PwrHngryTortois
2018-09-12, 03:39 PM
Eldritch Knight is a subclass of fighter that attempts to mix casting and melee combat, but fails somewhat by not giving the player enough incentive to not just play like a normal fighter who can occasionally protect or buff him/herself with a bonus or reaction spell. Why can't the EK Find some way to cast and swing in the same turn?
Well, War Magic aims to fix this at 7th level, allowing you to make an attack as a bonus action if you use a cantrip as your action. This is fun and traditionally goes with Green Flame Blade to do 2 x Swings + 1d8 and hits another creature (assuming Great Weapon Fighter and greatsword if not a polearm build) so 4d6 (reroll 1s & 2s) + 1d8 + 10 average of 30-31 DPR. This is cool and strong, but at 11th you go back to just swinging three times like a normal fighter, and just spamming GFB in the meantime is repetitive and boring. A regular polearm fighter can do 2d10 + 1d4 + 15, assuming also GWF we get an average of 30 DPR + optional Battle maneuvers.
Now here's a rules thing, I know the general consensus was that Lightning Lure doesn't activate Polearm Master's AoO because "You also don’t provoke an opportunity Attack when you Teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your Movement, action, or reaction." However, I think this is wrong as all you would need to do to attack a target hurdling toward you with your polearm is hold it steady and because Polearm master explicitly states that "While you are wielding a glaive, halberd, pike, or quarterstaff, other creatures provoke an opportunity attack from you when they enter the reach you have with that weapon." Seeing as it makes logical sense and would give lightning lure a reason to be a spell (otherwise it's not useful to a full caster because they want to be far away from the baddies and is weaker than a gish's regular attack with GFB or BB). Additionally, pulling an enemy to you and impaling them is badass, so I'm going to go off the assumption that it does work.
Now that you're a 10th level Human Varient EK and wield a Polearm, you can have Polearm Master, War Caster, War Magic, and Eldritch Strike and still can have boosted your strength to 20. Use Lightning Lure, 2d8 lightning damage plus trigger a AoO that you can use a spell for (War Caster + Polearm Master) and give yourself an attack as a bonus action (War Magic). Use Bonus action to attack with Polearm for 1d10 + Strength and give them disadvantage against your spells until the end of your next turn. Then use your AoO for cantrip for damage (1d8 + 1d10 + Strength) getting us to 3d8 + 2d10 + 2 x Strength(5), Averaging at 32 - 37, beating out both your standard EK and Polearm fighter for damage, but relying on your opponent failing a strength check and not being in your face to work, not to mention it eats up your reaction, meaning your opponent can disengage or another baddie can come up to you for free, not to mention you can't cast shield or absorb elements. Additionally, if they succeed the strength check, you only get one attack. This doesn't seem unbalanced to me: it just means that with two perks of investment, there's a reason to take EK and you're not strictly worse than a Battle Master.
Now Lightning Luring into a cantrip and swing has the flavor and damage, but there's another reason this is fun, instead of using a cantrip for your AoO, you can cast a spell. ANY SPELL YOU HAVE. If you swing with your bonus action before casting, you give the target disadvantage on saving throws against your spell too! You're mostly limited to evocation and abjuration spells, but it's good to cast an evocation that's more likely to do full damage or to get a full buff when you wouldn't usually. If you ended up swapping out a spell for Hold Person at 8th, this is an excellent pairing with the action surge, especially past 11th level. Think about it, Lightning Lure for 3d8, Bonus Action for 1d10 +5, Cast Hold Person with AoO with target at disadvantage, action surge attack a paralyzed creature with 3 Polearm swings from fighter extra attacks (3d10) and a bonus action for 1d4 from Polearm Master, all auto crit, so the whole turn adds up to 3d8 + 7d10 + 2d4 + 25 for an average of 85 - 87 damage. This is a nova for sure, and it only hits humanoids, but you do good damage every turn regardless, and if they fail the save you get a second turn of nova, plus your friends get to jump in on the crit fun. If a battlemaster used his/her action surge, they would do 6d10 + 2d4 + 40 for an average of 76 damage, but no friendlies can take advantage of it and it has no possibility of continuing for a second turn.
