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Stop trying to "fix" things and be honest with yourselves: you're just trying to "power up" things.
Ah, so we're just being dishonest with ourselves? Because, God knows, we can't disagree about how good a class is without attributing dishonest motives to each other.
That's very helpful. Gold star.
Touché. I was perhaps hasty in my assessment. Point taken. My apologies.
I just think the cost of getting into EK is pretty low for the benefit of becoming a spell-slinging +1 BAB d10 every level mage. Diverse training alone now makes them mighty (weapon focus, specialization, etc. now accessible) Spell critical is also great, as your guy will probably have Improved Crit by then... so take Spell Critical with rays/ranged touch weapons (whatever is now focusable/specializable in PRPG) and the way you go! when you crit with that ray spell, you get to cast another spell as a swift action (if you cast a ray and crit AGAIN, you can deal a LOT of damage at high caster levels... disintegrate critical, swift disintegrate critical... OUCH!)
I'm just saying think outside the box, and you'll find deadly applications for this guy. A pure fighter or pure wizard will pale in comparison...
A pure fighter or pure wizard will pale in comparison...
Well, I agree with the pure fighter. At high levels, though, caster levels are king; wizard > EldKt >> fighter.
Spell critical is also great, as your guy will probably have Improved Crit by then... so take Spell Critical with rays/ranged touch weapons (whatever is now focusable/specializable in PRPG) and the way you go! when you crit with that ray spell, you get to cast another spell as a swift action (if you cast a ray and crit AGAIN, you can deal a LOT of damage at high caster levels... disintegrate critical, swift disintegrate critical... OUCH!)
Actually, spell critical is completely useless, and I'm going to explain why.
This class is built around Arcane Strike and Arcane Armor Training, BOTH of which suck up your swift action every single round (hope the designers are listening, this is a major oversight).
So if you decide to cast your ray spell free of spell failure chance (via Arcane Armor Training), you won't have a swift action left to use your spell critical.
Similarly, taking a full attack and getting your damage bonus from Arcane Strike makes you sacrifice any possibility of using spell critical.
Unless you aren't in armor and casting (which is pretty suicidal if you ever plan on meleeing) and don't care about your damage bonus from Arcane Strike (which you really should since your melee attacks are far worse than a fighter's), then this issue doesn't apply to you.
Even if Pathfinder doesn't patch up Eldritch Knight, I'm still interested in discussing possible houserules that make the class effective.
wizard > EldKt >> fighter.
Actually, if you build a melee-optimized Eldritch Knight, you are so far behind the Fighter in your attack rolls (by about 10) by 15th level that it's not even worth meleeing. Aside from the occasional greater invisibiliy or other obscure personal buff available to you, a Fighter will outclass you as an Eldritch Knight every single time. While I agree that a Fighter should outclass Eldritch Knights in melee, the gap is a lot bigger than one would think. And this isn't even mentioning the horrifyingly low AC Eldritch Knights have compared to fighters.
1. Mage Armor or some spell that improves beyond that
2. Shield spell.
3. Bracers of Deflection (as opposed to Armor) or some other deflection bonus.
4. Insight bonus from.... somewhere. I think there are spells that will manage.
5. Dodge feat6. Natural Armor item
Get enough of the right packages and you can pass on Arcane failure type armor entirely.
Numbers 4, 5, and 6 are all available to Fighters.
Mage armor is absolutely necessary if you aren't wearing armor, and I was already considering this spell in my "melee-optimized" build. Shield is great and all, but you can't always do nothing for a round just so you can have a slightly less chance of getting plastered to the wall.
#3... I'm not sure what you mean. Ring of Protection or Bracers of Armor? At any rate, Bracers of Armor will only get you 4 more AC than your mage armor spell, and you sacrifice a good portion of your wealth for it. For example, Bracers of Armor +5 costs 25,000g, which is the same price as a +5 [anything] armor, which will offer as much or more AC than Bracers of Armor +8 (64,000g), unless its leather armor.
My initial comments on the class went something like this
"Eldritch Knight Kind of like the Arcane Trickster, only it's even worse because the only thing you get for your trade is hit dice and 5 points of base attack bonus. We're talking about a difference of 20 hit points and +5 to hit in exchange for 2 caster levels. No thanks as a spellcaster. I'd say it could be worthwhile to add some casting to a fighter, but you need 3rd level spells to enter, crippling a fighter before entering the class with level after level of craptasticness. Oh, and you crapified Arcane Strike, so now that open is worthless to. If you're willing to trade 20 hit points and +5 to hit for +2 CL and a spell level I'd like to know what you have been smoking."
