I'm playing a witch (11th level, with 1 level of fighter)and I've decided to go up as elderich knight next level. She's a crocodile shifter, with a 9 strength (10 when in my croc form), a dex of 18 and an intelligence of 28. My gm allowed me to take a feat from the Advanced Options: Witches Hexes (Medusa Locks) which gives me a natural attack with my Prehensile Hair, which allows me to use my intelligence modifier instead of my strength.
Can anyone suggest a few feats for me? Really the only fighter type feat I have right now is Arcane Strike. I was considering taking Improved Natural Attack to raise my hair to a 1d8 rather than a 1d6 dmg, but I was hoping for some other options to look over.
I wouldn't really recommend Improved Natural Attack. Increasing the size of your damage die sounds great in theory, but it's only an increase of average damage by 1 point. That's probably not really worth a feat. If you've already got Arcane Strike though, there's a feat called Riving Strike that you might find useful.
If you're looking to boost your damage, Power Attack is obviously a useful damage boost that's more or less mandatory for something like a barbarian or fighter, but in this case your to-hit bonus is probably low enough that Power Attack would be a questionable choice (if your DM would allow you to use Furious Focus with your natural attack, that would offset the penalty completely since you're not getting multiple attacks if you only want to use your natural weapon). Normally, I wouldn't recommend Vital Strike but because you're using a natural attack, you don't get iteratives anyway and it might not be a bad choice here. It's still not great though, because it's only +3.5 damage on average. There aren't a lot of great options for boosting your damage via feats in this situation- magic items will probably be more helpful.
Improved natural attack will add an average of 1 damage. I expect you can find a lot that would be better.
If you have the level of fighter already eldritch knight isn't a bad choice, but the reality is even with the big int damage on the hair, no matter what feats you have it seems unlikely that attacking with the hair will be a better option than using a spell or a hex in any situation that matter.
If it doesn't matter, then using your hair to make attacks because it is fun and something to do makes sense, but using feats for it probably doesn't.
I will note that one big downside of a witch becoming an eldritch knight is that your hex DCs don't increase. If you have some of the save or suck or save or lose hexes, eldritch knight might be a poor choice.
Power Attack doesn't matter anyway, it requires Strength 13, the witch only has a 9 normal, 10 shapeshifted.
That's true, the prerequisite slipped my mind because it's never mattered for any character I've actually taken Power Attack with (who have a lot more than 13 STR even at level 1). She could qualify for it if she wore a Belt of Giant's Strength +4 or similar item though, and though taking a feat you only qualify for by the grace of a magic item is the sort of thing that'll make you paranoid.
If the Witch can increase her to-hit sufficiently, then buying a +4 STR item and taking Power Attck is the best path for a damage increase.
Honestly, my hexes currently have a save of 24-26, so quite reasonable numbers there. I'm a cardmancer, so no familiar growth at all there, no matter the level. I do lose the Patron spells, but honestly, I can take them as actual spells in most cases if they're useful.
I will be the first to admit that this character isn't exactly optimized, but I love the idea of where its going. I hadn't considered Vital Strike, but that and Pirahana Strike are both really interesting ideas to play with. Vital Strike especially, since I can also start playing with enlarging my character as well.
Thank you for the ideas so far! Keep them coming if you've come up with other ideas. I may be looking at more monster feats, since Natural Attacks is something that most players don't have to deal with but monsters do all the time.
If the Witch can increase her to-hit sufficiently, then buying a +4 STR item and taking Power Attck is the best path for a damage increase.
True, and that's what I was thinking. Unfortunately since her natural weapon is using INT-to-hit, increasing her STR won't actually increase her accuracy (although if she's mixing iteratives with her natural attack, it would obviously help with those).
Thank you for the ideas so far! Keep them coming if you've come up with other ideas. I may be looking at more monster feats, since Natural Attacks is something that most players don't have to deal with but monsters do all the time.
I don't think there are many monster feats that will be helpful to you as is. I was going to suggest using spells like Monstrous Physique to gain more natural attacks, but to my great surprise those "Form of X" spells are almost totally absent from the witch's spell list!
However, depending on how your DM interprets the Prehensile Hair hex you may find that your hair counts as a third arm (I would say that it does, if it were my game) in which case you would qualify for Multiweapon Specialist. Now, of course, as a caster you don't want to be holding a weapon in both of your hands, Eldritch Knight or not (and you're limited to natural attacks with your third "hand"). But if you can find a way to get two claw attacks, or take Improved Unarmed Strike, you can keep your hands open for casting spells while still being able to get the +2 bonus to all your damage rolls from Multiweapon Specialist.
You will have to raise your DEX to qualify, though. But if you already want to pick up Piranha Strike, which requires Weapon Finesse, you may well be wanting to increase your DEX anyway.
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I really think Eldritch Knight is a poor choice for any witch, even with a melee focus. It will give you an increase in BAB, but none of your class feature progress. Hexes, your Familiar, and Patron Spells will stop growing.
Witch/EK can work nicely for something like a Strength Patron Witch who primarily uses the spells, and takes hexes like Nails and Flight. That's more a rather specialized 'half-Witch' though.