So that's my pitch, EK but you cast more spells and take a risk to deal more damage. I don't know if this is optimized, but you really feel like the spellsword you should be with this build. Let me know if you have any suggestions for multiclassing or spells to use/tell me why I'm wrong and that this is broken.
Well, War Magic aims to fix this at 7th level, allowing you to make an attack as a bonus action if you use a cantrip as your action. This is fun and traditionally goes with Green Flame Blade to do 2 x Swings + 1d8 and hits another creature (assuming Great Weapon Fighter and greatsword if not a polearm build) so 4d6 (reroll 1s & 2s) + 1d8 + 10 average of 30-31 DPR. This is cool and strong, but at 11th you go back to just swinging three times like a normal fighter, and just spamming GFB in the meantime is repetitive and boring. A regular polearm fighter can do 2d10 + 1d4 + 15, assuming also GWF we get an average of 30 DPR + optional Battle maneuvers.
Now here's a rules thing, I know the general consensus was that Lightning Lure doesn't activate Polearm Master's AoO because "You also don’t provoke an opportunity Attack when you Teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your Movement, action, or reaction." However, I think this is wrong as all you would need to do to attack a target hurdling toward you with your polearm is hold it steady and because Polearm master explicitly states that "While you are wielding a glaive, halberd, pike, or quarterstaff, other creatures provoke an opportunity attack from you when they enter the reach you have with that weapon." Seeing as it makes logical sense and would give lightning lure a reason to be a spell (otherwise it's not useful to a full caster because they want to be far away from the baddies and is weaker than a gish's regular attack with GFB or BB). Additionally, pulling an enemy to you and impaling them is badass, so I'm going to go off the assumption that it does work.
Now that you're a 10th level Human Varient EK and wield a Polearm, you can have Polearm Master, War Caster, War Magic, and Eldritch Strike and still can have boosted your strength to 20. Use Lightning Lure, 2d8 lightning damage plus trigger a AoO that you can use a spell for (War Caster + Polearm Master) and give yourself an attack as a bonus action (War Magic). Use Bonus action to attack with Polearm for 1d10 + Strength and give them disadvantage against your spells until the end of your next turn. Then use your AoO for cantrip for damage (1d8 + 1d10 + Strength) getting us to 3d8 + 2d10 + 2 x Strength(5), Averaging at 32 - 37, beating out both your standard EK and Polearm fighter for damage, but relying on your opponent failing a strength check and not being in your face to work, not to mention it eats up your reaction, meaning your opponent can disengage or another baddie can come up to you for free, not to mention you can't cast shield or absorb elements. Additionally, if they succeed the strength check, you only get one attack. This doesn't seem unbalanced to me: it just means that with two perks of investment, there's a reason to take EK and you're not strictly worse than a Battle Master.
Now Lightning Luring into a cantrip and swing has the flavor and damage, but there's another reason this is fun, instead of using a cantrip for your AoO, you can cast a spell. ANY SPELL YOU HAVE. If you swing with your bonus action before casting, you give the target disadvantage on saving throws against your spell too! You're mostly limited to evocation and abjuration spells, but it's good to cast an evocation that's more likely to do full damage or to get a full buff when you wouldn't usually. If you ended up swapping out a spell for Hold Person at 8th, this is an excellent pairing with the action surge, especially past 11th level. Think about it, Lightning Lure for 3d8, Bonus Action for 1d10 +5, Cast Hold Person with AoO with target at disadvantage, action surge attack a paralyzed creature with 3 Polearm swings from fighter extra attacks (3d10) and a bonus action for 1d4 from Polearm Master, all auto crit, so the whole turn adds up to 3d8 + 7d10 + 2d4 + 25 for an average of 85 - 87 damage. This is a nova for sure, and it only hits humanoids, but you do good damage every turn regardless, and if they fail the save you get a second turn of nova, plus your friends get to jump in on the crit fun. If a battlemaster used his/her action surge, they would do 6d10 + 2d4 + 40 for an average of 76 damage, but no friendlies can take advantage of it and it has no possibility of continuing for a second turn.
So that's my pitch, EK but you cast more spells and take a risk to deal more damage. I don't know if this is optimized, but you really feel like the spellsword you should be with this build. Let me know if you have any suggestions for multiclassing or spells to use/tell me why I'm wrong and that this is broken.