So i have a lvl 7 cohort to build. The fluff points the Dm has given me are: race: Elf, female, must be attempting to go the way of the Eldritch Knight. She was a royal guard prior to being captured by some giants, from which we rescued her. Using the Hero Npc stat block, and all of the standard rules apply. My only personal preference is to have her use the elven curve blade. Other than that, its open.
I'm considering Fighter 5 / Wizard 2 with her being apprenticed to me (teh wizard) until she gets to F-5/W-5 then going EK, but i'm not sure thats the best way. Open to ideas!
sub-op please!?!
I'm sorry, I have no idea what you are saying.
there is a single class that does the whole eldritch knight thing without gimping theirself. it's called the magus. i would go with a black blade kensai magus. ask your DM to allow it.
Magus Array
Str 13 =13
Dex 15 +2 +1 =18
Con 14 -2 =12
Int 12 +2 = 14
Wis 10 +0 =10
Cha 8 +0 =8
i would go for the following spells
no save touch spells
no save battle field control spells
buffing spells
i would also advise you to put 2 ranks in perform (dance) and take the dervish dance feat and use a scimitar in conjunction with power attack. you can't carry a weapon or shield in your off hand, but there is nothing saying you can't carry a torch in that hand.
the black blade archtype gives you a free intellegent magic weapon that scales with level and the kensai archtype allows you to take fighter feats.
there is a single class that does the whole eldritch knight thing without gimping theirself. it's called the magus. i would go with a black blade kensai magus. ask your DM to allow it.
Magus Array
Str 13 =13
Dex 15 +2 +1 =18
Con 14 -2 =12
Int 12 +2 = 14
Wis 10 +0 =10
Cha 8 +0 =8i would go for the following spells
no save touch spells
no save battle field control spells
buffing spellsi would also advise you to put 2 ranks in perform (dance) and take the dervish dance feat and use a scimitar in conjunction with power attack. you can't carry a weapon or shield in your off hand, but there is nothing saying you can't carry a torch in that hand.
the black blade archtype gives you a free intellegent magic weapon that scales with level and the kensai archtype allows you to take fighter feats.
The Gm is who specified the Eldritch Knight, i'm just trying to make her the best i can. I've fired off an email to him asking if Magus would be a sufficient substitution, but he's not too big on the Magus
edit- Magus is a no go. He's not allowing that class yet, as he hasnt picked up the Ultimate books so he's not familiar with it.
The classic method of getting to eldritch Knight is Ftr 1/Wiz 5 then EK up to 10. However, if the backstory of this cohort is that she was a guard for a while, that does make sense to have more levels of fighter. It won't be optimal, necessarily, because you won't get to a class that will increase her BAB and bonus feats at the same rate as her spells, and she'll never get above 7th level spells. With the traditional EK build, you have the option of taking 4 levels of wizard after the EK is tapped out, giving you the equivalent of 18th level wizard casting.
Anyway, see if your DM would allow her to be a half elf instead. That many levels of two base classes, it would be helpful for her to be able to take favored class bonuses more often.
Also, find out whether she can take traits. Traits can be a big help, especially the Magical Knack trait, for spellcasters who wish to multiclass.
Just a random throught, you could always buy the Ultimate Magic PDF online, costs only $10. Then you could print out the pages about the Magus and allow him to review it. Worst case scenario, he says no and you're out the cost of two Venti Mocha Lattes.
Thanks, good ideas. Ill ask about traits and going halvsies. I'm not looking for her to be terribly optimal, but I would like for her to be effective. Thinking about going transmutation school for the buffs. Also urban barbarian rather than fighter. Feat weak, but the rage bonus to physical stats seems nice
Why not just point him here:
The Magus
Why not just point him here:
The Magus
mainly because we've argued a bit about other things and i dont really want to press the point on something (leadership feat) that he normally doesnt allow. You know, trying to be a team player and make sure its still fun for him and all that jazz.
I would suggest that you make her an archer-focused fighter unless you really need a front-liner, especially if you have to go straight elf (-2 to CON makes tanking harder). The Archer archetype makes a lot of sense. Have her wear elven chainmail plus a buckler for maximum maneuverability, and arcane armor training/Mastery so she can negate arcane spell failure chance as a swift action.
I agree that Transmutation might be best for the wizard school. Divination and Conjuration aren't bad either, but there are lots of transmutation spells that will allow her to buff the party and also buff her own arrows. Whatever you do, don't have her take transmutation as an opposition school.
Elven Curve blade makes sense as a backup weapon if something comes up close and she needs to attack in melee. She can't cast while using it, though, since it's two-handed. That probably won't come up too much. If you go half-elf, use the ancestral arms racial trait from the APG if you want to use this. Alternatively, you could use an Aldori dueling sword, since I presume you are going for weapon finesse, and use ancestral arms for that, which leaves one hand free.
