Hey Guys, here is an Eldritch knight build I was thinking of using in organized play. His main weapon is the amazing elven curve blade (full power attack with a finesse weapon), and he will begin his journey into gishdom at level 3.
I thought transmutation would be the easiest wizard spec for a Gish since nuking and save or suck builds are pretty feat intensive, and gishes need a lot of feats to be effective in melee. The single meta-magic feat grabbed is still spell, so I can have a spell or two ready that doesn't face arcane failure when I don't have a minor action for arcane armor training. Magical Knack lets him get caster level based feats on time despite loosing spell progression from fighter and eldritch knight, and warrior of old is just sweet icing on the initiative cake.
Later Feats are about what you would expect, focus and spec in the elven curve blade, critical focus for later crit feats, the only one I'm on the fence about is toughness, I wish I could take it earlier because of the low Con, but better late than never. So check it out and let me know what you guys think, thanks in advance.
Elf Wizard(Transmuter) 5/ Fighter 1/ Eldritch Knight 6
Favored class wizard
Starting stats (20 pt buy)
Str: 14 (+1)
Dex: 16 (+3)
Con: 10
Int: 18 (+4)
Wis: 10
Cha: 8 (-1)
Traits
Magical Knack
Warrior Of Old
Opposition Schools
Necromancy
Enchantment
Lv1 1 - Wizard (1)
Feat - Weapon Finess
lvl 2 - Wizard (2)
Lvl 3 - Fighter (1)
Feat - Power attack (F), Arcane Armor training
lvl 4 - Wizard (3)
Dex +1
Lvl 5 - Wizard (4)
Lvl 6 - Wizard (5)
Feat - Weapon Focus (Elven Curve Blade), Still Spell (W)
Lvl 7 - Eldritch Knight (1)
Feat - Arcane Armor Mastery (F)
Lvl 8 - Eldritch Knight (2)
Dex +1
Lvl 9 - Eldritch Knight (3)
Feat - Weapon Spec (Elven Curve Blade)
Lvl 10 - Eldritch Knight (4)
Lvl 11 - Eldritch Knight (5)
Feat - Toughness (F)
Lvl 12 - Eldritch Knight (6)
Int +1, Feat - Critical Focus
That's an interesting build. It's very old-school, and I like it. Don't change a thing.
You always go full DEX, grab dervish dance, a scimitar, and a Hamaraki, and go from there.
You won't even need the STR for power attack because of Piranha strike. Elven Curve Blade doesn't wont get you much extra damage anyways with only a 14 STR.
Other than that, I like it.
Well, you might want to grab toughness at level 3 instead of power attack so you can both keep your attack roll up and get some HP to soak up some more damage, because level 11 is too late for you to see any use from it. Or Arcane Strike which offers less of an attack bonus, and some action economy issues but with no attack penalty. Your attack bonus doesn't look great at some of the earlier levels.
An option, even if some say its a little cheesy, is to go with the Scryer subschool of divination, because divination is a good school for gishes, and entering at level 3 due to your nifty SLA with Wizard1/Fighter1/Eldritch Knightx. You have to buy a lot of spells, but lets be honest, spells are cheap enough that it won't take a huge chunk out of your WBL.
Still, it looks like an awesome build as it is. Hope you have fun with it.
Master of the Dark Triad wrote: You always go full DEX, grab dervish dance, a scimitar, and a Hamaraki, and go from there.
You won't even need the STR for power attack because of Piranha strike. Elven Curve Blade doesn't wont get you much extra damage anyways with only a 14 STR.
Other than that, I like it.
You can't use Piranha Strike with a scimitar. It's a one handed weapon, and even with Dervish Dance it's considered a one handed piercing weapon. Piranha strike can only be used with light weapons.
i played a fighter 1/transmuter 5/EK upto 10th level... it was fun, and i built him well enough that he was consistently effective (in a reach/combat reflexes build), but with the new rule that SLAs count as spells for feats and PrCs (which amrouredmonk mentioned), i would definitely suggest taking that route. in society play you're only going to get to what 11-12th level? if you're willing to optimize (and good at it) you can be plenty effective as a ftr1/wiz5/ek6, but a ftr1/wiz1/ek10 is really just much easier to build well and will generally make for a more effective character (without being at all broken, at least in my experience- i've played one of these too)
also: thank you aratrok for reminding folks that piranha strike cannot be combined with scimitar... i see people make that mistake so often on these forums.
Hmm, maybe I bump arcane armor training to lv 6, because being able to wear leather isn't that great until I can get better than mage armor with 10% spell failure. That will push back focus and spec, but that's not a big deal since I'll have plenty of ways to get an extra +1/+2.
As for the hit bonus it's not great but it's not terrible, at level 3 it's a +5 (+3 dex +2 bab), and it goes to +6 (+4 dex + 2 bab) at level four which is a little behind a finesse rouge. Plus without power attack, he'll hit like a wet noodle (1d0+3). With power attack his damage is at least passable (1d10 + 6), and it can be inflated fairly easily via buffs (enlarge person, bulls strength, both of which are bonus spells for him).
As for using a SLA to get into EK early, I had heard that it was possible, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. It almost seems like cheating, I wanted to make this char to show that EK is alive and well in pathfinder, and that magus is no replacement for it. So I don't know if I want to violate the spirit of the PRC,
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