[Unchained] Single class Eldritch Knight - viable at all?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


So, with the release of Unchained and the VMC rules, any arcane caster that selects the Oracle VMC with the Battle mystery can now get proficiency with heavy armor & all martial weapons at L3 (Skill at Arms), thus opening up a window for entry into Eldritch Knights @ L5 with only one lost casting level.

However, considering the lack of class abilities the EK gets other than 10 levels of BAB, has this changed anything at all, would you say? Does it make the EK more attractive? For my part, I'm certainly contemplating doing a Scarred Witch Doctor Half-Orc with the Oracle VMC for the heck of it, but the lack of abilities makes me slightly iffy..


Honestly the lack of abilities hurts hard.

Still the only one i'd consdier would be ARcanist w/ blade adept archetype.

DO note. I'm writing this not fully knowing what VMC rules are. Just by what your saying "any arcane caster"

you need pretty much things to scale off caster level, or to have great abilities prior to 5. not a lot of things for that.

Liberty's Edge

Eh. The lack of Feats will hurt a bit, but it sounds viable. Arcanist Blade Adept sounds like an awesome idea, actually. Scarred Witch Doctor would be pretty cool, too, but loses out on hexes, which hurts.


Any class can pick a VMC of any other class, so Wizard, Sorcerer, Arcanist, Bard, etc. all qualify for VMC: Oracle

Overall, the one caster level isn't likely to save the EK, but it could be a fun side build.


Zwordsman wrote:

Honestly the lack of abilities hurts hard.

Still the only one i'd consdier would be ARcanist w/ blade adept archetype.

DO note. I'm writing this not fully knowing what VMC rules are. Just by what your saying "any arcane caster"

you need pretty much things to scale off caster level, or to have great abilities prior to 5. not a lot of things for that.

I'm saying "any arcane caster" due to the clause in EK saying that you need to be able to cast 3rd level arcane spells in order to qualify, not because the VMC is restricted to arcane casters only ;)


The more I think about this, I think that L6 Witch is the sweet spot to go into EK.

You gain your 3rd level patron spell, a third hex, you qualify for the Spirit Talker feat (flexibility!), and your BAB increases to 3, just the same way you would if you had entered EK. And, you are still only 1 BAB behind a 3/4 class at this point, you'll catch up at L9, and surpass them at L13.

Admittedly your feat slots will be hurting, but the one thing EK actually gives is a few bonus feats. A reach build with Combat Reflexes at L1, that gets Power Attack at L5 and retrains it into Spirit Talker when it gets the L7 EK bonus feat, seems rather useable to me.

Of course, you would probably not specialise in the SoS hexes such as Slumber, but the utility ones like Flight, Evil Eye, Fortune, and Cackle are still worth picking up, and despite the lacking spell list you are still getting spells at the same time a Sorcerer gets them. Only, if you really feel like tanking, you probably can, due to your high Con and Heavy Armor.

The Blade Adept seems fun as hell too (if a bit less survivable), since it actually scales the Black Blade progression off caster level with an exploit.


You still have all the standard EK problems, namely, no armor, low HP, MADness, and terrible action economy with to many things competing for your standard and swift. And you add it up to not having enaugh feats to afford decent fighting styles. I guess is still better than a kick in the groin like the last FAQ.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Pounce wrote:

The more I think about this, I think that L6 Witch is the sweet spot to go into EK.

You gain your 3rd level patron spell, a third hex, you qualify for the Spirit Talker feat (flexibility!), and your BAB increases to 3, just the same way you would if you had entered EK. And, you are still only 1 BAB behind a 3/4 class at this point, you'll catch up at L9, and surpass them at L13.

And you advance in a PrC that has very little synergy with your witch and you give up all progression in the abilities that make your witch special. Just so you can act more like a part time fighter?


LazarX wrote:
Pounce wrote:

The more I think about this, I think that L6 Witch is the sweet spot to go into EK.

You gain your 3rd level patron spell, a third hex, you qualify for the Spirit Talker feat (flexibility!), and your BAB increases to 3, just the same way you would if you had entered EK. And, you are still only 1 BAB behind a 3/4 class at this point, you'll catch up at L9, and surpass them at L13.

And you advance in a PrC that has very little synergy with your witch and you give up all progression in the abilities that make your witch special. Just so you can act more like a part time fighter?

Ouch, haha. I do wholeheartedly agree that the lack of progression in witch abilities is not ideal at all. It was more of a question about making an Eldritch Knight workable, rather than an attempt to optimise the witch, if that makes sense?


I havent seen the book yet but this does Sound interesting. Most likely it will still stand behind a full caster but only loosing 1 Spell progression level May be a fine thing for EKs.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Pounce wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Pounce wrote:

The more I think about this, I think that L6 Witch is the sweet spot to go into EK.

You gain your 3rd level patron spell, a third hex, you qualify for the Spirit Talker feat (flexibility!), and your BAB increases to 3, just the same way you would if you had entered EK. And, you are still only 1 BAB behind a 3/4 class at this point, you'll catch up at L9, and surpass them at L13.