As you can see for what it's worth I completely agree that the Eldritch Knight is a complete trap - especially limited to core material. Only when paired with outside prestige classes like the Abjurant Champion, Spellsword, the Complete Warrior version of Arcane Strike, and so forth do Gish's become even remotely viable.
Here's why.
Note, most of what I'm saying here assumes you are using ONLY CORE + PATHFINDER. Some of the problems in the class go away when you allow outside prestige classes and feats. Anyway.
As I've said on a number of threads I view the party as having 4 roles. When one role isn't fulfilled the party starts having serious problems. It doesn't matter which role it is - though of the 4 the easier to drop is the sneaker.
Enter the Eldritch Knight. You've taken 5 levels of wizard and lost 2 caster levels just to get into the class. You are 2 levels behind in both categories. You are two levels behind in your road to multiple attacks and two behind in caster level and spells per day and spell level. At seventh level you cast spells as a fifth level wizard and fight like a fourth level fighter - only worse because you can't wear heavy armor yet and you've spent feats on stupid things like arcane armor proficiency.
If that isn't enough to make you think twice about this class, given my earlier statement on how parties need each of their 4 roles fulfilled, you might have a problem. As an Eldritch Knight, using Core, you cannot fulfill the role of God or Beat Stick.
Under ideal circumstances a Gish fulfills the later role. He fills in for the fighter. This is because caster level lose is inevitable (even if you can make up for it with Practiced Spellcaster - which is necessary to keep your buffs active instead of dispelled or running out in the middle of combat) and with the lose of more then one caster level (and level of spells, and number of spells prepared) you become a crappy god. This ignoring any feats you spend on being a fighter that you would otherwise spend on being a better god.
If I was limited to a single prestige class and told I had to play a Gish my choice would be the Spellsword over the Eldritch Knight every single day of the week because at least in that case you get to play a decent fighter with some magic, not a crappy wizard with some fighter.
For the comparison here's a couple sample characters I stated up at 10th level - in part to show myself the difference. The EK in question is focused on melee because spellcasting is all but out. I might stat up a fighter later to show how much more effective he would be (especially since most of the buffs the EK is going to cast he would normally receive from a wizard - most notably haste).
Sample 10th level characters using Pathfinder. They use the same base stats (the same as my Pathfinder wizard in Kain's game actually) which heavily favor the Eldritch Knight (I think it works out to 62 point buy per the DMG). Standard wealth for 10th level. The wizard doesn't make use of her Craft Wondrous item feat - though it would grant her an additional ~20,000 in gear.
Dorian
Male Human
Wizard5/Fighter1/Eldritch Knight4
CG Medium Humanoid
Init +7 (+3 Dex)
Senses Perception +12
Languages Celestial, Common, Draconic, Elven, Gnoll, Goblin, Orc, Sylvan
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AC 21, touch 16, flat-footed 18, (+8 armor, +3 Dex)
hp 85 (5d6 + 5d10 + 30 + 6 + 5) Plus 13 temporary
Immune None
Resist None
Fort +11, Ref +7, Will +10
_____________________________________________________________
Speed 30ft.
Melee +17 (greater magic weaponed) +1 Flaming Greatsword (2d6 + 14 + 1d6 fire)
Melee +17/+12 (greater magic weaponed) +1 Flaming Greatsword (2d6 + 14 + 1d6 fire)
Ranged +10 ranged touch (by spell)
Base Atk +7; CMB +13
Special Actions Hand of the Apprentice
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Wizard Spells Prepared (Caster level 8th)
4th (3/day)—dimension door, greater invisibility, extended greater magic weapon (cast on greatsword)
3rd (5/day)—extended false life (cast), fly, haste x3
2nd (5/day)—blur, mirror image, protection from arrows, scorching ray x2
1st (6/day)—feather fall, enlarge person x2, protection from evil, truestrike x2
0th (Unlimited)—detect magic, light, message, ray of frost
Specialist Spells (Caster Level 5th)
1/day—mirror image
3/day—shield
_____________________________________________________________
Abilities Str (22) 18, Dex 16 Con 16, Int 25 (21), Wis 14, Cha 15
SQ Arcane Bond
Feats Arcane Armor Mastery, Arcane Armor Training, Extend Spell, Improved Initiative, Scribe Scroll, Still Spell, Overhand Chop, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (Greatsword), Weapon Specialization (Greatsword)
Skills Acrobatics* +13, Fly +16, Intimidate +15, Knowledge (arcana) +20, Knowledge (religion) +20, Knowledge (the planes) +10, Perception* +12, Spellcraft +20, Swim +15
*Granted by headband
Possessions Belt of Giant Strength +4 (16,000), Headband of Great Intellect +4 (16,000), +1 Flaming Greatsword (8,000), +3 Mithral Breastplate (13,000), Cloak of Resistance +3 (9,000)
Spellbook 0th-All; 1st - alarm, charm person, enlarge person, feather fall, grease, mage armor, magic missile, protection from evil, sleep; 2nd – falselife, glitterdust, protection from arrows, scorching ray; 3rd - fly, greater magic weapon, haste; 4th- dimension door, fireshield, greater invisibility, lesser globe of invulnerability.
