Need Ideas for my Eldritch Knight

[Fumbledorf]

I am currently trying to decide where to take my Eldritch Knight from here as I level up.

My Eldritch Knight is lvl 11

Here are his basic stats and info.
Race Human Variant
his stats are
21* str with belt of giant strength
16 dexterity
10 constitution
14 Intelligence
12 Wisdom
14 Charisma
AC 19
HP 95

Saving Throws
9 Strength *
3 Dexterity
4 Constitution *
2 Intelligence
1 Wisdom
2 Charisma

Number of attacks 3 attacks +1 with GWM

Perks: Grappler, Spell Sniper, Sharpshooter, Great Weapon Master
-----------------------
Spells:

Cantrips:
Booming Blade
Mage Hand
Thorn Whip
Minor Illusion

1st Level
Shield
Longstrider
Alarm
Featherfall
Absorb Elements
Expeditious Retreat

2nd Level
Misty Step
Mirror Image
--------------------

Magic Items:
Plate Armor +1
Wings of Flying
Belt of Giant Strength

Most used Combos:
Still don't know the most effective way to use this mechanic, but this is what I've come up with.
Fly with wings, Cast expeditious retreat, Grapple minion, Use movement + Bonus Action dash into sky, Action Surge Fly higher with movement then double dash, Misty Step away for most fall damage.
Or I could always drop them on the first action by dropping them for another grapple check as my 2nd attack.

3 attacks with GWM Pike Average damage 20-40

3 attacks with Sharpshooter longbow, usually use this if I am flying. Average Damage 20 - 40

Spell sniper lets me utilize booming blade with a pike by doubling it's range, So I booming blade with my pike, and bonus action attack, then fly or run slightly out of the monsters range.



I'm not sure how I should level him up from here, and I'm expected to fight a god later down the road. The odds are totally against me : D. Any Suggestions on how I should advance him would be greatly appreciated. I'm open to multiclass suggestions but I am sort of in favor of trying to keep him pure fighter.

[Vogie]

What you've got is pretty good. You're incredibly squishy for an 11th level fighter, so increasing your Con will be beneficial.

You have the Charisma to pick up Magic Initiate: Warlock to make your primary ranged attack be 3 EB Ray's and a bonus action bow shot via War Magic. You'd also get to go ham by being able to use hex in lieu of expeditious retreat to increase single target damage.

Alternatively, if you're not going to 20, a 2 level dip into war wizard will get you ritual casting, a ton more spells, the ability to resourcelessly shield or Dodge supernaturally well, and add your Intelligence to initiative.

[RogueJK]

I'd also look at putting several ASIs into CON. A 10 CON for a frontline melee fighter is fairly low. I'd put your 12th and 14th level ASIs, and probably 16th level too, into CON. (Although I might put 16th into INT instead.)

Not only is your bonus to Concentration checks not as high as it could be (although CON proficiency helps), your HP are several dozen below average.

Most primary melee fighters have 14-18 CON.


At this point, I'd take EK to at least 14th level, and perhaps 15th or 16th, before considering a multiclass dip. Going to 14th gets you two more ASIs, a couple more spells known, another use of Indomitable, and 3rd level spell slots. You'll definitely want those ASAP. 15th gets you Arcane Charge teleportation, and 16th gets you another ASI, another known spell, and another 3rd level slot, but you can likely afford to delay those a bit.


After EK 14/16, War Wizard is a decent choice for a 2 level dip, for a couple extra higher level spells slots, eight additional 1st level spells known, a reaction bonus to your AC or saving throws, INT to Initiative, and Arcane Recovery of one 1st level slot per day. If you go this route, at 20th level you'd be an EK18/WarWiz2. The downside compared to EK20 is that you'll lose out on 4th level spells known (though you'll have two 4th level spells slots for upcasting), you'll miss out on one ASI, and you'll miss out on the Fighter capstone 3rd Extra Attack.

Even though you already have most of the truly useful 1st level spells known already, taking some of those spells also as Wizard spells known will let you swap them out one at a time in your EK spells known for 2nd or 3rd level EK spells when you take another EK level.

This would look something like EK16/Wiz2, doubled up on Shield and Absorb Elements. Then at EK17 swap EK's Shield for a 2nd/3rd level spell. And at EK18 swap EK's Absorb Elements for a 2nd/3rd level spell.

Or you could start even earlier, at EK14/Wiz2, doubled up on Shield, Absorb Elements, Feather Fall, and Longstrider. Then swap those four out of your EK spells known at EK 15/16/17/18 for 2nd/3rd level spells.