And you advance in a PrC that has very little synergy with your witch and you give up all progression in the abilities that make your witch special. Just so you can act more like a part time fighter?
Ouch, haha. I do wholeheartedly agree that the lack of progression in witch abilities is not ideal at all. It was more of a question about making an Eldritch Knight workable, rather than an attempt to optimise the witch, if that makes sense?

Then you have to set the goalposts for workable. For me that's entirely secondary as to whether such a road is FUN. The reason I presume we play in the first place?

Eldritch Knight as it is works great with a fighter/wizard multi-class because that's what it was DESIGNED to do. You can shoehorn other combinations, but they will almost always involve greater sacrifice for less return.

Silver Crusade Contributor

I like the suggestion of arcanist (blade adept). I might give this a try sometime - maybe an emberkin...


Depending on what cha does for the oracle part a sorc May also be a good thing?

Silver Crusade Contributor

Charisma's importance to the Oracle VMC affects the revelations you take, and that's basically it. And since your first one has to be Skill at Arms, and you don't get another revelation until 15th... probably irrelevant. :)


Arcanist or wizard then:)

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

I haven't read that section of the book yet - how does mixing VMC and traditional muticlassing work? Since you have to traditionally multiclass to even take a PrC.

I presume you can't take levels in the class you selected for VMC, but are there any other restrictions?


Cap. Darling wrote:
Depending on what cha does for the oracle part a sorc May also be a good thing?

The Cha issue may make a Blade Adept Arcanist a better fit than Wizard since Arcanists use Cha for many Exploits anyway.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

i like the VMC entry for a blade adept, for the reasons already mentioned. if you want to do a scarred witch doctor/EK, IMHO, you're better off taking a level of bloodrager... 1 level is all you need to pick up the mad magic feat, then you can use bloodrage to up your hp and DCs during combat- that's probably worth losing an extra caster level for (and it frees up half your feats again). You're still really nerfing your hexes (which is sort of the biggest draw of a witch, i think) but if you want to do a SWD/EK i think this is a better option...


ryric wrote:

I haven't read that section of the book yet - how does mixing VMC and traditional muticlassing work? Since you have to traditionally multiclass to even take a PrC.

I presume you can't take levels in the class you selected for VMC, but are there any other restrictions?

Well, Unchained is out after all, so we are allowed to quote it :)

VMC wrote:
Under the core rules, multiclassing can lead to a wide disparity in character ability. With this system, each character can choose a secondary class at 1st level that she trains in throughout her career, without giving up levels in her primary class. Once selected, this choice is permanent (though if using the retraining rules from Ultimate Campaign, the secondary class can be retrained by paying half the cost of retraining all her class levels). A character who selects this option doesn’t gain feats at 3rd, 7th, 11th, 15th, and 19th levels, but instead gains class features from her secondary class as described on Table 2–8: Multiclass Character Advancement. It is probably a good idea to use either this variant system or normal multiclassing, but it’s possible for the two systems to be used together. In a game using both systems, a character can’t take levels in the secondary class she gains from this variant.

Oh, and if you are choosing the Battle Mystery, quite a few of the revelations worth picking (such as War Sight) are not reliant on charisma at all, so there should be no -need- to bump it.


nate lange wrote:
i like the VMC entry for a blade adept, for the reasons already mentioned. if you want to do a scarred witch doctor/EK, IMHO, you're better off taking a level of bloodrager... 1 level is all you need to pick up the mad magic feat, then you can use bloodrage to up your hp and DCs during combat- that's probably worth losing an extra caster level for (and it frees up half your feats again). You're still really nerfing your hexes (which is sort of the biggest draw of a witch, i think) but if you want to do a SWD/EK i think this is a better option...

Or do both :) Get the Lame curse at L1, at L10 you gain immunity to fatigue. Bloodrage with no consequences whenever you could really do with a bump in your DC's.

Sovereign Court

Eldritch Knight levels stack with fighter levels for the purpose of qualifying for feats, so consider giving the Eldritch Knight a stamina pool if he has at least one level in fighter, and consider allowing combat tricks for all combat feats derived by either fighter / EK levels...


Purple Dragon Knight wrote:
Eldritch Knight levels stack with fighter levels for the purpose of qualifying for feats, so consider giving the Eldritch Knight a stamina pool if he has at least one level in fighter, and consider allowing combat tricks for all combat feats derived by either fighter / EK levels...

You don't even need the single Fighter level as Elditch Knight levels count as Fighter levels by themselves too

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

You don't need VMC to get your single classed entry, the Magus does it all by herself. But again, that means closing the door on developing the Magus class features outside of spell progression.

Sovereign Court

Entryhazard wrote:
Purple Dragon Knight wrote:
Eldritch Knight levels stack with fighter levels for the purpose of qualifying for feats, so consider giving the Eldritch Knight a stamina pool if he has at least one level in fighter, and consider allowing combat tricks for all combat feats derived by either fighter / EK levels...
You don't even need the single Fighter level as Elditch Knight levels count as Fighter levels by themselves too

Counts as fighter for feat qualification, but I would argue you still need one level of fighter to get the Stamina Pool bonus feat and unlock those options for combat feats gained during EK levels...

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