Donna
Female Elf
Wizard10
CG Medium Humanoid
Init +8 (+4 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative)
Senses low light vision, Perception +13 (+15 sight and sound based, +18 sight based in bright light)
Languages Celestial, Common, Draconic, Elven, Gnoll, Goblin, Orc, Sylvan
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AC 22, touch 18, flat-footed 18, (+4 mage armor, +2 deflection, +4 Dex, +2 shield)
hp 93 (10d6 + 40 + 6 + 10)
Immune magic sleep
Resist +2 vs. enchantments
Fort +10 (+5), Ref +10 (+7), Will +13 (+10)
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Speed 30ft.
Ranged +9 ranged touch (by spell)
Base Atk +5; CMB +11
Special Actions Hand of the Apprentice, Metamagic 5/day.
_____________________________________________________________
Wizard Spells Prepared (Caster level 10th, +14 vs. Spell Resistance)
5th (3/day)—baleful polymorph (DC 23), overland flight, summon monster V
4th (5/day)—black tentacles, dimension door, enervation, resilient sphere (DC 22), solid fog
3rd (5/day)—dispel magic, fly, fireball (DC 21), haste x2
2nd (6/day)—blindness/deafness (DC 20), invisibility, rope trick, scorching ray x2
1st (6/day)—alarm, feather fall, mage armor x2, sleep x2 (DC 19)
0th (Unlimited)—detect magic, light, message, ray of frost
Specialist Spells (Caster Level 10th)
1/day—feeblemind (DC 23), scorching ray, slow (DC 21)
5/day—magic missile
_____________________________________________________________
Abilities Str 14, Dex 18, Con 18 (14), Int 26 (22), Wis 16, Cha 15
SQ Arcane Bond (Hawk Familiar)
Feats Craft Wondrous Item, Empower Spell, Extend Spell, Quicken Spell, Improved Initiative, Scribe Scroll, Spell Penetration
Skills Acrobatics* +14, Diplomacy* +12, Fly +17, Knowledge (arcane) +21, Knowledge (geography) +21, Knowledge (nature) +21, Knowledge (religion) +21, Knowledge (The Planes) +21, Perception +13, Profession (sailor) +16, Spellcraft +21, Swim +12
*Granted by Headband
Possessions Belt of Great Constitution +4 (16,000), Headband of Great Intellect (16,000), Cloak of Resistance +3 (9,000), Ring of Protection +2 (8,000), Ring of Force Shield (8,500), +4,500gp in spells & scrolls.
Spellbook 0th-All; 1st - alarm, charm person, feather fall, grease, mage armor, magic missile, protection from evil, silent image, sleep; 2nd - fox's cunning, gust of wind, invisibility, knock, protection from arrows, rope trick, scorching ray, web; 3rd - dispel magic, fireball, fly, haste, summon monster III, water breathing; 4th- black tentacles, enervation, lesser geas, resilient sphere; 5th – baleful polymorph, dismissal, summon monster V, teleport.
I would like to see an arcane spell failure mitigation for the class, but otherwise, it's pretty solid. I mean, if you were only playing it as an archer or a caster, then yes, I can see where you might've had a problem with it. But, if you're going for polymorph, or simply using your spells to augment your combat abilities rather than AS your combat abilities, it's really pretty darn good.
Pathfinder feat of arcane armor wearing drops spell failure 10% wearing celestial chain, poof no spell failure.
