D&D 5E Eldritch Knight, the reimagining - cantrip warrior!

[Mephista]

So, like, the eldritch knight is totally a thing. But, here's the dealie-o. Pretty much all the spells I want to use on the Eldritch Knight come down to basically, hm... the occasional cantrip and Shield spell. The game's pretty much over by the time we get to third level spells, so the 1st and 2nd level evocations were kind of weak in the first place to hit multiple enemies. Much rather leave that to a specialist.

So, after thinking, and looking at the options, I thought to myself. Hey. Why bother with 1+ spells in the first place? Lets go with something different. All cantrips, and do it in such a way that Blade Ward and True Strike and other cantrips are all viable?


ELDRITCH KNIGHT
SPELLCASTING
When you reach 3rd level, you augment your martial prowess with the ability to cast spells. You learn two cantrips of your choice from
the wizard spell list. You learn an additional wizard cantrip of your choice at 7th, 10th and 15th level.

WEAPON BOND
You may bond up to four weapons of your choice, you can summon them into your hand. Weapons with a two handed qualifier must appear in both hands. If you're already holding a bonded weapon in your hand when you summon a new one into that hand, the weapons swap place. Shields count as a weapon for the purpose of this ability. This counts as your one free "interact with an object" activity per turn. If you wish to summon the bonded weapons more than once a round, you may make an Use An Object action to do so.

The idea here is that you can, as a bonus action, swap your weapon set up to another. Go from sword and board to a pair of javelins at will. Throw the javelins, summon them back, or swap to your sword and shield next round. And so on.

WAR MAGIC
At level 7, you learn to combine magic and weapon into one. As a bonus action, you can store a spell in your bonded weapon. If this is a spell that targets yourself, gain the benefits of the spell and immediately apply it when you next take the Attack action. If the spell targets another, a successful hit activates the spell on the target you just hit; the cantrip is cast as if a level 1 caster. Do not roll an additional attack roll or saving throw. Only one spell can be stored this way at a time per bonded weapon. The spell stays stored for only one round and only wizard cantrips can be used this way.

You may summon your bonded weapons as part of the storing action, placing the spell into the newly summoned weapons.

ELDRITCH SHIELD
Starting at level 10, whenever you use your Second Wind or Indomitable ability, gain the benefits of the Shield spell for the round. You may use Indomitable in this way to activate the Shield spell even when not making a saving throw.

ARCANE CHARGE
As per book.

IMPROVED WAR MAGIC
At 18th level you can now store up to two magics in each weapon when you use your bonus action



I hope the intent I'm trying to run with is clear. The cantrips are restricted in level to prevent scaling damage, so the damage increase should be minor, and actually far less than a bonus action from a feat and two weapon fighting, but with the damage from the rider of cantrips boosting it. I'm debating on shifting all the abilities down a level, so you learn War Magic right away, since its so critical to the concept, and doing something to improve Eldritch Shield / Arcane Charge at level 18. If War Magic is balanced, its not like it will upset the class by doing so.

EDIT - I forgot to add the level qualifier to war magic.

 

[Gadget]

This is an interesting take on the Eldritch Knight. I really agree with you on one thing though: Evocation spells are not really that great for the EK. In addition to being kind of weak sauce when you get them, they are competing with the EK's main hit point attrition tool: stab it really hard with the pointy thing. I mean, as a fighter, the EK does not have a problem with whittling down hp of a foe, all the Evocation spells do is give him a way to do this that usually isn't any better than his weapon damage with a few exception such as multi-target and such. In reality, the EK should be getting magic that enhances his physical abilities, not an optional replacement for them. Therefore, I have the EK select from Transmutation and Abjuration Schools. This way the EK can use things like Expeditious Retreat, Longstrider, Feather Fall, Jump, Spider Climb, Darkvision, Magic Weapon, Fly, Levitate, Haste, Flame Arrows and such to work with his combat prowess, not instead of it.

 

[hastur_nz]

I found Magic Missile to be useful when playing an EK (from 1st to 7th level), especially as I was a dual-wielding type so didn't actually have a decent ranged combat option except for Eldritch Blast which I picked up via the Arcane Initiate feat (and Hex). Protection from Evil and Good is situational, but when it is useful it's Very Useful. Misty Step would also have been great, had I got to 2nd level spells. So in short, I enjoyed playing an EK as written. I had Booming Blade, but to be honest I never really used it, cantrips were not that appealing (except Eldritch Blast, which I took via the Arcane Initiate feat).

 

[Fanaelialae]

This is an interesting take on the Eldritch Knight. I really agree with you on one thing though: Evocation spells are not really that great for the EK. In addition to being kind of weak sauce when you get them, they are competing with the EK's main hit point attrition tool: stab it really hard with the pointy thing. I mean, as a fighter, the EK does not have a problem with whittling down hp of a foe, all the Evocation spells do is give him a way to do this that usually isn't any better than his weapon damage with a few exception such as multi-target and such. In reality, the EK should be getting magic that enhances his physical abilities, not an optional replacement for them. Therefore, I have the EK select from Transmutation and Abjuration Schools. This way the EK can use things like Expeditious Retreat, Longstrider, Feather Fall, Jump, Spider Climb, Darkvision, Magic Weapon, Fly, Levitate, Haste, Flame Arrows and such to work with his combat prowess, not instead of it.

I let both EK and AT change their restricted schools, but if the player chooses to do so they lose the ability to select spells from outside their chosen schools.

 

[Ninja-radish]

I also agree that Evocation is a bad choice for the EK. Actually it's difficult for me to think of a worse school. Transmutation, Divination, Conjuration, even Necromancy are all much better choices. The developers really didn't think things through when they chose Evocation as one of the two schools. No wonder EKs are all just cantrip & shield spell casters. Makes them a bit dull to play in my view.