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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Prism" data-source="post: 7037576" data-attributes="member: 9501">I assumed a two handed sword or maul doing 7 points on average, with great weapon fighting taking this up to 8.3. Add the +5 Str and its up to 13.3 on a hit. With a 65% to hit and 5% to crit its just over 9 damage.I didn't include the usual GWM feat as there are lots of varying factors. I think its safe to say that most people who take this feat probably hope for the extra bonus attack too from time to time and therefore use war magic very rarely. Due to this I reckon that sword and shield with dueling style is a more typical war magic user as they aren't doing much with the bonus action. Since an eldritch knight gets so few spells per day (only 9 by 15th level) I do think this is an ok alternative to consistent use of the shield spell and is still doing close to the same consistent damage, except without the ability to burst GWM damage. Our group is quite small and our DM is pretty good at punishing over use of the shield spell by a melee character, by ignoring them (and their lack of an opportunity attack) and swiftly moving onto the back row. My own eldritch knight rarely actually uses shield in practice. Ooh, low blow. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Yeah nothing competes with that combo. If we include that build, every comparison looks bad. I'm not sure how much that tells us about the relative benefits of war magic, two handed weapons or sword and board, 3 attacks etc... except that you shouldn't do any of it but use a crossbow instead. A 'normal' fighter is probably aiming for about 30ish points of damage per round at 11th level so anything that comes in round about that is worth considering.I agree that non of the PHB cantrips really cut it here. Only the SCAG cantrips work well for an eldritch knight as they add weapon, stat damage and an additional effect, but I guess that's exactly why they exist. And even then, as I said earlier they are still conditional compared to the standard 3 attacks. It makes combat quite interesting though when you have several choices to pick from which can help alleviate a complaint sometimes leveled at weapon users in combat.</blockquote>

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