I would like to see an arcane spell failure mitigation for the class, but otherwise, it's pretty solid. I mean, if you were only playing it as an archer or a caster, then yes, I can see where you might've had a problem with it. But, if you're going for polymorph, or simply using your spells to augment your combat abilities rather than AS your combat abilities, it's really pretty darn good.Pathfinder feat of arcane armor wearing drops spell failure 10% wearing celestial chain, poof no spell failure.
Except he's wrong. You can't match a fighter in damage output even with the buffs available in core. Not as an Arcane Caster.
Except he's wrong. You can't match a fighter in damage output even with the buffs available in core. Not as an Arcane Caster.
Damage output doesn't inhibit an opponent, though. Say you drop him in 3 rounds. Say he saves half the time against a hold monster (weak Will save) or baleful polymorph (weak Fort save). Wizard finishes him in 2 rounds, at a distance. Fighter kills it in 3 rounds, unless he's mauled in the meantime... and monsters have a LOT more hp than they used to, and tend to deal more damage than melee characters.
At low levels, the wizard's spells are limited, but the fighter can kill all day. Fighter is better, hands down. At upper levels, the wizard takes craft staff, and has a bonded item, and ends up spending only a small fraction of his wealth to have nearly-infinite spellcasting capacity.
While I don't disagree that wizard's are typically better than fighters at higher levels (currently) I would point out that staves aren't all that anymore: You only have 10 charges, and recharging eats up a slot a day. While they do improve what a wizard can and can't do, a ring of say telekinses & blink can be just as useful if not more so as it is unlimited.
Except he's wrong. You can't match a fighter in damage output even with the buffs available in core. Not as an Arcane Caster.Damage output doesn't inhibit an opponent, though. Say you drop him in 3 rounds. Say he saves half the time against a hold monster (weak Will save) or baleful polymorph (weak Fort save). Wizard finishes him in 2 rounds, at a distance. Fighter kills it in 3 rounds, unless he's mauled in the meantime... and monsters have a LOT more hp than they used to, and tend to deal more damage than melee characters.
I was referring to while playing an EK. If you want to play a spellcaster why bother becoming an Eldritch Knight? I mean honestly? If you want to throw around baleful polymorph or hold monster just play a wizard. You'll get them earlier and have more. Regarding throwing around hold monster and baleful polymorph. Both a great spells, and like you said, you can throw them at enemies from behind your meatshield until you force a failed save... but your burning multiple copies of your most powerful spell (which you'll likely only have a handful of) on a single combat with 3 more to go on average. Wizards are balanced on pacing. Personally I think that balance is skewed the wrong way at the moment (too few spells) but that's another matter.
You only double into that class (Eldritch Knight) if you want to fight in melee and do melee damage. Regardless of your buff spells within Core you aren't going to fulfill that role as well as a fighter. You're a fighter with a couple parlor tricks who sucks at combat. Way to go. You can't do anything right.
At low levels, the wizard's spells are limited, but the fighter can kill all day. Fighter is better, hands down. At upper levels, the wizard takes craft staff, and has a bonded item, and ends up spending only a small fraction of his wealth to have nearly-infinite spellcasting capacity.
Small fraction of his wealth is a serious understatement. And the capacity granted is hardly infinite. If your burning 2-3 spells of your highest level in any combat you are going to run out of spells and fall behind in wealth very quickly.
Personally, since I'm a fan of "gish"-type characters, I don't particularly care that the Eldritch Knight is a bit weaker than a wizard -- it's still a character that I'd like to play.
It's not weaker then a wizard. It's weaker then a wizard or a fighter. It has no purpose within the 4 role system.
The Eldritch knight allows players to be the classic elven fighter/magic-user from AD&D or the ELF (from basic D&D).
Essentially, the Eldritch Knight has been part of D&D, longer than the paladin, ranger, barbarian or any of the modern favorites.
an 8th lvl charcater in old 1e and 2e could be a fighter lvl 8, a magic user lvl 8 or a fighter 4 and magic user 4.
So basically the current eldritch knight is even better than that, because the fighter/magic-user was half as good has the party fight and half as good as the main spell caster.
But at 1st level he was twice as god as either one of them.
The Eldritch Knight is for everyone who wants to play that classic "ELF" in chainmail, with a sword and bow that tossed fireballs.
This what elves were back in the day because 1e elves could not be rangers OR druids (humans and half elves only)
Basically in those days the only reason to BE human was the acess to classes like, ranger, paladin, druid (even clerics).
