Eldrich Knights and Dragon Disciples: Melee Mages

[insaneogeddon]

I quite like:

Barbarian 1, Abjurer 5, Eldritch Knight 10

1. Elven Curve Blade, 3. Weapon Focus, 5. Step Up, 7. Arcane Strike, 9.Toughfness, 11. Specialisation, 13. Improved Critical, 15. Critical Focus.

Your survivability is good to starts and 2nd thru 4th level both shield and mirror image should just add to that. For the things harder to hit touch spells do great damage or debuff at these levels.

Come 8th level you start moving into a whole new territory with arcane strike, weapon focus and specialisation.

13th level is the best where you get antimagic shell. Those that are an issue in melee = spell destruction. Those that are a casting threat or summoned just pop up a antimagic shell and between your high crits, rage, specialisation your good to go. Abjuration fits with this theme and its power is not dismissed by the shell.

Comments or competing builds are welcome?

[A Man In Black]

This guy has bad BAB, bad HP, and massively awesome spells. Why is he entering melee at all? He's not very good at it. He's better at winning fights with spells than hitting people in the face, even in an antimagic field.

[Dimitri Mazieres]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this setup can't access weapon specialization, since you need to be a 4th-level fighter to do so.

[Dragonborn3]

Dimitri Mazieres wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this setup can't access weapon specialization, since you need to be a 4th-level fighter to do so.

Eldritch Knight levels count(and stack with) fighter levels to determine what feats you can have. A Barbarian1/Abjurer5/Eldritch Knight4 counts as a 4th level Fighter. If you change the barbarian level to fighter, he is treated as having 5 levels of fighter(1 from actual fighter + 4 from EK).

[KaeYoss]

A Man In Black wrote:

This guy has bad BAB, bad HP

BAB: 1 (barbarian) + 2 (abjurer) +10 (eldritch knight) = 13. Not as good as a full-fledged fighter, but better than a cleric or rogue.

HP: 1d12 (full) + 5d6 + 10d10. On average, that's 84,5 plus con bonuses. A full-fledged fighter would have 92,5, a full-fledged cleric 75,5 so again, his HP are better than a cleric's or rogue's, while not quite as good as a fighter's.

I can understand concerns about AC, or the fact that the barbarian only adds a couple of HP to the mix and maybe speed (you can't rage and cast at the same time, anyway), but not that. The stats you mentioned are far from bad.

[Dennis da Ogre]

Barbarian 1/ sorcerer 4/ dragon disciple 4/ Eldritch Knight 10

Advantages

from 6th level BAB progresses at 1:1

+4 strength mostly makes up for the lower BAB

BAB is 17 at 20th level, higher than the cleric

Strength boosts and natural armor make up for MAD to some extent

Dragon Disciple hit points make up for low Sorcerer hit points.

Rage is a nice boost which stacks with most spell boosts.

For the blast and bash fans Draconic breath is an Su which you can use in melee with no AoOs and no spell failure chance.

Bonus feat at 7th level including a mix of martial and casting feats

Downsides:

Reflex saves are going to be painful unless you have a high dex (which doesn't make a lot of sense for this build)

Sorcerer/ bard based only

Caster level is 3 less than character level

BAB and caster level hits both happen by 6th level

No 9th level spells

Alternatives:
Barbarian 1/ bard 4/ dragon disciple 4/ Eldritch Knight 10
Advantages versus above:

+1 BAB

Armored casting (light armor)

Good saves all around
Disadvantages:

Bardic spellcasting

Bardic abilities don't advance

Barbarian 3/ sorcerer 2/ dragon disciple 8/ Eldritch Knight 7
Advantages over 1st build

More rage, barbarian rage power, uncanny dodge

Faster BAB progression at low levels

More hit points at low levels (and ultimately overall)

2 more bonus feats

CON boost

Dragon form which gives flying plus stat boosts that stack with rage

More dragon bloodline/ dragon stuff

Disadvantages:

total of 5 levels of casting lost, goodbye 8th level spells

You can mix/ match the number of levels of barbarian and dragon disciple to meet your preferences for how much you want to mix it up in melee and how much you want to cast. The big problem with dragon disciple is 5th and 9th levels where you lose both a casting level -and- BAB so any builds that involve dragon disciple have to revolve around those levels.

