RigaMortus2
First Post
KarinsDad said:
I'd edit it too:
48 points for Maximized (Guaranteed)
42 points for Empowered (on average, but not guaranteed)
Still, I do agree with your point. I don't think it is that big of a difference myself.
Eldritch Knight strategies
- Thread starter Kobold Stew
- Start date
I'd edit it too:
48 points for Maximized (Guaranteed)
42 points for Empowered (on average, but not guaranteed)
Still, I do agree with your point. I don't think it is that big of a difference myself.
Kobold Stew said:
A lot of folks here are getting all technical with the rules and concepts and such. Note my user name - Ok that was just a fluff statement to make myself sound better…did it work?
Anyways:
Arcane Casting and fighting are diametrically opposed disciplines. They are two sides of a coin and mix like oil and water.
D4 v. d10
Weapon use vs. almost none
Best BAB vs. worst BAB
Need for certain ability scores to be higher than others…Strength vs. Intelligence, etc.
Armor use for none: The fighter needs armor and weapon use to be a fighter. A caster cannot be encumbered to be fully effective.
An Olympic swimmer will never be able to lift weights like an Olympic weightlifter. An Olympic skier will never be able to run like the Olympic marathoner. If they try they will end up mediocre in both disciplines.
Whilst certain classes (like EK) mix the two - it is just like multi-classing – you will NEVER be as good as a full blown arcane caster and NEVER as good as a full blown fighter. There ain’t know real way around that without blowing a ton of feats on it (to get your caster level up) but in turn you then take those feats away from the Fighter part of the character.
A no win situation. The only thing that an EK can give you is a concept that you want – which may be exactly why you want the EK to begin with. Mechanically in the game it is like many such classes, hugely inferior (and that is without even putting in the munchkin factor). This is not to mention that every time I see one of these guys the caster side almost always takes the forefront; why; because the actual Fighters, Barbs, etc. are better at fighting and can last longer in the front line (because of better weapons, BAB, HP's and the use and armor) and one can never really have to many casters in combat; thus the EK sits back like any wizard or Sorcerer would and fires away – then why get the EK to begin with and loose the Caster Levels??
Sure you can build a guy like this to be the best in situation X; looks better than anyone else, better than any fighter or arcane caster. But then situation Y comes up…oops…
Now there are classes that lean heavily to one side (in this case the Fighter side) that at least seem to balance out the issue with abilities. Such as the Spell Sword who is a fighter with some arcane abilities. An EK tries to equalize the two…never happen to real effect.
So many times in this thread people talk about self-buffing – if you want to do that why the heck be an EK or even an Arcane caster? Clerics are far better at buffing than anyone else AND you get a better BAB with Clerics as well as the ability to wear armor (both of which compliment your Fighter side). Thus a fighter/cleric or a prestige class that mixes/balances the two is a better match in my opinion.
As others pointed out above; the only way to truly maximize an EK is by being a ranged combatant. (but that max is still inferior IMO).
Thus in summary, in my humble opinion, if you want to mix the fighter with anything magical let it be by Divine Magic or choose a PrC that is weighted towards the fighter end of things.
Just one Fighter’s Opinion :--).
RigaMortus2 said:
I have a player who consistently rolls high with D6s (and I mean consistently, like 4 rolls out of every 5 are above average). With normal Scorching Ray which he casts a lot, he probably averages around 17 per Ray and we all watch him do it (this is the same player who rolled over 70 Point Buy with 5D6 drop lowest 2). For him, Empower in this case would probably average well over 50 points.
Course, he rolls lousy on D20s (he had a 5% spell failure chance and missed 3 Enlarge spells out of 4 recently), so it's all good.
Fighter1 said:
I disagree. I have a Fighter / Sorcerer / Spellsword soon to be EK in my group and at 10th level, he could dish out 50+ points of damage with a single blow. That typically either takes out (or injuries sufficiently to have them retreat) most non-Fighter types with one shot at that level. He couldn't do it all day, but he could do it a few times per day when necessary.
Just the ability to cast Haste typically makes an EK a better Fighter than most same level Fighters.
The ability of EKs to spike their damage and their AC and their hit points allows them to be better Fighters than Fighters. IMO.
But, the original poster is looking for non-buff EK concepts.
Fighter1 said:
From a pure mechanics point of view, if I want an arcane caster who will enter into combat I start looking at the cleric. Sure, the guy is technically a divine caster but, as the servant of a god of magic, you can get a fair bit of the flavor. You can pick domains that complement this concept. The Fighter/Wizard/EK is going to do better on skills but you have 2 domain abilities vs. his 2 bonus feats. Also you can take a prestige class to gain access to more weapons without losing casting ability if you have the compelte series.
The design varies depending on how much material you have (core looks a lot like war + magic as domains) but, as options expand, so does the ability of this character to be competitive.
That is the real competitor to an Eldritch Knight . . .
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
KarinsDad said:
It starts to add up really quickly when you realize that the 9th level comparison looks something like this:
5th level slots vs 4th level slots: Maximized scorching ray vs. empowered scorching ray (+6 points) x3 (+18 points)
4th level slots vs 3rd level slots: Empowered Scorching Ray vs. no comparable 3rd level spells (maybe empowered magic missile for 25 points of damage) (+17 points of damage x3)
At 9th level, the more spell slots is more important than the better spell slots--but it's a big difference--especially as you work your way down to lower level spell slots.
Actually, something just occured to me, if you have access to Complete Warrior, I suggest taking arcane strike, it allows you to burn spell slots for bonuses to hit and damage (+1 to hit per spell level +1d4 damage per spell level) for one round. It's pretty snifty, especially if you have a few attacks and it gives you some nice options when you're up close with an enemy (Free Action, no AoO).
Elder-Basilisk said:
Only a Specialized Evocation 9th level Wizard with an Int of 20 or higher can have 3 5th level spells. Plus, your super Wizard took two damage boosting feats: Maximize and Empower.
So, you are skewing this quite a bit.
Most 9th level Wizards are not Evocation specialists, nor would they waste two feats on damage boosting that early. It only makes sense to take both of these when you can actually use both of them and the earliest for that is 12th level.
So, what you typically have is a Wizard with a max of 2 Maximized Scorching Rays versus an EK with typically a max of 2 Empowered Scorching Rays (and this is even more possible since the extra spell there only requires an 18 Int instead of 20).
Additionally, most Wizards would not stack their highest level spell with 2 or 3 same metamagic versions of the same spell. So, it tends to be (typically) maybe one Maximized Scorching Ray versus one Empowered Scorching Ray.
6 points of damage more in a single round. Not that big of a difference. Not when you consider that the EK can go in and kick butt with melee combat when he runs out of spells. Most 9th level Wizards run out of spells fairly quick if they have 2 or more combats in a given day.
A more reasonable comparison is that the 9th level Wizard has the same 4th level Empowered Scorching Ray spells plus 1 to 3 5th level spells plus another 4th level spell.
Btw, nobody is arguing that the straight Wizard doesn't have more spell power. But, you are cavalierly dismissing the EK as non-viable and that is just inaccurate.
Cabral said:
This can be really powerful when combined with certain two handed weapons, Fist of Stone, Power Attack, and the Spellsword's Channel Spell (e.g. using Scorching Ray, which can be put on a weapon up to 8 hours in advance).
Throw a few more spells like Enlarge Person and Haste in the mix and you have some devastating damage.