Urban Barbarian isn't a bad idea, but is your DM going to allow an archetype from Ultimate Combat if he's already disallowed a class from Ultimate Magic? The controlled rage ability is a little unclear as to whether it allows her to cast spells while in rage; I would allow it as a DM but RAW say you can use INT, WIS, or CHA based skills, but doesn't negate the statement in normal barbarian rage that you can't use abilities that require concentration. In addition, losing medium armor proficiency means that you would not be able to take arcane armor mastery as easily.
I would suggest that you make her an archer-focused fighter unless you really need a front-liner, especially if you have to go straight elf (-2 to CON makes tanking harder). The Archer archetype makes a lot of sense. Have her wear elven chainmail plus a buckler for maximum maneuverability, and arcane armor training/Mastery so she can negate arcane spell failure chance as a swift action.
I agree that Transmutation might be best for the wizard school. Divination and Conjuration aren't bad either, but there are lots of transmutation spells that will allow her to buff the party and also buff her own arrows. Whatever you do, don't have her take transmutation as an opposition school.
Elven Curve blade makes sense as a backup weapon if something comes up close and she needs to attack in melee. She can't cast while using it, though, since it's two-handed. That probably won't come up too much. If you go half-elf, use the ancestral arms racial trait from the APG if you want to use this. Alternatively, you could use an Aldori dueling sword, since I presume you are going for weapon finesse, and use ancestral arms for that, which leaves one hand free.
Urban Barbarian isn't a bad idea, but is your DM going to allow an archetype from Ultimate Combat if he's already disallowed a class from Ultimate Magic? The controlled rage ability is a little unclear as to whether it allows her to cast spells while in rage; I would allow it as a DM but RAW say you can use INT, WIS, or CHA based skills, but doesn't negate the statement in normal barbarian rage that you can't use abilities that require concentration. In addition, losing medium armor proficiency means that you would not be able to take arcane armor mastery as easily.
For fluff's sake i'm going to try to play her as a personal bodyguard, as that was the role she was in previously. That being the case, i would prefer her to not be archery focused. Again not optimal, but i'm trying to be fair with the feat as it seems to be open for abuse. Of course she'll carry a bow, she's an elf for god's sake :P. I am going with a finesse build, so she will be decent enough with the bow.
Aldori sword looks like a winner for a main weapon, but a 2 feat investment seems like alot.
Ah i use the srd site to build my characters and forgot to check the origin of the Urban Barb. So thats out, thanks for pointing that out to me.
So overall looks like i'm back to Fighter/Wizard. If i use the Aldori sword with a fighter build, i wont feel the pain of the feat investement as much.
Given the Hero NPC stat array, 15,14,13,12,10,8, I'm looking at:
str 13 (+1 lvl 4) = 14
dex 15 (+2 race) = 17
con 14 (-2 race) = 12
int 12 (+2 race) = 14
wis 10
cha 8
As noted with the half-elf, you can use ancestral arms to get proficiency with the aldori sword. If you're stuck with elf, curve blade would be the way to go if you're doing melee. If you split your feats between melee-focused and archery focused, that would make sense. Take first level feat as weapon finesse, bonus feat as point-blank shot, weapon focus (curve blade) level 2, precise shot or rapid shot at level 3, power attack level 4, deadly aim level 5, then she turns wizard at level 6 and gets scribe scroll. Now, if your DM allowed her to have Magical Knack for additional caster level, take Arcane armor training at level 7. Now she can use a mithril chain shirt for 10% arcane spell failure, and reduce it to 0% as a swift action, or a mithril breastplate and reduce it to 5%. If he didn't allow that trait, you could perhaps take 4 levels of fighter and 3 of wizard to allow arcane armor training at 7th. If you don't want to do that, then to avoid arcane spell failure, she could also stock up on wands, take still spell at level 7, and possibly buy a lesser rod of still spell (which even though it's not listed in the CRB, ought to be 3000gp, well within the wealth-by-level of a 7th level character). I really don't recommend waiting on arcane armor training until level 9 though, because arcane spell failure is really frustrating! Still spell at level 9 is a viable option for when you can't afford a swift action.
Thanks for the advice, you are my hero. Well you and Burt Reynolds
Another thought I had was if you have her take magical Knack as a trait, take wizard at level 5 instead of fighter, then another level of fighter at 6, then wizard from that point forward. Wizard at level 5 will mean her CL is 3 thanks to magical Knack, allowing you to take Arcane Armor training immediately, then something else like arcane strike at level 7.