Eldritch Knight Remake


Homebrew and House Rules


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ELDRITCH KNIGHT
The recent FAQ-reversal and the thread about it got me thinking about the eldritch knight, and how it kind of lacks an identity. It lacks the very specific and indepth flavor of the Red Mantis Assassins, and mechanically it's not only on the weak side but bland, having a concept that is shared by much more interesting options such as magi, bloodragers and certain bards.

So I made a homebrew remake of it. I gave it the barebones of a flavor while keeping it fairly generic, and I gave it kind of a unique purpose; instead of being the same "Someone who blends swordplay with spellcasting" as the magus, it is a warfare-focused armed and armored spellcaster with mainly defensive abilities and a minor penchant for blasting.

More specific design notes:

I dropped the number of levels from 10 to 8 - I honestly think no prestige class should ever have 10 levels, and certainly not one that is so light in terms of flavor. I considered dropping it even lower, but wanted space for giving it a few non-key abilities too.

Every level gives at least one noteworthy ability, and often a smaller more flavor one too.

It is with intent that I've tried to keep away from abilities that stack very well with out-of-class options; allowing heavy stacking skews builds towards cookie-cuttery; just look at current blasting builds which are heavily focused around wizards with a single level of dualblood orc/dragon sorcerer. Eldritch Knight provides an alternative to that, which while not as quick provides the same bonus and even at full caster level for the evocations. Had I not made the non-stacking clause, blasting would have been skewed toward crossblooded orc/dragon bloodrager + eldritch knight. That's still an option and gives you a much higher low-level damage, but it's not as obvious.

The same goes for the widen and lingering abilities, the power of them is pretty easy to gauge by themselves, but adding free metamagics into a metagame that is already heavy on stacking free metamagics can have unforeseen consequences.

The thought behind the Charge Weapon and Spell Parry abilities is that through this, there's a reason for it to keep a weapon ready but without extremely complex rules systems such as the magus' ability and without him needing to wade into combat. A weapon with Enervate in it is still very useful if an opponent walks too close by and you get an attack of opportunity...

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Why shouldn't prestige classes have 10 levels? Bad enough they only have 5 or 10. Even Sean K Reynolds pointed out that prestige classes are a dead end in terms of design space.


Cyrad wrote:
Why shouldn't prestige classes have 10 levels? Bad enough they only have 5 or 10. Even Sean K Reynolds pointed out that prestige classes are a dead end in terms of design space.

I don't agree with Reynolds at all on that, or basically the whole video. I could make a whole other thread on all my disagreements with both his assumptions and conclusions, but that's another topic. The very short version is that I think that for generic concepts (such as "archer"), archetypes of 20-level classes are best, while for specific concepts short prestige classes with powers that grow with the character's powers are best.

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I disagree. There's many cool archetypes for specific concepts. I think the niche that prestige classes fill could be fulfilled either by expanding archetypes to work for multiple classes or by creating a new construct entirely.

What exactly do you have in mind for the Eldritch Knight? So far, I haven't really seen any specifics.


Cyrad wrote:
I disagree. There's many cool archetypes for specific concepts. I think the niche that prestige classes fill could be fulfilled either by expanding archetypes to work for multiple classes or by creating a new construct entirely.

Then it's a matter of space. For the same amount of space that this PC takes, I would have to make, just for the more common styles (excluding things like bards and hybrid classes):

1. A sorcerer archetype mimicking a fighter+EK
2. A sorcerer archetype mimicking a paladin+EK
3. A sorcerer archetype mimicking a ranger+EK
4. A sorcerer archetype mimicking a cavalier+EK
5. A wizard archetype mimicking a fighter+EK
6. A wizard archetype mimicking a ranger+EK
7. A wizard archetype mimicking a paladin+EK
And so on and so on and so on.

Prestige classes should not be compared to archetypes, they should be compared to feat chains. Prestige classes are more restrictive but should be more powerful than feat chains, while feat chains are more versatile and less powerful. Granted, right now both are generally underpowered, but that's a different topic than what they should be used for.

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What exactly do you have in mind for the Eldritch Knight? So far, I haven't really seen any specifics.

I don't really understand the question, could you please rephrase?