Compared to an EK20, a EK18/WarWiz2 would allow you to have ~4-6 extra 1st level spells known, along with ~2-4 extra 2nd/3rd level spells known, but no 4th level spells known.

[ImproperJustice]

Grabbing Tough as your next ASI may not be a bad call.

[Unoriginal]

If you want to grapple and Dash quickly, Tavern Brawler is probably a good investment (I've seen many people say it's better than Grappler for grappling build)

[RogueJK]

Grabbing Tough as your next ASI may not be a bad call.

It's definitely worth considering. If you spend your 12th and 14th ASIs on +2 CON and Tough, instead of +4 CON, you'd be trading an extra +1 to Concentration checks and CON saving throws for an additional 20ish HP. That decision will likely depend on whether you plan to take any more Concentration spells at later levels. As it is, Expeditious Retreat is your only Concentration spell.


If you want to grapple and Dash quickly, Tavern Brawler is probably a good investment (I've seen many people say it's better than Grappler for grappling build)

Tavern Brawler's Grapple uses your Bonus Action, so you couldn't Bonus Action Dash and Bonus Action Grapple at the same time.

More importantly, Tavern Brawler requires you to hit with an unarmed/improvised attack before you get the Bonus Action Grapple. So it's introducing some additional uncertainty. You'd have to hit with that attack and be successful on the bonus action grapple. That's two dice rolls, with three possible outcomes:

A) Miss with punch and no grapple = Fail
B) Hit with punch and unsuccessful grapple = Fail
C) Hit with punch and successful grapple = Success

That becomes especially troublesome against enemies with high AC, where the punch is even more likely to miss.


Whereas trading an attack for a Grapple, like the OP is already doing, just requires you to be successful on the grapple check, which has two possible outcomes:

A) Failed grapple
B) Successful grapple

It's basically equivalent to auto-hitting with that punch attack, if you want to think of it that way. Plus enemy AC has no bearing on it, since you're never having to target their AC, just going straight into the contested Athletics check. Plus your Bonus Action is still free for other uses, like Expeditious Retreat's Bonus Action Dash. Plus it doesn't cost a feat.


tl;dr: Using Taven Brawler to grapple would be spending a feat and your bonus actions to be less likely to successfully grapple an enemy. Just don't.

[RogueJK]

If you want to focus on Grappling, another multiclass dip option is taking one level in Rogue. 1 level in Rogue gets you an extra skill, plus Expertise in Athletics and another skill. That gets you 2x your Proficiency bonus to Athletics checks, to make your grapples even more likely to succeed. And an EK19/Rogue1 will still get 4th level spells.

But you could get similar benefit of an extra skill plus 2x Proficiency bonus to Athletics from taking the Prodigy feat, without spending the multiclass level. That would allow you to get both Expertise in Athletics and Fighter20's capstone 4 Attacks. Unless you really want Expertise in a second skill too, the Prodigy feat taken at EK16 or EK19 is the better option than a Rogue dip.

Or you could do the earlier mentioned 2 level War Wizard dip and take Prodigy together.

[djreynolds]

12th level, Resilient wisdom, +1 wisdom save is an invitation for a DM to send you away in panic

Its a fighter's Achilles Heel, wisdom saves

Now protection from evil works only for fear and charm, not something like command, and not versus dragons

And you would get a huge boost a level 12, an additional +4. And at 13th now +5.

I would grab lucky at 14th

[Fumbledorf]

Thanks for the Tips. I kept my Con low to get a good dex level to help with my range attacks. I had a 27 stat point buy. I'm not sure how good EB would be from magic initiate, I thought that you don't get to add higher level die to cantrips you gain from magic initiate.
Going into wizard doesn't sound like a bad idea to me at all.




If you want to focus on Grappling, another multiclass dip option is taking one level in Rogue. 1 level in Rogue gets you an extra skill, plus Expertise in Athletics and another skill. That gets you 2x your Proficiency bonus to Athletics checks, to make your grapples even more likely to succeed. And an EK19/Rogue1 will still get 4th level spells.

But you could get similar benefit of an extra skill plus 2x Proficiency bonus to Athletics from taking the Prodigy feat, without spending the multiclass level. That would allow you to get both Expertise in Athletics and Fighter20's capstone 4 Attacks. Unless you really want Expertise in a second skill too, the Prodigy feat taken at EK16 or EK19 is the better option than a Rogue dip.

Or you could do the earlier mentioned 2 level War Wizard dip and take Prodigy together.

