It seems that even from 3.5 days the Eldritch Knight tended to be left in the dust when it came to the power curve. Of course, there were alot of broken things in 3.5.
In Pathfinder, they got a definite boost. However, they still seem to fall short in light of specialist and bloodline abilities that they miss out on, and their abilities pale in comparison to the Magus (which looks pretty nice, by the way).
The advent of Ultimate Magic looks like it might be a good opportunity to give the Eldritch Knight some love, such as, perhaps, making diverse training a little more useful by adding some feats that require both fighter and spellcaster levels to qualify for, and maybe a feat to allow them to use either arcane strike OR arcane armour training *without* losing out on potentially using their capstone ability?
Im confused, how does arcane armor training or arcane strike prevent the EK from using its capstone ability?
EK isnt' weaker than a magus.
Much better spell casting ability alot more spells/choice.
Magus doesnt get any blood line or wizard school abilites at all.
The EK at least gets some use of out them.
Although i agree, allowing diverse training to let the EK use full character level for the blood line or school powers should be allowed.
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Im confused, how does arcane armor training or arcane strike prevent the EK from using its capstone ability?
EK isnt' weaker than a magus.
Much better spell casting ability alot more spells/choice.
Magus doesnt get any blood line or wizard school abilites at all.
The EK at least gets some use of out them.Although i agree, allowing diverse training to let the EK use full character level for the blood line or school powers should be allowed.
Both Arcane Armor and the Capstone ability need a Swift action to use
Both Arcane Armor and the Capstone ability need a Swift action to use
And arcane strike and quicken spell and a whole slew of other miscellaneous swift actions.
arcane armor training needing a swift action is so lame we havent used it in forever, i forgot that it existed
arcane armor training needing a swift action is so lame we havent used it in forever, i forgot that it existed
I can understand some balance in wanting an arcane warrior to choose between one or the other, or a quickened spell. But preventing an Eldritch Knight from using these feats (which will often be helpful to him at the lower levels) once he attains his capstone seems to be some kind of bug in the system imo. Personally, I would love to see it worked out in some way in ultimate magic, which seems a rather appropriate placee to do it.
What I hope for is a 'use this instead' errata-type thing in Ultimate Magic.
I liked what Iron Kingdoms guys did about their Arcane Mechanik. The core book AMek sucked. It really did, and so they were good and honest and agreed that it sucked. So instead of patching it with awkward feats and spells and options shoehorned in, they up and replaced AMek with a new, balanced AMek class in the Liber Mechanika.
A good alternative was the Abjurant Champion from complete mage. Although they made a mistake in the example character who got the Abjurant Armor bonus to Mage Armor (a Conjuration spell).
A good alternative was the Abjurant Champion from complete mage. Although they made a mistake in the example character who got the Abjurant Armor bonus to Mage Armor (a Conjuration spell).
Didn't they FAQ that so Mage Armor was allowed after all?
I am thinking of playing an Abjurant champion (scratch that im DEF gonna play one)and would love an answer to the above question and maybe a link to said FAQ?
Both Arcane Armor and the Capstone ability need a Swift action to useAnd arcane strike and quicken spell and a whole slew of other miscellaneous swift actions.
The fact that Arcane Strike and Arcane Armor both require a swift action is immaterial, since an EK wouldn't normally be casting a spell and swinging a sword in the same round anyway. It just means that they lose out on AS for AoO's if AA is used. I can see a balance justification for not letting Quickened spells and AA being used at the same time. It's a choice after all. Not sure it'd be a GOOD justification mind you, but it's there.
However the capstone ability of the EK (cast a spell as a swift action on a crit) means that by RAW you have to stop using AS altogether if you ever want Spell Critical to trigger, but you'll never know exactly when you'll get that crit to use it.
Personally, the way I'd allow it to happen is that the EK uses AS by default when attacking, but if they score a critical hit they don't get the bonus damage from AS, and instead can use Spell Critical. This might even be RAW, since I don't see anything that specifies that you have to declare AS before you roll. You're still stuck with a spell failure chance from any armor you might be wearing however.
However the capstone ability of the EK (cast a spell as a swift action on a crit) means that by RAW you have to stop using AS altogether if you ever want Spell Critical to trigger, but you'll never know exactly when you'll get that crit to use it.
Personally, the way I'd allow it to happen is that the EK uses AS by default when attacking, but if they score a critical hit they don't get the bonus damage from AS, and instead can use Spell Critical. This might even be RAW, since I don't see anything that specifies that you have to declare AS before you roll.
The thing about Spell Critical and Arcane Strike ´over lapping´ in Swift Action demand is also that Spell Critical USES YOUR SPELL SLOTS. You may well not want to burn your spell slots for spell critical in a given encounter... (possibly because you´re out or almost out of spells and aren´t expecting to die if you don´t use Spell Critical... or you don´t have that great of spells prepped for the encounter, or the target has SR that you don´t want to chance wasting your spells on... etc). Arcane Strike is the ´sustainable´ offensive option there.
Obviously house-rules can change this, but I´m pretty sure you DO need to ´declare´ (rather, activate) Arcane Strike before an attack, in fact before a Full Attack Action as a whole if you are making one, because Swift Actions don´t normally ´interrupt´ other actions (unlike Free Actions), so you need to have it activated already before any attack´s action is begun.
That said, I´m in agreement with the OP, I hope to see similar types of options for the ElK so they aren´t COMPLETELY outclassed by the Magus at their own schtick. Then again, JJ has posted that they would probably re-build their ElK iconic (Seltiel) as a Magus, which to me says that the Magus is indeed taking over the ElK´s territory, so to speak. ElK then really just exists as ´filler´ for other caster/melee hybrid builds, like Arcane Archer. The vast empty levels of ElK before the Capstone just don´t remotely measure up to PRPG´s standards for that... It is more of a ´we had to do this class to match the 3.5 PHB/DMG, but we will try to forget we made it as soon as possible´.