My warrior-mage has 4 Fighter levels--let's make them count!

[Felon]

Thanks for posting and welcome to the board. Couple things:

You say you only took 3 levels of wizard, but one of the requirements for eldritch knight is the ability to cast 3rd-levels. Did your DM waive that for you?

Also, you don't need a bastard sword to use a hand for spellcasting or unarmed strikes. You don't drop a greatsword just because you momentarily use one hand for something else. And in the case of unarmed strikes, you can of course use feet, elbows, head-butts, etc.

About the only real reason to use a bastard sword instead of a greatsword is if you're going to use a shield or wield another weapon. Unfortunately, that does tend to make a katana-wielding character a suboptimal build.

 

[winterwolf]

Oops Felon, you are right...I was fifth level...
But yeah, I mainly went katana for the coolness factor. Like I said, I was going with a samurai-looking char. But the way I read the rules (and I may well be wrong) you have to have a free hand to use deflect arrows, and you can't use it with, say, a quarterstaff. The one handed/two handed option of the katana allowed me to use deflect arrows in the same round that I attacked 2h (as we decided that I could switch from 1 to 2 hands without a problem). I know that you can use any part of your body for an unarmed strike...I just wanted to be able to say that I karate chopped a guy.
I have found that one of the best defenses in D&D is setting up a character that everyone likes... this guy had style, and I'm pretty confidant that the DM went after a couple of characters that bugged the heck out of everyone instead of targeting me. No one wanted me to die...I was just that cool.
Also...psionic attacks rock. You can use them to stun someone for a while, and can keep your inertial armor if you have enough psionic strength points. I was only able to use ego whip once per day (with inner reserve, i was also able to keep my inertial armor up, as well as speed of thought) but my psychic defenses surprised the heck out of this mind flayer we ran across...when surprised by it, I took the 1d4 charisma drain from its mind blast and kept on trucking...after that, I just kept thought shield up until we scared it into planeshifting.
And thanks for the welcome!

 

[Felon]

I have found that one of the best defenses in D&D is setting up a character that everyone likes... this guy had style, and I'm pretty confidant that the DM went after a couple of characters that bugged the heck out of everyone instead of targeting me. No one wanted me to die...I was just that cool.

Man, I wish my players would figure that out...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Felon
Sure, the warlock can fire them all day, but a wand has pretty much the same net effect. And I won't be getting access to those high-level blast-shape invocations.

Why? Have you already decided that you're going to have the PC go into a PrCl?

 

[Felon]

Yes, this was all about getting a character into a PrC like Havoc Mage or Spellsword.