Eldritch Knight Expanded Spell List

[Fightmaster]

A friend is running a campaign and I'm assisting him. There's a player who plans on being an eldritch knight, and we were wondering if it would be balanced to lift the spell school restriction; or if it would be better to let them pick two schools. Neither of us can see an issue lifting the restriction, save for if a player who chooses an arcane rogue trickster should get the same opportunity, or if this interferes with other casting classes. What are your thoughts?

[fishyfishyfishy]

I find it to be unnecessarily restrictive and arbitrary. It's clearly not a balance choice but one of preference by the designers. Allowing any two schools, or lifting the limitation entirely, would have no direct harmful effect on the game balance. I know that when I get around to DMing a 5e game I will allow players their choice of 3 schools for both the Arcane Trickster and the Eldritch Knight.

[TheOOB]

I wouldn't. Remember that the eldritch night path is only part of the fighters abilities, and they get a whole suite of abilities aside from those that make them awesome. The EK already has a mechanic to allow the player to select non evocation and abjuration spells, but otherwise the restriction is for balance reasons. Evocation and Abjuration have overlap with what the fighter does already(deal damage and not die), which I imagine is intentional.

[fishyfishyfishy]

An argument can be made for practically any school of magic supplementing the fighters existing skills. Transmutation is an easy example. There are effects and buffs that can make a fighter much more effective at his job than evocation. Evocation really doesn't suit the Eldritch Knight at all actually. It doesn't do anything the fighter can't already accomplish with weapons.

[Tenmujiin]

I wouldn't. Remember that the eldritch night path is only part of the fighters abilities, and they get a whole suite of abilities aside from those that make them awesome. The EK already has a mechanic to allow the player to select non evocation and abjuration spells, but otherwise the restriction is for balance reasons. Evocation and Abjuration have overlap with what the fighter does already(deal damage and not die), which I imagine is intentional.

The thing is that many of the most powerful spells for a fighter come from abjuration (shield comes to mind) and most of the worst come from evocation (they usually don't even do enough damage to be worth using over 1-3 attacks thanks to the terrible spell level scaling). On top of this they can pick up the most important non-abjuration or evocation spells with their off school spells.

IMO it really isn't a balance restriction at all and personally I'd allow them to pick any two schools since it would allow them to pick the schools that fit their character best (I have a forest gnome rapier wielding EK concept I plan to play at some point who would love illusion and abjuration for flavor reasons). Sure many EKs would pick up transmutation but since they are getting the main reason to use that school already (haste) I don't see the problem.

[ChubbyRain]

I've seen it done, it really doesn't break anything.

The fighter in question had Conjuration and Transmutation. Another one had Transmutation and Abjuration.

Because of the lack of spell slots/levels and how long it takes to get them it wasn't an issue.

The abjuration wizard was tanking it up just as much...

The issue with these two classes, EK and Arcane Trickster, is that they took Ribbons and forced core crunch to work around bit instead of taking core crunch and putting a ribbon around it.

[Ghost Nappa]

An argument can be made for practically any school of magic supplementing the fighters existing skills. Transmutation is an easy example. There are effects and buffs that can make a fighter much more effective at his job than evocation. Evocation really doesn't suit the Eldritch Knight at all actually. It doesn't do anything the fighter can't already accomplish with weapons.

It gives the Eldritch Knight a means of doing elemental damage, attacking at range, as well as affecting creatures that are not hurt by normal weaponry without deviating from the Fighter's designated "role" of damage-dealing (Evocation) and Tanking (Abjuration).

I would allow any EK who wants different schools to pick whichever two they wanted but Magic Missile and Shield are really strong picks right out of the gate especially on characters in Heavy Armor. Who doesn't want 20+ AC on command when fighting Dragons?

Edit: tl;dr Allow EK to pick whichever 2 schools they want, but warn them of what they lose and how it benefits what they already have.


The only reason tricksters and knights are limited to two schools, in my opinion, is because the wizard has the biggest spell list of any caster. Letting them choose from 4/9ths of all of those spells, and further pick up ritual caster or something, might be too many options for a 1/3 caster.

Agreed.

[Easy_Lee]

The EK already has a mechanic to allow the player to select non evocation and abjuration spells, but otherwise the restriction is for balance reasons.

Balance reasons? Please enlighten me.

I have a compelling reason why it should be allowed. Certain character types and concepts, such as a classic shadow knight, are made possible by allowing the player to pick two schools. All spells of the same level should be balanced, so this will only be a problem if WotC screwed that up.

The only reason tricksters and knights are limited to two schools, in my opinion, is because the wizard has the biggest spell list of any caster. Letting them choose from 4/9ths of all of those spells, and further pick up ritual caster or something, might be too many options for a 1/3 caster.