[insaneogeddon]

KaeYoss wrote:

A Man In Black wrote:

This guy has bad BAB, bad HP

BAB: 1 (barbarian) + 2 (abjurer) +10 (eldritch knight) = 13. Not as good as a full-fledged fighter, but better than a cleric or rogue.

HP: 1d12 (full) + 5d6 + 10d10. On average, that's 84,5 plus con bonuses. A full-fledged fighter would have 92,5, a full-fledged cleric 75,5 so again, his HP are better than a cleric's or rogue's, while not quite as good as a fighter's.

I can understand concerns about AC, or the fact that the barbarian only adds a couple of HP to the mix and maybe speed (you can't rage and cast at the same time, anyway), but not that. The stats you mentioned are far from bad.

Better bab than med, better HP than d8. Thats a win. Added is specialisation, some other fighter feats at higher level and in this case fast move (and rage for when in antimagic or wrestling squishy mages). Anti magic like rage is a weapon in your arsenal for those situations spells and buffed melee don't cut it (like vs a lich).

The whole point of a warrior mage is flexibility. If you want melee power go 20 paladin or fighter or for caster power 20 wizard but both those will fall to boss spellcasters, summoned armies, melee monsrour monstrosities and you will live.

[Red-Assassin]

My idea's I have picked up and hobbled together along the way, starting out with 18 cha and 16 str all other stats at 10. Advancing the DD Prc and 2 ability raises from leveling to cha, yields cha 20 str 20 con 12

Paly Sorc DraDisc
Lev 2 3 10
Hd 2D10 3d6 10d12 avg 86 at con 12 +1 101
sav 3/0/3 1/1/3 5/3/5 9/4/12 +5 cha 20 15/8/17
BaB 2 1 7 9 Str 20 for +5

Claw and bite attacks 1d6+(1d6energy)+5 (7 for bite)
+5 nat armor/breath weapon 13d6 x2day dc20/flight/blindsense/resist energy 10/Smite Evilx1
Only able to cast 5th spells and form of the dragon I and II.

Not to bad considering no feats, or armor considered.

[A Man In Black]

This is what happens when you quote only part of a post, attack it, then declare the discussion complete.

Why is this guy entering melee at all? He's a melee attacker without even Power Attack for crying out loud. He's fairly squishy for most of his career, has terrible BAB for most of his career, and is chiefly an arcane spellcaster. Rather than moving up front and waving a sword about for trivial damage, his best move in almost every situation is to cast a spell.

[insaneogeddon]

A Man In Black wrote:

This is what happens when you quote only part of a post, attack it, then declare the discussion complete.

Why is this guy entering melee at all? He's a melee attacker without even Power Attack for crying out loud. He's fairly squishy for most of his career, has terrible BAB for most of his career, and is chiefly an arcane spellcaster. Rather than moving up front and waving a sword about for trivial damage, his best move in almost every situation is to cast a spell.

Unless: massive saves, sr etc. The Eldrich Knight is a warrior with magic buffs, backing and flexibility. Too many warriors get shut down at high level, Eldrich Knight (or dragon disciple) is a way to keep melee (which is what such an INDIVIDUAL PLAYER wants) resistant to shut down till high level an able to hit those bosses with greater invis/mirror image/shield or port thru their defenses or ignore their summoned tanks.

If DMs do to players what a player does to DMs than a caster warrior survives brilliantly and cuts all those 'god wizards' a new one as they rely on their summoned creatures and lock downs to no effect!

[Dennis da Ogre]

A Man In Black wrote:

This is what happens when you quote only part of a post, attack it, then declare the discussion complete.

Why is this guy entering melee at all? He's a melee attacker without even Power Attack for crying out loud. He's fairly squishy for most of his career, has terrible BAB for most of his career, and is chiefly an arcane spellcaster. Rather than moving up front and waving a sword about for trivial damage, his best move in almost every situation is to cast a spell.

Take more levels of fighter/ barbarian... dial in to suit...