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Oh, I didn't see that there was a link there. This site's CSS always trips me up on that.


A myrmidarch or card caster magus that has spell strike and takes a 1 level dip in this for charge weapon can charge very huge amount of daggers with acid splash, and then, thanks to the way spell storing weapons work, throw all of them as a single action.

With that out of the way: I dislike RP restrictions for classes, so that's a negative. Aside from that, it looks pretty nice.


LoneKnave wrote:
A myrmidarch or card caster magus that has spell strike and takes a 1 level dip in this for charge weapon can charge very huge amount of daggers with acid splash, and then, thanks to the way spell storing weapons work, throw all of them as a single action.

I don't know if I misunderstood something about how you do this, but how do you bypass this?

"He can use this ability at will, but have no more than one such charged weapon at a time (and no more than one spell charging it)."

Honestly, prestige classes is basically the only place I like RP restrictions, but I tried to make it generic enough that you could slot in the Knights in basically any campaign and use it right off. Seeing as how the restrictions of being in the group are so extremely loose (basically, don't f@~% the group over royally and don't be Darth Vader) I figured basically anyone can join.


Gaberlunzie wrote:
Cyrad wrote:
I disagree. There's many cool archetypes for specific concepts. I think the niche that prestige classes fill could be fulfilled either by expanding archetypes to work for multiple classes or by creating a new construct entirely.

Then it's a matter of space. For the same amount of space that this PC takes, I would have to make, just for the more common styles (excluding things like bards and hybrid classes):

1. A sorcerer archetype mimicking a fighter+EK
2. A sorcerer archetype mimicking a paladin+EK
3. A sorcerer archetype mimicking a ranger+EK
4. A sorcerer archetype mimicking a cavalier+EK
5. A wizard archetype mimicking a fighter+EK
6. A wizard archetype mimicking a ranger+EK
7. A wizard archetype mimicking a paladin+EK
And so on and so on and so on.
{. . .}

Another way to do this would be to make class abilities more a-la-carte (which by itself would cut WAY down on the number of archetypes needed), and have Class Templates (already advertised -- although I haven't seen the actual content -- by some 3rd party publisher that I can't remember), that could be applied to several similar classes.


Gaberlunzie wrote:
LoneKnave wrote:
A myrmidarch or card caster magus that has spell strike and takes a 1 level dip in this for charge weapon can charge very huge amount of daggers with acid splash, and then, thanks to the way spell storing weapons work, throw all of them as a single action.

I don't know if I misunderstood something about how you do this, but how do you bypass this?

"He can use this ability at will, but have no more than one such charged weapon at a time (and no more than one spell charging it)."

Honestly, prestige classes is basically the only place I like RP restrictions, but I tried to make it generic enough that you could slot in the Knights in basically any campaign and use it right off. Seeing as how the restrictions of being in the group are so extremely loose (basically, don't f@&@ the group over royally and don't be Darth Vader) I figured basically anyone can join.

Oh, you are correct!

Well, it's still a really good dip for the extra attack every now and then for a more martial focused Magus.


LoneKnave wrote:


Well, it's still a really good dip for the extra attack every now and then for a more martial focused Magus.

Yeah, it might very well be; it's a free Spell Storing property so essentially equivalent in value to a +1 enhancement bonus (but stacks if you already have one).

I'm not sure if it would be too powerful though. I don't want it to be a default (or even 50/50) for magi.
A magus would lose:
1/2 point of Will save
1/2 arcane pool point
1 caster level (and spell access)
1 level delay on other abilities

And gain:
1/4 BAB
Free spell storing
Create Magic Arms & Armor feat

It seems like it would usually be a bad choice, unless you were going for the feat anyway.

I could see a two-level dip being powerful for a magus with some archetype that gives up armored casting, though.


I've also been toying around with some ideas for the EK, although mine goes in quite a different direction from your's.