So elves were 90% of the time fighter/magic-users because well humans could not be.
Eldritch knight makes an excellent Prc for those "schitzo" PCs that want to both fight and chuck spells.
I never really liked dual classing.
Thought it was weird, personally.
I never really even saw anyne else inmy gaming groups do it either.
But there was almost always a Elf or half elf: Ftr/m-u or the uber powerful Ftr/mu/thf (at least uber for the first 2-3 gaming sessions... hahaha)
Almost every halfling that wasnt a straight thf was a ftr/ thf and almost every dwarf that wasnt a fighter was a ftr/thf.
I alone once saw a cleric/assassin half orc, which honestly was palyed pretty cool: everyone in the game thought he was a fighter wearing the armor of the cleric and the weaponry that the assassin could use (everything) and the fact that 99 percent of halforc WERE fighters.
He ACTED like a fighter and didnt assassinate or sneak until we was 5th level and never cast a spell until , hmm it had to be months after the game began.
Very sneaky, very cool.
Once we figured out he was a cleric assassin, he switched to leather armor +4 and lighter weapons and did more sneaky spell casty killy stuff, but anyway, the ONLY one in 25 years of gaming.
These days a cleric with an assasin PrC wouldnt even be odd, or hard to do for that matter.
An 8th lvl charcater in old 1e and 2e could be a fighter lvl 8, a magic user lvl 8 or a fighter 4 and magic user 4.
Doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the thread, and I agree with your points, but as Bagpuss hinted at, in 1st (and 2nd) edition, you could be a fighter 8, or Magic-user 8, or Fighter 7/Magic-user 7.
The XP progression doubled almost every level up to "name" level (9 for fighter, 11 for magic-user), so most of the time a multi-class character was only a single level behind (or a bit more for triple class).
As for the whole debate - all I can say is I'm running a Barb/Wizard under pathfinder (just hit 2/4) who is kicking a whole lot of ass in melee, and Eldritch Knight looks like a prime opportunity to continue that.
Personally, since I'm a fan of "gish"-type characters, I don't particularly care that the Eldritch Knight is a bit weaker than a wizard -- it's still a character that I'd like to play.It's not weaker then a wizard. It's weaker then a wizard or a fighter. It has no purpose within the 4 role system.Hm .... so we're supposed to conform to a cookie-cutter, maximized efficiency, metagame-influenced 'system' of roles now? There's no room any more for story? Now that's MMO thinking, in my opinion -- you have to have a precise mix of classes with the correct 'specs' to run the instance .... I mean, the adventure.
If that's the case, why don't we simply cut the classes down to 4 -- one for each role? Why bother with the plethora of classes and prestige classes? Since we're maximizing mechanical efficiency, and letting any kind of story consideration tag along as a distant second, we might as well.
Oh haha, you're so clever with the MMORPG reference!
It has nothing to do with story. You can have whatever story you want, but with most adventures, for example all the adventures in Dungeon and most others, you are expected to have a character fulfilling each role.
There are different ways to fulfill each role - allowed for different classes - but fundamentally you need all 4 to effectively fight challenges of the appropriate level.
I'm not saying you can't play some multi-classed waste of space, but it's going to make fighting challenges of the appropriate level more difficult and any prebuilt adventure much harder.
Hm .... so we're supposed to conform to a cookie-cutter, maximized efficiency, metagame-influenced 'system' of roles now? There's no room any more for story? Now that's MMO thinking, in my opinion -- you have to have a precise mix of classes with the correct 'specs' to run the instance .... I mean, the adventure.Oh haha, you're so clever with the MMORPG reference!
Oh I don't know, seems rather accurate to me.
It has nothing to do with story. You can have whatever story you want, but with most adventures, for example all the adventures in Dungeon and most others, you are expected to have a character fulfilling each role.
As much as I tend to be a "run things by the numbers" sort of person and DM, this simply isn't true but for the most-confining, least well-written adventures. It's a DM's job to make the adventure work with his party, whether it's pre-built or home-brew. A de-specialized multi-class character might not be what an adventure is written specifically for, but they are *not* in general much if any weaker than a spec'd out character.
Their versatility is an immense strength, that does need to be accounted for by the DM, both not to overwhelm, and to provide *enough* to challenge it sufficiently.
