Arcane Eldritch Bladesinger?

[alexfitzrose]

So a while ago I asked for help on a fighter/ rogue/ wizard build and got lots of great advice. Naturally I built a bard for AL use.

Now I'm interested in that first idea again but going into the subclasses, namely eldritch knight, arcane trickster, and bladesinger (as the preferred spell casting subclass that bends toward melee).

So my question now is whether a multiclass build that uses that combination will be synergistic or redundant? where would the level breaks be? and finally are there any combinations that would yield interesting results?

The build would start with a standard array variant human (I always picture the stable boy makes a discovery that propels him into adventuring) and would be AL legal.

Thanks in advance!

[Blood of Gaea]

Bladesinger or War Wizard mix very well with Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster. But I don't think EK and AK mix that well with each other, you're better off taking a 1-2 level dip or multiclassing to enhance your spellcasting.

In either case, I personally go for 11-12 level in EK or AT, then take 8-9 levels in Wizard.

[Foxhound438]

Bladesinger and eldritch knight both get extra attack. If you take level 6 in the prior and level 5 in the latter, that's going to be a dead level, so you would want to either take only 3-4 levels of fighter for the weapon bond and be primarily wizard, or you'd want to get to wizard 5 for L3 spells of any flavor and be heavily fighter. Another thing to note between the two is that while EK is generally a good start point for wizard multiclasses due to the armor proficiency, you would be pretty much foregoing a lot of that since bladesong bars you from med/heavy armor and shields.

Luckily, rogue doesn't get anything that's super redundant like that, but note that you might end up with more bonus action abilities than you know what to do with- a few options for these is nice, but it's not good if you're getting features at a level that you just won't use because you have a better bonus action somewhere else (see the mage hand help and two weapon fighting)

If I were to mix all three together, I'd probably do something like this:

Start out wizard and just go straight to level 6 here. Maybe choose variant human for war caster if you're worried about losing concentration early, but up dex at 4. Next, take 3 levels of fighter- this will give you a fighting style (probably 2wf since later bladesinger abilities work nice with more hits), action surge, weapon bond and of course a couple more spells known. Then go back into wizard until it's wizard 12/ fighter 3, and go ahead and pick up Tenser's Transformation as one of your L6 spells. Boost dex again at wizard 8 and probably int at 12, unless you've stumbled into a headband of intellect. From there levels of rogue will give you a bit more damage on one attack each turn, which means your damage is going to be relevant even not using the transformation, and you get a few more spells prepared, and you'd end up with the slots of a L15 pure caster (one 8th level slot to upcast into).

[CTurbo]

For a Bladesinger, I'd rather dip AT than EK. I just feel like the Rogue goodies would be more beneficial to you than the Fighter goodies.

I guess the exception would be if you want to TWF. But I'd shoot for 5 levels at Rogue at some point. Uncanny Dodge and 3d6 sneak damage is too food to pass up if you're already at Rogue 3.

[djreynolds]

IMO, keep any dip of AT or EK, to levels of 3.
6 AT, 12EK, 2 BS
14BS, 3 AT, 3 EK.
But I think 14BS, 6AT is the best.

[Joe dirt]

I would go blade singer 2, AT x.... because u can have the a.c. boost and speed boost and spells like green flame blade combo with sneak attack with only a small sacrifice to sneak dice if u must go fighter 2 but i wouldnt go any more... oh and pick up mobility as a feat as soon as possible

[MrStabby]

Those there classes don't play so nicely together but switching one of them can help.

Bladesinger means dropping armour. It's ok, but then you are either using dex to attack or needing awesome stats. If the former you lose the use of great feats like pole arm mastery and great weapon mastery.

It might be worth running through what you want from each class and subclass. There may be other ways to deliver it.

For example if you want wizard levels for mainly utility casting and high AC at times you could use low int and throw it in on a ranger (even better if you can used revised). You get more spell slots and even more utility from the ranger. You also get access to a bigger pool of spells as you are pulling from the wizard and ranger lists. If you want the AC swap that round.

What is the eldritch knight bringing? The first really special thing is at level 7. Otherwise some slightly niche abilities, single spell level and the normal fighter goodness. If you go to 7, I would say worth going a bit further as you get to the fun stuff there and you are then not really looking at much of a multiclass unless your PC gets to really high levels.