Overall my biggest concern with your Eldritch Knight is that it does almost nothing for either melee or ranged combat ability. All of its abilities improve spellcasting and defenses. Taken together, this seems like a character that will rarely make physical attacks, and will use them in the same way that a regular caster uses cantrips ("got nothing better to do"). Aside from that, here are some more specific criticisms:

Prerequisites
I think the prerequisites for the prestige class need to be loosened. As it stands the Eldritch Knight comes online a little late, and while not as extreme as mystic theurge it has a bit of a "valley of suck". Secondly, it's needlessly confining. Why is fighter 5 / Wizard 1 not an acceptable means of qualifying? Game-balance wise it's almost certainly weaker, so there seems no particular reason to require a caster-heavy approach.

The prerequisites I decided on for my own homebrew is BAB +3 and ability to cast 1st level arcane spells. That gives three different configurations you can qualify with: Martial 1 / Caster 4, Martial 2 / Caster 2, and Martial 3 / Caster 1. That makes EK available one level earlier for the traditional approach, and two two levels earlier if you're willing to sacrifice a little more caster level. That offers way more interesting character build options.

Arcane Armor
This class feature has a few rough edges. For one, it basically mandates that all the EK's armor must be custom-crafted. This is hugely impractical in a fast-moving campaign with little downtime, and also means any found armor is basically useless to him. Finally, as it's worded it's unclear if you can use special materials (like mithral) to make that armor. If you can't, that's a pretty harsh restriction on his primary class feature.

I'd say rewrite this to let an Eldritch Knight bond to any armor he may find, rather than requiring him to specifically custom craft it.

Too Fighter/Wizard Centric
Because the EK doesn't offer heavy armor proficiency, but has class features that specifically apply to it, this effectively precludes using any martial class that doesn't offer that proficiency. That doesn't exactly leave many options. Since Cavalier and Paladin aren't very multi-class friendly, that leaves Fighter as by far the most logical class choice.

On the caster side of things, the wizard class is already the best-suited of any primary caster for multi-classing. It gives up the fewest class features, and the slowed caster progression is less painful than it is for spontaneous casters (which are already a level behind to begin with). Having class features like library access that are useless for non-wizards serves to magnify this problem. Similarly, a class feature that replicates but doesn't stack with a Sorcerer bloodline is a very bad idea IMO. The spontaneous metamagic class features (which I have other issues with, see below) are yet another class feature that helps prepared casters like the wizard more than spontaneous ones like the sorcerer.

Spontaneous Metamagic
My third concern is with your spontaneous metamagic class features. You should limit the total adjusted level, rather than preventing them from being used with other metamagic. The problem is when you do stuff like use spell perfection and metamagic reducers to effectively get a 15th level spell. If you're legitimately paying for that metamagic with a higher level spell slot then it's not a problem.


Dasrak wrote:


Overall my biggest concern with your Eldritch Knight is that it does almost nothing for either melee or ranged combat ability. All of its abilities improve spellcasting and defenses. Taken together, this seems like a character that will rarely make physical attacks, and will use them in the same way that a regular caster uses cantrips ("got nothing better to do"). Aside from that, here are some more specific criticisms:

That's part of the goal; I feel like with the magus, the bloodrager, and various archetypes for bards and summoners, there are so many other choices for "melee arcane caster". As long as the EK does what they are doing, the EK will be very hard to make both viable and not "the one obvious choice". By shifting it's focus, they don't compete about the same niche anymore, and we don't really have anything in that niche right now.

Quote:


Prerequisites
I think the prerequisites for the prestige class need to be loosened. As it stands the Eldritch Knight comes online a little late, and while not as extreme as mystic theurge it has a bit of a "valley of suck".

Exactly where would this valley be? I can't really see any specific level where it would suck. It only ever loses two levels of casting, which really isn't that horrible if you've got the defenses needed to not use as many defensive self-buffs. A Wizard 5/Fighter 1 doesn't suck; it might not be optimal compared to a wizard 6, but it can no doubt carry it's own weight and is probably equal to or stronger than a single-classed character of the majority of classes. Likewise for a Wiz 5/Ftr 1/EK 1, or even if you go through sorcerer a Sor 6/Ftr 1/Ek 1. Having 3rd level spells at 8th level is comparable to a bard, and while you have less skill points and no inspire courage, you do have a LOT more spell slots as well as charge weapon (which you can use to charge a meleer's weapon before combat; the EK doesn't need to wield the weapon). And considering the additional spell slots and being of equal BAB at that point, you can probably buff yourself up to about the same melee capabilities as a bard.

