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Message: <blockquote data-quote="malchus" data-source="post: 2780609" data-attributes="member: 22731">I've got to confess, this looks really cheesy on paper. But I think it might work out ok.Firstly, why am I bothering to re-write the EK? Mainly because the current version doesn't really fit what comes into my mind when I think of what might be an "Eldritch Knight". Basically what I want is someone in armour & swinging a sword (ie, a knight), who's also pretty magical (you know, "Eldritch"). Most people seem to agree that the simple way of doing this (Fighter X / Wizard Y, or substitute in similar classes) seems to get the worst of both worlds, but the standard EK doesn't really, well, seem all  that interesting either. The ability to mix it up in melee was pretty central to my idea.Anyway, what was I thinking?Hit Points: I'm really torn on this. My gut feeling was to go with d6, and I still could easily do that, but an EK takes such a dive on hitpoints to begin with (on average, 22 + Con mods), that I wasn't sure if d6 would cut it. For someone who might end up on the front line, I thought d8 might have to be the go.Requirements: Weapon Focus for the Martial Focus ability, Combat Casting because of Melee Arcana. The other feat (Arcane Strike? I don't have the Complete Foo book with me) isn't really *necessary* as such, but it seemed like such a useful feat for someone taking this class that I put it in. Maybe it doesn't belong, thoughBetween the weapon requirements and the spell requirements, I thought I could do away with things like Spellcraft (most mages will have them at the required level anyway). Maybe Knowledge (Nobility) should be in there.Skills: Ripped straight from the standard EKBase attack: Full base attack? Again, this is due to the Wizard class levels letting the side down. It comes out barely ahead of a straight class average BAB after 10 levels, which seems OK.Spell casting: This took me a while to much around with. 6 caster levels out of 10 seems to work out right for most combinations I could think of. Ftr1/Wiz9/EK10 has a caster level of 15, and as I understand the Epic rules they'll never get 9th level spells even if they continue as Wiz past 20 - is that right?Martial Focus: Pretty standard, from what I've seen of similar efforts. I may put in some sort of ritual requirement to "bond" with specific weapons.Casting in Armour: Yeah. I know. Completely not how it should be done. The reason I chose this way was a pet peeve of mine - I hate the way Arcane Spell Failure works, and the obvious way to link it to this class (ignore X ASF per level) bugs me as well. I wanted a character to start out wearing whatever armour they want (knights in padded armour? bah!), but still limit them in some way. If you follow this EK all the way, you have no penalties for casting in armour, but suffer somewhat for caster level. If you cherry-pick, you're short 2 spell levels while in armour.Melee Arcana I: Using melee weapon bonuses for touch attacks seems pretty normal for this sort of build. I think allowing a single normal melee for both damage and spell is an interesting trade off here (because you give up your iterative attack, which you probably just got, to do it). It's an all or nothing gamble.Off-hand Arcana: The idea for this came late (literally - about 4am last nigth). I hope I've limited it enough - the items have to have some sort of attack roll, and there's the TWF penalty as well. Having said that, I'm really fond of this ability - it reminds me of the Lavodes from Stephen Brust's Khaavren series. But I'm waiting for someone to point out a gaping huge hole here.Melee Arcana II: One thing this and the previous ability allow is mixing up ranged and melee attacks. I hope it adds a fresh tactical option, but it may end up being too powerful.One thing which goes some way to limiting this EK is that its core abilities use up the characters off hand (either empty, or with wand, etc). So it's not a build for 2-handed weapons, and shields are awkard as well.Anyway, is it too much?</blockquote>

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