Personally if I wanted a melee arcane caster I would look a multiclassing bladesinger with rogue only. Take wizard to 6 for two attacks then add rogue. Uncanny dodge at 5 will make you tougher. Arcane trickster seems to overlap with wizard a bit much though so might look to something like scout instead.

[Citan]

So a while ago I asked for help on a fighter/ rogue/ wizard build and got lots of great advice. Naturally I built a bard for AL use.

Now I'm interested in that first idea again but going into the subclasses, namely eldritch knight, arcane trickster, and bladesinger (as the preferred spell casting subclass that bends toward melee).

So my question now is whether a multiclass build that uses that combination will be synergistic or redundant? where would the level breaks be? and finally are there any combinations that would yield interesting results?

The build would start with a standard array variant human (I always picture the stable boy makes a discovery that propels him into adventuring) and would be AL legal.

Thanks in advance!

Hi!
It's certainly synergistic, but to take the most of each class you'll still have to make compromises.
Also, you'll have to think much about what you want to play as a 10th level character, unless you're pretty sure you'll reach level 20 in reasonable time.

Theorically, the best splits I see would be the following...
1. Arcane Trickster 11 / Eldricht Knight 3 / Bladesinger 6: focus on Reliable Talent, you can get some interesting things to pull off with Magical Ambush... But you don't have any spell over 3rd level. So you're still better (imo) than a pure EK or AT, but you don't get things like Greater Invisibility.

2. AT 9 / EK 3 / Bladesinger 8: you trade Reliable Talent for access to 4th level spells: if you don't care about Reliable Talent, this is the best balance by far: Magical Ambush will make wonders with Banishment or Polymorph to make a few examples, and you have enough slots to use Haste regularly should you wish so. Or you can simply deal extremely high damage with...
- Greater Invisibility + Booming Blade + Sneak Attack
- Extra Attack "Shove with Expertise" + Sneak Attack + bonus action whatever spell you like.

3. AT 7 / EK 11 / BS 2: the most martial build: you'll rely mainly on Shadow Blade + Improved Extra Attack. It's better than the two previous as far as costless damage goes, but is otherwise inferior in all aspects imo.

4. AT 5 / EK 3 / BS 12: just enough in Rogue and Fighter to get archetypes and Uncanny Dodge, while keeping access to 6th level spells.

5. AT 3 / EK 3 / BS 14: high reliance ShadowBlade+Booming Blade for a while, Haste becoming worth when you get 14th level bonus.
Highest nova potential of all thanks to Simulacrum cheese, higher versatility overall since so much more spellcasting, but you are sacrificing many interesting features for that: imo you might as well play a pure Bladesinger (or grabbing only 1 level in Fighter) if you are that far into spellcasting.

--> In bold my favored suggestion (2), with 1 being better only if you like all wonders that come with reliable skillmonkeying.

[alexfitzrose]

Thanks, all the replies have been very helpful in shaping the build in my head.

However, did I make mistake in assuming bladesinger being the best wizard subclass for the build? The school of war magic really seems to scratch a martial itch with arcane deflection, tactical wit and power surge coming very early in the build. Thoughts on that subclass with eldritch/ trickster?

Lastly, I guess I always think of narrative reasons for multiclassing - beginning life on the streets as a rogue, toughening up through martial training to become a fighter, then applying myself to learning the arcane arts by finishing with wizard levels. So I would probably say AT 3, then EK 5, before (wizard) X so that my build can hang early on but also comes online before retirment...

[Nhorianscum]

There's some hard anti-synergy here unless we're using greater dragonmark to force open higher level slots. As this is AL legal we cannot cheese, additionally Ravnica backgrounds allow us to bypass spell restrictions making this even less desireable.

Namely Bladesinger is almost completely redundant with cunning action and armor while EK and AT both break at 11 and 13 along with 9 (AT) and 7 (EK).

Dumping bladesinger for another archetype opens up some potential synergy but I'll be assuming FRW with the mentioned subs here.

Our best bet would probably be...

EK11/Rouge2/Bladesinger7: Sharpshooter VHuman would be ideal but Elf will do. Uses bladesong with a rapier when forced into mele to skip feat taxes so we can make the most of our 4 ASI's. Eldrich strike with 4/3/3+1/3/2 slots and 4th level spells gives us some truely nasty BC. Not worse than a full progression EK or AT but not a full progression Wiz.