I do think it could be a bit harsh if you enter through sorcerer at Sor6/Ftr1/Ek2, at level 9 having 3rd level spells as your highest can be harsh, but I don't know what I would add to fix such a very specific problem. I'm very much open to suggestions.

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Secondly, it's needlessly confining. Why is fighter 5 / Wizard 1 not an acceptable means of qualifying?

Because this isn't intended as a fighter that casts, but a heavily armored battlefield caster. And there are many things that are weaker, like going straight cleric into EK, but it still doesn't fit the theme of the class so there's no need to enable for it.

Quote:


The prerequisites I decided on for my own homebrew is BAB +3 and ability to cast 1st level arcane spells. That gives three different configurations you can qualify with: Martial 1 / Caster 4, Martial 2 / Caster 2, and Martial 3 / Caster 1.

Or magus 4 or caster 6, which means for any wizard, it's only a drop of one level of casting for what would in this case be quite remarkable additional defensive powers. I won't do that here, as I think it would make it too attractive.

I also think that if one is to design something that should be accessible from early level and easily accessible, archetypes or base classes are preferable.

Quote:


Arcane Armor
This class feature has a few rough edges. For one, it basically mandates that all the EK's armor must be custom-crafted. This is hugely impractical in a fast-moving campaign with little downtime, and also means any found armor is basically useless to him. Finally, as it's worded it's unclear if you can use special materials (like mithral) to make that armor. If you can't, that's a pretty harsh restriction on his primary class feature.

You can't use special materials on it as it's already made of special materials. The reason for that is because one of the main draws of the class would be being able to cast in heavy armor, but if I just key it off of "can use any (x) armor without ASF" then there's no real difference between medium and heavy since mithral fullplate exists. For the campaigns in our group, there tends to be a decent amount of downtime and a week every few levels is no big deal, and if I consider the class for generic usage by other groups the issue with Arcane Armor (Heavy) being useless is further worsened as many groups allow the Mithral Celestial Fullplate, which would mean a two-level dip would allow any caster to cast in heavy armor.

I see what you mean with that commission times can be an issue, but I don't much mind that the character will be disincentivized to using loot armors as it does get Create Magic Arms & Armor as a bonus feat.

Perhaps consider the whole arcane armor a magic item for the purpose of crafting, so that the EK can craft them himself without having to spend ages and ages upon mundane armor?


Gaberlunzie wrote:

{. . .}

I do think it could be a bit harsh if you enter through sorcerer at Sor6/Ftr1/Ek2, at level 9 having 3rd level spells as your highest can be harsh, but I don't know what I would add to fix such a very specific problem. I'm very much open to suggestions.
{. . .}

One possibility would be to make it be -- instead of a prestige class -- one or more feats. Here is an example of what I thought of to replace the one unique (capstone) class abilityo of the current Eldritch Knight (and in some posts below I do a bit of debugging). This particular example doesn't do what you are trying to do, but something like that might be a way to go -- you keep on going with the class(es) you are in, but pick up one or more feats (which could even have organization-based prerequisites) to do Knights of the Eldritch Flame stuff. Can't make it too many feats, though (and at least some of them should be Combat Feats), because of widespread feat starvation.


Quote:
That's part of the goal; I feel like with the magus, the bloodrager, and various archetypes for bards and summoners, there are so many other choices for "melee arcane caster". As long as the EK does what they are doing, the EK will be very hard to make both viable and not "the one obvious choice". By shifting it's focus, they don't compete about the same niche anymore, and we don't really have anything in that niche right now.

I'd have to disagree. The EK has a significant niche over those mentioned classes: they're stuck with 6-level caster progressions and spell lists, while the EK has access to his choice of the most powerful 9-level progressions in the game. As I see it, the purpose of the Eldritch Knight is to provide a way to utilize that expansive spell list on a combat-oriented character.

I'd agree you should avoid anything that too strongly overlaps with specific abilities of the other classes (spellcasting as part of a full attack would step on the Magus' toes, for instance) but that still leaves plenty of ways an EK could rock out. If anything, the baseline magus is already offering the "armored caster" shtick.

