Eldritch Knight & Arcane Trickster Alternate Schools

[Drayrs]

Build feasibility aside, does anyone see any balance problems with changing the available schools for the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster (Evocation/Abjuration and Enchantment/Illusion respectively) for any combination of 2 other schools?

Being able to tailor the subclasses to specific character concepts might appeal to my players, and I don't see an issue with it at face value. However, I have not had the time to DM more than a game or two so I am uncertain what may or may not pose a problem.

[calebrus]

Our table simply allows the addition of a single third school of the player's choice. That keeps the theme intact, while allowing for a little bit of customization for a concept, without free reign for any spell at any time (other than the few choices they get inherent).
13 total. 4 from any school. 9 from three schools (the 2 inherent and one choice).
All in all, this works very well.

[Yorrin]

I'd be more likely to tell them they can swap one school but have to keep the other. Still allows for a bit more build flexibility, but keeps things closer to the original.

[da_chicken]

Transmutation is wildly better than Evocation and Enchantment, but it may be that you just gain new spell levels too slowly to matter. Transmutation would be where I'd expect to find problems, however.

[MrStabby]

Given that they have the ability to take limited spells from the other schools anyway and are not OP the only way they would get a big power boost would be if there were interactions that became available with more spells of those schools. I say the risk is minimal but the character benefits are potentially large.

I say go for it.

[silveralen]

Probably not, but it's hard to say.

A transmutation/evocation arcane trickster will have a much more diverse set of abilities than a default one, but won't have charm/illusion to stack on top of his likely strong default stealth/cha skills.

In general I'd say the limited ability to pick outside your schools, low rate of progression, and limited spells known make any balance issue in this fairly minor. You'd likely see more discrepancy in power due to optimization or class choice naturally than you will between different school variations of these classes.

[Drayrs]

Thanks folks, this is reassuring. It will take a while for any balance issues to show up, what with the sheer number of combinations, but I will see what happens.

[Chronos]

I think that for a rogue, Illusion and Charm are probably the best choices anyway, as they complement your skills (and there are some really nice spells in those two schools, anyway).

Eldritch knights would definitely benefit by replacing Evocation with Transmutation, though, since that's where most of the combat buffs are. Yeah, you can pick up one or two of them anyway, but there's a big difference between one or two good spells and all the good spells. Then again, I also think that EKs are underpowered as they stand, so making them more powerful isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[ZenBear]

I think that for a rogue, Illusion and Charm are probably the best choices anyway, as they complement your skills (and there are some really nice spells in those two schools, anyway).

Eldritch knights would definitely benefit by replacing Evocation with Transmutation, though, since that's where most of the combat buffs are. Yeah, you can pick up one or two of them anyway, but there's a big difference between one or two good spells and all the good spells. Then again, I also think that EKs are underpowered as they stand, so making them more powerful isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Would house ruling that they get Transmutation as well make the EK OP?

[Drayrs]

I would probably limit the school selection to 2, as opposed to adding schools. Unless there are a markedly higher number of spells in one school over another, balance should be maintained that way.

[Logosloki]

If you want to go the extra mile, why nite simply write up a dedicated spell list for EK and AT?

[Easy_Lee]

It's noteworthy that allowing your ATs and EKs to swap their schools cannot be more broken than a standard wizard or bard. Any spell they can cast on themselves or for themselves could be cast by someone else. And their casting stays low-level enough that they really can't pick up the more broken options. Besides that, individually broken spells are already available through the freebie slots they get.

So I don't see anything wrong with it.