Worth Noting. In AL Gloomstalker or Hunter 3/BS17 is strictly better if we're dumping int to 13 and grabbing a headband of int early from treasure points. Splashing rouge denies 9th level spells but eh. 4/attacks with decent rider damage and 8th-9th level spells.

[Blood of Gaea]

Thanks, all the replies have been very helpful in shaping the build in my head.

However, did I make mistake in assuming bladesinger being the best wizard subclass for the build? The school of war magic really seems to scratch a martial itch with arcane deflection, tactical wit and power surge coming very early in the build. Thoughts on that subclass with eldritch/ trickster?

Lastly, I guess I always think of narrative reasons for multiclassing - beginning life on the streets as a rogue, toughening up through martial training to become a fighter, then applying myself to learning the arcane arts by finishing with wizard levels. So I would probably say AT 3, then EK 5, before (wizard) X so that my build can hang early on but also comes online before retirment...
I personally go for War or Abjuration, I think those are the best martial dips.

[Citan]

There's some hard anti-synergy here unless we're using greater dragonmark to force open higher level slots. As this is AL legal we cannot cheese, additionally Ravnica backgrounds allow us to bypass spell restrictions making this even less desireable.

Namely Bladesinger is almost completely redundant with cunning action and armor while EK and AT both break at 11 and 13 along with 9 (AT) and 7 (EK).

Dumping bladesinger for another archetype opens up some potential synergy but I'll be assuming FRW with the mentioned subs here.

Our best bet would probably be...

EK11/Rouge2/Bladesinger7: Sharpshooter VHuman. Uses bladesong with a rapier when forced into mele to skip feat taxes so we can make the most of our 4 ASI's. Eldrich strike with 4/3/3+1/3/2 slots and 4th level spells gives us some truely nasty BC. Not worse than a full progression EK or AT but not a full progression Wiz.

Worth Noting. In AL Gloomstalker or Hunter 3/BS17 is strictly better if we're dumping int to 13 and grabbing a headband of int early from treasure points. Splashing rouge denies 9th level spells but eh. 4/attacks with decent rider damage and 8th-9th level spells.
I'll have to react on that bolded bit, which is wrong in all accounts imo.

First, Bladesong uses up one bonus action to last one minute. So the competition on action economy is low, only first turn is "taken" (and provided you still have uses for it).
Second, it's not at all redundant with Cunning Action, quite on the contrary: 10 feet more (possibly stacked with a pre-fight preeemptive Longstrider) means a) less often need to use bonus action on Dash b) more movement to reach back a cover to Hide behind or simply fall beyond enemy reach.
Third, it's not at all redundant with armor: it's still active if you wear light armor, so unless you were going for a STR build or a main-caster build (in which case Bladesinger is probably not the best archetype in the first place), it's instead properly stacking upon it to reduce the need for Shield uses.

Also, again, War Magic is overall very forgettable for such a tri-class. Especially when you consider the many spells a Wizard accesses that use up bonus action, the ways Wizard can buff himself that work better on multiple weapon attacks (meaning you'd prefer using Extra Attack + TWF bonus attack), the fact War Magic does not work on spells (which is something you'll spend more and more time using), and the fact that you also have Cunning Action, AT Mage Hand and Bladesong activation to consider.

In other words, War Magic will really be useful when...
a) You have an enemy within reach
b) You want to use Booming Blade because you are pretty sure the rider will trigger OR you want to use a cantrip because you want a cheap chance to inflict a debuff
c) You already have Bladesong activated (or you cannot use it)
d) You have no use in this turn for Dash, Hide, Disengage, Mage Hand
e) You don't have any spell that may use up bonus action (retrieving a Shadow Blade, Dust Devil, Flaming Sphere, Misty Step, Tiny Servant, Animate Objects, Bigby's Hand).
That's a very restrictive use-case...

If anything, War Magic would rather be a dead weight to bear on the way to Improved Extra Attack for any Wizard/EK multiclass (except maybe Evocation), but then again unless you aim for a very sustainable character it's usually better to aim for higher spellcasting than 3rd attack, simply due to everything great you can do with spells (including dealing high damage).