Ultimately you are going to have one thing you are good at, either fighting or casting. The other thing is going to be a sideline thing. The 5 levels of wiz required for Eldritch Knight make it lean towards casting. You can enter Dragon Disciple with only 1 level of bard/ sorcerer (though 2 makes more sense) and make a much more melee focused character.

[dracobane]

I want to first bring up one point: Has anyone compared your mixtures to that of a straight 20 levels in bard? I found that a prestige class bard mixture is better than a bard, which just further proves that bards really do seem to be useless still.

I was trying to search to see if anyone had any hints for an eldritch knight combo that is far more fighter based. Looks like most people prefer to keep the caster levels and in doing so lose so much for fighting.

Has anyone looked into combining this with the Spellsword prestige class? Although not an official pathfinder class, my DM has allowed it. Taking at least 3 levels in Spellsword means a -15% armor failure chance. Combine that with the arcane armor feats and you have -35% failure, which matches full plate armor. I went for 4 levels in it, to have the ability to cast on my sword (which is kind of the point of that class).

Wiz (trans) 3 / Fighter 3 / Spellsword 4 / Eldritch Knight 10

Spells to focus on: conjuration, transmutation. Main thing to stay away from are spells with saves. Buffs are better than damage. Controlling spells are of course best.

Advantages:
- only lose 2 BAB, which can be offset with a transformation.
- full plate armor means you AC could match that fighter in the group
- as a trans specialist, you get to add to str, dex, or con. Can change it daily, so it's up to whatever stat is hurting at the time.
- considered a 13th level fighter. Sure, you can't get crit mastery, but seeing as your crits are already devastating since they allow a spell to be cast, I don't think you need that.

Disadvantages:
- it's more fighter based, so that's 6 levels of caster lost. 7th level spells is all you get.
- from personal experience, levels 5 and 6 are HELL. You are gimped in all ways and you feel like a bard. However, when comparing the two you really are in the same boat.

[Xum]

A Man In Black wrote:

This is what happens when you quote only part of a post, attack it, then declare the discussion complete.

Why is this guy entering melee at all? He's a melee attacker without even Power Attack for crying out loud. He's fairly squishy for most of his career, has terrible BAB for most of his career, and is chiefly an arcane spellcaster. Rather than moving up front and waving a sword about for trivial damage, his best move in almost every situation is to cast a spell.

Because this guy has the tools to crush most total caster classes. He can dispel, buff and cast the oh so mighty antimagic shell, and with that crush any wizard, sorcerer, bard and priest, with his bare hands. That's what a class like this is mostly for.

[Dennis da Ogre]

dracobane wrote:

I want to first bring up one point: Has anyone compared your mixtures to that of a straight 20 levels in bard? I found that a prestige class bard mixture is better than a bard, which just further proves that bards really do seem to be useless still.

I was trying to search to see if anyone had any hints for an eldritch knight combo that is far more fighter based. Looks like most people prefer to keep the caster levels and in doing so lose so much for fighting.

Because people are sticking to the core rules and the core doesn't have any fighter based Eldritch Knight options. You are stuck with 5 levels of wizard.

[Robert Carter 58]

I have a question- does the Transmuter's Physical Enhancement ability have a duration? Because, if so it's not in the book.

This looks like a very cool ability for a potential Eldritch Knight, and could make a lot of difference in their potential. It's not as big a deal to the wizard who doesn't really mix it up in melee, but the EK could get a lot of mileage out of it. When I get some free time, I may stat up a Fighter/Transmuter/EK...

[Xum]

The enhancement is always on, but it won't do you much good, since you will only have +2 in either Strength, Dex or Con, considering u r not above 20 level, and stuck with EK till the end.

[Dennis da Ogre]

Xum wrote:

The enhancement is always on, but it won't do you much good, since you will only have +2 in either Strength, Dex or Con, considering u r not above 20 level, and stuck with EK till the end.

Hmm... considering how Attribute dependant the eldritch knight is and how expensive the three stat booster items are this isn't a horrible use of an ability. At low levels you can get a belt for strength only and use the stat bump to bump constitution or dexterity. At higher levels you can get a belt for CON/ STR and use this to bump DEX.

Overall not a horrible use of a class ability... considering how strong transmutation is as a class it is a good match for Eldritch Knight.