fine if you use Great Weapon Fighting or Archery. Seems intended to me. There are plenty of things you can't do without having a specific feat. Rogues can't sneak attack with a hand crossbow from melee range without Crossbow Expert, but they can with a Rapier, for example. I could see that it's oversight to not allow Eldritch Knights to use their Bonded Weapon as a spellcasting focus, which I would allow if a player asked me about it, but it would neither help with the Shillelagh nor the Shield + Shield spell without War Caster situation which would also affect Flagship Wizards. So, you have to wait until level 4 and grab War Caster to cast Shield while using a Shield. Big whoop! Until level 4, you only have two spell slots to cast it anyway, so 3 uses max if you grabbed the Shield spell via Magic Initiate (Wizard). Not exactly an impact worth crying about. Plus, as you pointed out, the Ruby of the War Mage is cheap. 100 gp if you buy it or 50 gp and 40 hours if you make it with Arcana Proficiency and Proficiency in Jeweler's Tools.

It's not automatically unintended just because you don't like it. Besides, we were talking about Shillelagh as an Eldritch Knight which doesn't even work with War Caster which was clearly intended. But in the end, you can overrule at your table whatever you want, homebrew whatever you want, and enforce whatever you want, but RAW, it is what it is.

Or we buy a 50gp item. WotC doesnt value it that high it seems.

Most DMs dont know the rules that well and I dont think many are hard ass about an EK casting shield.
Otherwise just vplay paladin skip the hassle

 

[Ancoulainn]

Or we buy a 50gp item. WotC doesnt value it that high it seems.

Most DMs dont know the rules that well and I dont think many are hard ass about an EK casting shield.
Otherwise just vplay paladin skip the hassle

Or 100 go as the DMG says. It's still a common magical item and cheap. The bigger investment is the attunement slot.

I still don't know what would be "hardass" about playing by the basic rules and putting in slightly more effort in knowing the rules than for peewee soccer. Why then ramble over builds at all if you want to turn it into free-form expressive dance in the end?! But if that's your jam, why not?! To my mind, if something is to complicated or requires too much effort to play, play something else that matches your level of commitment. For that reason, I don't play Rifts.

 

[Zardnaar]

Or 100 go as the DMG says. It's still a common magical item and cheap. The bigger investment is the attunement slot.

I still don't know what would be "hardass" about playing by the basic rules and putting in slightly more effort in knowing the rules than for peewee soccer. Why then ramble over builds at all if you want to turn it into free-form expressive dance in the end?! But if that's your jam, why not?! To my mind, if something is to complicated or requires too much effort to play, play something else that matches your level of commitment. For that reason, I don't play Rifts.

Its a widely ignored rule. There's ways around it anyway so its not exactly hard.

If you have a DM that enforces it fair enough just play something else or dont use shillelagh and use green flame blade or booming blade.

 

[Ancoulainn]

Its a widely ignored rule. There's ways around it anyway so its not exactly hard.

If you have a DM that enforces it fair enough just play something else or dont use shillelagh and use green flame blade or booming blade.

I wouldn't worry over +2 to AC. And as long as players discuss with their DM what they want to do and they're on the same page, they're golden. Problems only arise when players don't and then start arguing mid-session because they didn't think about it earlier when the underlying expectation is playing 5.24.