An 8th lvl charcater in old 1e and 2e could be a fighter lvl 8, a magic user lvl 8 or a fighter 4 and magic user 4.Doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the thread, and I agree with your points, but as Bagpuss hinted at, in 1st (and 2nd) edition, you could be a fighter 8, or Magic-user 8, or Fighter 7/Magic-user 7.
The XP progression doubled almost every level up to "name" level (9 for fighter, 11 for magic-user), so most of the time a multi-class character was only a single level behind (or a bit more for triple class).
** spoiler omitted **
As for the whole debate - all I can say is I'm running a Barb/Wizard under pathfinder (just hit 2/4) who is kicking a whole lot of ass in melee, and Eldritch Knight looks like a prime opportunity to continue that.
My understand was you divided the experience by the number of classes you had then applied the divided portion to each classes level chart seperately.
I saw a few people that would simply add the totals for each level together and only level 1 level at a time in both classes, but my understanding was that was a home rule.
Doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the thread, and I agree with your points, but as Bagpuss hinted at, in 1st (and 2nd) edition, you could be a fighter 8, or Magic-user 8, or Fighter 7/Magic-user 7.My understand was you divided the experience by the number of classes you had then applied the divided portion to each classes level chart seperately.
You've got it right. The difference is that the xp charts were exponential (basically doubling what you needed every level), so splitting the xp in two didn't drop you that much.
Similar (but less extreme) would happen in 3rd if you handled it that way.
3rd edition: 8th level xp total = 28000 to 35999.
14000 xp per class = 5th level. 15000xp each = 6th level.
So for most of the time that one character would be 8th level (30k to 36k), the other would be 6/6.
An 8th lvl charcater in old 1e and 2e could be a fighter lvl 8, a magic user lvl 8 or a fighter 4 and magic user 4.Doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the thread, and I agree with your points, but as Bagpuss hinted at, in 1st (and 2nd) edition, you could be a fighter 8, or Magic-user 8, or Fighter 7/Magic-user 7.
The XP progression doubled almost every level up to "name" level (9 for fighter, 11 for magic-user), so most of the time a multi-class character was only a single level behind (or a bit more for triple class).
** spoiler omitted **
As for the whole debate - all I can say is I'm running a Barb/Wizard under pathfinder (just hit 2/4) who is kicking a whole lot of ass in melee, and Eldritch Knight looks like a prime opportunity to continue that.
I was simply stating the eldritch knight feeds the need for the ftr/mu of old and that is its "place" in the game.
Barb/bard eldritch knight, very unorthodox, let us know how that goes.
I'm running a Barb/Wizard under pathfinder...Barb/bard eldritch knight, very unorthodox, let us know how that goes.
Barb/*Wizard*, not barb/bard *shudder*. I've seen a gestalt one of those *wince*.
Good or bad Majuba? I've seen one of both so I'm curious to how your stint with one went.
Barb/*Wizard*, not barb/bard *shudder*. I've seen a gestalt one of those *wince*.I'm running a Barb/Wizard under pathfinder...Barb/bard eldritch knight, very unorthodox, let us know how that goes.
Ugh dyslexia strikes again (barb and bard have similar letter structure)
I was thinking to myself a bard/barbarian whobecomes an eldritch knight.....curious... I MUST see this done!!
The best possbile version of the would have to be a 5th barbarian (to get some rage powers and improved uncanny dodge) and a 7th level bard (to qualify for the 3rd level spells)
so you would be 12th level before you even got to eldritch knight.
Not to mention having class features like suggestion, and acces to bard spell list to progress in with spells like shadow walk to look forward to casting.
A very weird character indeed, "Should I rage or charm all the monsters instead?"
Put an EK up against a opponent equal higher in CR and see what you can do to effect it? Most of those creatures will hit every time, and kill you in a round or two.
The problem with this argument is that those CRs are for two creatures facing four characters. I am currently playing a an bbn2/sorc6(undead bloodline)/EK6 and using that combo to be a psuedo-vampire. With her spell selection(which I admit needs some twiking), feat selection and the abilty to deliver a Vampiric Touch spells through her bit attack(bbn2 pfrpg ability the whole basis for her 'vampirism'), she is really fun to play and can compliment either the casters or the fighters when needed. And she was originally dex-based when it came to fighting(but being reincarnated as gnoll, finding Chellen(RotRL), and nobody else needing a belt of giant str +4 kinda put a spot to that).
With the right build you can be good at what you do, being versatile.With new character classes literally overflowing, finding a way to use the old stuff in a new way can be oh so much fun....