Quote:
A Wizard 5/Fighter 1 doesn't suck; it might not be optimal compared to a wizard 6, but it can no doubt carry it's own weight and is probably equal to or stronger than a single-classed character of the majority of classes

Given what you've already said already I think this more comes down to a difference of opinion of what an Eldritch Knight is. While 5th level spellcasting on a 6th/7th level character is acceptable, BAB +3 on a 6th level character is not. It's not until level 9 that you even catch up with medium BAB progression. That one level difference in qualification creates a much smoother BAB progression overall.

Quote:
I do think it could be a bit harsh if you enter through sorcerer at Sor6/Ftr1/Ek2, at level 9 having 3rd level spells as your highest can be harsh, but I don't know what I would add to fix such a very specific problem. I'm very much open to suggestions.

That extra level of Sorcerer to qualify isn't really all that bad. It's almost certainly your favored class, and going from 5->6 gives you an increase to every save and your BAB. The issue is that he's already got a slower progression than the wizard, so a further delay in his progression is all the more painful.

The solution I went for on my homebrew EK was extra spells known. Wizard EK's get two spells known of their highest level (same as they'd get with a regular wizard level), while Sorcerer EK's get one additional spell known that must be below their highest level (equivalent to human sorcerer favored class bonus).

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Or magus 4 or caster 6, which means for any wizard, it's only a drop of one level of casting for what would in this case be quite remarkable additional defensive powers. I won't do that here, as I think it would make it too attractive.

My apologies, I accidentally omitted the "proficient with all martial weapons" requirement, which I have not removed. So caster 6 would not be a legal means of qualifying. I'd agree that would be sidestepping one of the main requirements of EK.

Yes, Magus 4 could qualify; I'm not particularly sure if that's harmful or interesting. Given a Magus will probably only want to dip EK, though, it probably doesn't matter exactly when the option becomes available. That said, I'd love to see someone try this when I get around to playtesting my own EK.

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I also think that if one is to design something that should be accessible from early level and easily accessible, archetypes or base classes are preferable.

If it were a 3rd level qualification I might agree with you there, but 5th-6th isn't early at all.

Prestige classes designed to support multi-class characters (Eldritch Knight, Mystic Theurge, and Arcane Trickster) should have entry qualifications designed to keep the build fun and powerful at every step in their career.

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You can't use special materials on it as it's already made of special materials. The reason for that is because one of the main draws of the class would be being able to cast in heavy armor, but if I just key it off of "can use any (x) armor without ASF" then there's no real difference between medium and heavy since mithral fullplate exists

That's the tricky problem with armor in general: special materials exists. It's a built-in part of the equipment system that becomes increasingly common-place at higher wealth levels. Mithral in specific a problem for just about every class with armor-based class features. If you feel that you need to restrict it then go ahead, but that's a pretty huge limitation.

Also, Mithral Celestial Fullplate is a custom item. Lots of stuff breaks if you play fast and loose with the item creation rules like that.

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How about:

1. Bonus Combat Feat, Diverse Training.
2. Armored Casting (light), +1 level of arcane spellcasting
3. +1 level of arcane spellcasting
4. Armored Casting (medium), +1 level of arcane spellcasting
5. Bonus Combat Feat, +1 level of arcane spellcasting
6. Armored Casting (heavy), +1 level of arcane spellcasting
7. +1 level of arcane spellcasting
8. +1 level of arcane spellcasting
9. Bonus Combat Feat, +1 level of arcane spellcasting
10. Spell Critical, +1 level of arcane spellcasting

Or better yet

1. Arcane Armor Training, Bonus Combat Feat, Diverse Training.
2. +1 level of arcane spellcasting
3. +1 level of arcane spellcasting
4. +1 level of arcane spellcasting
5. Bonus Combat Feat, +1 level of arcane spellcasting
6. +1 level of arcane spellcasting
7. +1 level of arcane spellcasting
8. +1 level of arcane spellcasting
9. Bonus Combat Feat, +1 level of arcane spellcasting
10. Spell Critical, +1 level of arcane spellcasting

Arcane Armor Training (Ex): Beginning at 1st level, the eldritch knight reduces the chance for arcane spell failure by 5% per class level.

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