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Message: <blockquote data-quote="comrade raoul" data-source="post: 1050691" data-attributes="member: 554">Re: wth?Anabstercorian: I'll post this on the necromancer boards soonish. Thanks for the praise!Technik: You raise interesting and valid points. Let me try to address them in turn.I thought it was important to require that the prospective eldritch knight had made a significant feat commitment to combat abilities, and so I wanted at least two combat feats to be necessary to qualify for the class. Why was Combat Expertise one of them? The game-balance reason has to do with a point Reapersaurus made -- sorcerers can qualify for the class just as quickly as wizards can, and eldritch celerity is probably a somewhat bigger boost for them. So I choose Combat Expertise over other combat feats because of its Int 13 ability requirement -- this shifts the balance of the class a bit more towards wizards, who need Int 13 more than sorcerers do (a sorcerer can get by quite well with average or lower Int, while a wizard clearly can't). The conceptual reason was that I just wanted eldritch knights to feel like skilled, canny combatants -- armored arcana and greater combat casting are the sort of ability that such skilled, canny combatants have -- and I think Combat Expertise reflects this theme. The Eldritch Knight is still a perfectly viable archer/wizard -- you can still be a fine archer and have a bit of melee training, and two or three feats isn't all that punitive (a human ftr 2/wiz 4/eldritch knight 3 can have point blank shot, rapid shot, manyshot, and weapon focus (composite longbow) in addition to his qualifying feats). In fact, the original version was, I think, geared towards archers far too much: the fragility caused by the d6 hit die and lack of armor strongly discouraged the eldritch knight from entering melee unless absolutely necessary, while the combination of wizardly movement and nuking abilities blended with ranged attacks quite effecitvely. And let's not forget that there's already a high profile arcane ranged class around: why not just be a fighter/wizard/arcane archer?The "whole martial chain" is largely to make sure you blow a level on a fighter-like class, yes. But the eldritch knight is also supposed to be a capable, fairly versatile combatant, which necessitates a broad range of weapons training.Attune weapon is there to make the melee/caster archetype a remotely viable one, something that the original eldritch just didn't really do (see the above discussion of archers). Is this really all that tacked on? It depends on the way you see the class. If you see them as mystical warriors who use their magical training to use their weapons in novel and potent ways, it seems quite appropriate.First off, the bard's not that great a candidate for either version, since the spellcasting progression already strongly favors wizards or sorcerers. In effect, any class like the eldritch knight seems to me to be basically unfair to bards, and so I just didn't design it with them in mind. I really don't see how this version encourages cherry-picking -- if you wanted to focus on casting, you're trading a full level of spellcasting progression for a small boost to attacks, hitpoints, and saves, a rudimentary attune weapon, and light armor -- all nice, but only really cool if you're serious about the whole warrior-mage thing. And if you are serious about that, you're disinclined to cherry pick. And keep in mind the next three levels, with full spellcasting, are pretty good for casters -- once you've got one level, there's no reason to stop for the next three.The wizard has to prepare it ahead of time (just like a metamagic feat), the sorcerer doesn't. If this bothers you, think of eldritch celerity as a not-quite-metamagic-feat. It talks like a metamagic feat, it walks like a metamagic feat, but it ain't, strictly speaking, a metamagic feat. So it's not subject to the spontaneous restriction. Maybe the extra boon for spontaneous casters should require them to cast it as two slots higher rather than one. I apologize if the ability description is too vague.The "generic spellsword/bladesinger" was about the idea -- this should be a commonly available sort of prestige class, and I did want it to remain somewhat generic. If you think this version has just as little flavor as the original, well, you're entitled to your opinion. I think it does have more to it than the original version, but to some extent, this just seems subjective.Reaper: You also raise interesting and valid points. You've got one very broad, systemic issue (which you also raise in your Divine Knight thread) -- that classes like the eldritch knight are just inherently broken. Let me postpone that discussion to a later post -- addressing your larger worry properly takes extended arguments that I'm just too tired for now. But as for your specific points:Attune weapon does seem a little strong -- I should probably change the total level limit offered by attune weapon to one-half the eldritch knight's class level, rounded down (or maybe one-half class level, plus one). Keep in mind, though -- unlike the spellstoring property, the eldritch knight has a chance of wasting the spell on a missed attack. This imposes a substantial risk against high AC foes. See above for discussions about how the ability works for wizards. As for its strength -- I'm less convinced of that. Could you show me why "getting your combat buffs up quickly in time to go into melee" is so powerful? Could you give me an example of especially scary abuses?</blockquote>

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