Thank your for all of your tips! I'll definitely come back to this post when the time comes. I will most likely go this route, It's better safe than sorry, especially now that I know I'm supposed to fight some kind of god. I didn't realize my HP was struggling so badly. So at 12 level I will start to buff my con rather than pick up a feat I suppose. If I was to pick up a feat I would most likely go with resilient to boost my wisdom saving throws. Still not sure what is the better option for level 12 at this point.

From what Im gathering is

LVL 12: Tough Feat Or Resilient

LVL 14: CON +2 or Lucky

LVL 16: Prodigy Feat or CON +2

LVL 18 Dip into Wizard or Pickup prodigy.

I think the biggest problem I'm facing is trying to get in more movement speed as well because with double dash on longstrider, thats 75x3 of movement which is halved because dragging monsters the same size or larger reduces your speed to half. So I can only fly a monster up to 112 FT usually in the span of 2 turns basically because of action surge, but the pay off is a big 11d6 bludgeoning, I would like to try to get that up to a 20d6 which would be useful for taking out really annoying single monsters. This mechanic though is probably going to be completely useless when fighting this so called "God" My dm has prepared for me down the line considering it's probably going to be giant size. So I think I need to start looking into more survivability.




Grabbing Tough as your next ASI may not be a bad call.
A lot of people are saying I need to boost my HP so I guess this might be the way to go for level 12.



That's a good point there are quite a lot of spells that require wisdom saving throws to defend against, and they are usually some of the more devastating spells overall. Lucky may be a pretty good choice as well, especially in times I really need to pass a roll or a saving throw. Thanks for the tip!

[Vogie]

Thanks for the Tips. I kept my Con low to get a good dex level to help with my range attacks. I had a 27 stat point buy. I'm not sure how good EB would be from magic initiate, I thought that you don't get to add higher level die to cantrips you gain from magic initiate.
Going into wizard doesn't sound like a bad idea to me at all.


The first level spell is always cast at, well, first level. The cantrips, on the other hand, scale with CHARACTER level, like a proficiency bonus, not caster level. However, you're right, some ASIs/Tough and a pair of wizard levels is probably better for what you want.

[djreynolds]

You have an awesome build

Fighter can get a lot of put down, because on paper in laboratory they may not appear awesome on paper

But with magic items the fighter can leave strength alone and pump dex and grab feats one after another

You have sharpshooter.... no need for EB. Find bracers of archery

Drop longstrider and grab protection from evil, you will be facing this stuff coming up, demons, devils, etc

At 12th I like resilient wisdom, to easy to grab and coupled with indomitable will make you tough to take out of the fight

At 14th, Lucky, maybe even a 12th, reroll a save that indomitable didn't make, turn a crit into a miss, or just make SS lands a hit

Lucky can save your butt... always useful, dont' wait to 19th level so you use it once, heck grab it at 12th and switch longstrider with protection from evil

But great build, sounds fun

[Nidgit]

How the hell do you have 95 HP with just 10 Con? You'd need to average an 8.5 on your rolls in order to have that much health, which is obviously highly improbable.

If you didn't have that much health already, I'd say take more Con, and it's still not a bad idea as is. Suggestions to dip Wizard are a good idea for sure.

If you're worried about your speed, why not take Mobile? It would make any dive-bombing you do that much better.

[Fumbledorf]

How the hell do you have 95 HP with just 10 Con? You'd need to average an 8.5 on your rolls in order to have that much health, which is obviously highly improbable.

My DM lets me roll HP with advantage, and I got a lot of 10's.


You have an awesome build

Fighter can get a lot of put down, because on paper in laboratory they may not appear awesome on paper

But with magic items the fighter can leave strength alone and pump dex and grab feats one after another

You have sharpshooter.... no need for EB. Find bracers of archery

Drop longstrider and grab protection from evil, you will be facing this stuff coming up, demons, devils, etc

At 12th I like resilient wisdom, to easy to grab and coupled with indomitable will make you tough to take out of the fight

At 14th, Lucky, maybe even a 12th, reroll a save that indomitable didn't make, turn a crit into a miss, or just make SS lands a hit

Lucky can save your butt... always useful, dont' wait to 19th level so you use it once, heck grab it at 12th and switch longstrider with protection from evil

But great build, sounds fun

I didn't realize how strong lucky actually was! That' is a pretty good idea, It would serve as a soft substitute for Resilient for a little bit at least while giving me a little more early on like you suggest so good idea. I'll add Bracers of Archery to my list of things to look out for too.