Eldritch Knight - fighter or barbarian

[Winds of Nagual]

So, I am building an elvish (15-point buy) sorcerer using words of power. Call me Wordlinger. Anywho, I eventually want to get into Eldritch knight - Dervish Dance feats. For sorcerer I am using Sage bloodline (Int instead of Cha spells). For my martial class do I go with:

Fighter - 10 hp and a bonus feat
or
Barbarian - 12 hp, faster move, rage (limited), perception class skill

the feat is always helpful, but movement and hp help as well - and I won't be wearing med armor anyway. Ranger could be a possibility, but I don't see what I would get out of it. Sohei monk hits my stats too hard.

So, thoughts?

[Waker]

You might want to adjust the name of the topic to inlcude (PF) in it so that people know you are wanting advice on Pathfinder as opposed to 3.5.
Anyways, if you are going Sage Sorcerer into Eldritch Knight, you might benefit from taking Lore Warden Fighter. You lose armor proficiency, but in exchange you gain extra skill points and extra skills.

[Fax Celestis]

Not barbarian, because rage messes with your spells, and you can just take rage as a spell known and cast it on yourself.

[Beelzebub1111]

If I'm not mistaken you can't cast while raging so that's a downside
Some other options for you to consider:
Ranger: D10, favored enemy, wild empathy, 6+int skill points
Paladin: D10, Detect Evil, Smite Evil 1/day
Cavalier: D10, Challenge 1/day, Mount Companion, Bonus Teamwork Feat
Gunslinger: D10, Deeds, Grit, Gunsmith

All some very solid choices in addition to those mentioned.

[Winds of Nagual]

All good suggestions! I was avoiding paladin for alignment reasons, cavalier for mount reasons, and gunslinger for GM reasons. I figured I might not ever even need rage from barbarian but 12 hp at lvl 1 and 40' movement is nice.

Lore warden is a good call - too bad perception isn't int. based.

[JusticeZero]

Aegis is also a possibility, if you have access to psionics classes. You don't have to have access to psionics itself, as Aegis isn't a manifesting class. You'd get a bit of flexibility there with astral suit abilities and the like that the other options might not offer as much of. I suppose you could look at the Marksman, but the most meleeish that one gets is a spear user.

[Winds of Nagual]

And no psionics. My GM is conservative but fair. Actually works pretty well.

[watchwood]

If you're going to be making heavy use of your spells, I'd be leaning towards Barbarian for the movement bonus and perception boost.

Of course, if you're playing Pathfinder I'd also suggest looking into the Magus class, it's basically a gish in a can.

[Winds of Nagual]

LOL - Definitely Pathfinder. GM said no Magus. I know a bit harsh but a great teacher once told me "Limitation is the soul to all creativity"

[HunterOfJello]

Fighter -> Imp. Initiative
would be my generic answer. Going first in a fight is massive in fights for spellcasters.


Fighter through the feat you gets is a much wider option than the others. Look at the combat feats before making a decision.

[Winds of Nagual]

Combat feats are easy. Weapon finesse to Dervish Dance. But starting with init. +7 is nice.