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2014-10-06, 08:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
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2014-10-06, 08:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2014
Re: Know Your Enemy: A fighter's handbook
Last edited by Daishain; 2014-10-06 at 08:46 AM.
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2014-10-06, 11:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Know Your Enemy: A fighter's handbook
In my opinion, Eldritch Knight Fighter is probably one of the worst designed classes in the game.
First, having two extra feats is not a big advantage. An Ability Score increase or Feat is exactly as useful and powerful at level 1 when a variant human can get it as it is at levels 16 and 19. The Fighter is getting Feats in place of higher level class abilities that are superior to Feats.
Second, I admit that the Eldritch Knight gets some great spells. But it gets fewer of them then literally every other spellcaster in the book (other then the Arcane Trickster, which also sucks). And only having one or two 6th level or higher spells is indeed a big deal, because each one of them is basically an encounter winning effect.
Put another way, what benefit does the Eldritch Knight Fighter 20 get that a Fighter 2/Full Caster 18 doesn't get?
Extra Attacks? Sorry, but just using a Cantrip and/or spell or spell buffed attacks scales just as well or better for most other classes. And unfortunately the Eldritch Knight can only make 1 attack + Cantrip per round, or 2+ attacks, but never both. A second Action Surge at 17th level is indeed useful. But it can only be used once per Short Rest, and is not as useful as a Sorcerer's Metamagic (which is essentially a spell only Action Surge that can be used multiple times per day) or various Conjured creatures (which multiply your action economy).
Unfortunately, I think that the Fighter just falls behind starting at level 6ish+, and none of its subclasses options can fix it.Last edited by Person_Man; 2014-10-06 at 01:42 PM.
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2014-10-06, 12:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
Re: Know Your Enemy: A fighter's handbook
An Eldritch Knight Fighter 20 gets 8 attacks per round (with Action Surge) for up to 160 HP of damage, Indomitable, and superb mobility. A Fighter 2/Full Caster 18 gets... 27-ish HP of damage and full spell slots. They're really not the same niche at all. The Eldritch Knight is great at taking down squishy stuff with great Wisdom saves, like enemy archmages. He isn't limited by Concentration. The full caster is generally great at incapacitating one or a handful of closely-clustered enemies and then holding them there until someone gets around to killing them. The quicker the Eldritch Knight can kill them, the better the odds are that they'll stay incapacitated the whole time. These are complementary roles.
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2014-10-06, 12:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2013
Re: Know Your Enemy: A fighter's handbook
Actual hit dice in the edition where HP is one of the few things that fully scales. A solid way of landing disadvantage on a bunch of monsters before you hit them with a saving throw. A free teleport that gets attached to your Action Surge. The freedom to not have Int 13+. The ability to always be armed as long as you're not unconscious. A bonus feat/ability score increase. And the ability to not be behind the rest of the party by 2 levels, in all likelihood causing a weird power differential in those early levels.
Really, it's just the difference between wanting to be a Fighter with a splash of Wizard or wanting to be a Wizard with a splash of Fighter. It also provides an easy gish option in campaigns where the DM doesn't allow multiclassing.
As for Fighters falling behind, I still don't see it, but maybe I'm just dense! For the EK, certainly, it seems like you can pretty easily build a ridiculous abjuring tank. Champion is simple, but probably puts out some of the best 1v1 damage in the game, and Battle Master, with just a modicum of creativity, can pump out a ridiculous amount of control over the battlefield. I feel pretty good about saying that Fighters can hold their own in 5e.
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2014-10-06, 02:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
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2014-10-06, 03:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Know Your Enemy: A fighter's handbook
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2014-10-06, 04:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2014
Re: Know Your Enemy: A fighter's handbook
Like hell they do. Only Warlocks can claim that, and their spellcasting is highly restricted to compensate. Why don't you show us the calculations to prove that.
And unfortunately the Eldritch Knight can only make 1 attack + Cantrip per round, or 2+ attacks, but never both. A second Action Surge at 17th level is indeed useful. But it can only be used once per Short Rest, and is not as useful as a Sorcerer's Metamagic (which is essentially a spell only Action Surge that can be used multiple times per day) or various Conjured creatures (which multiply your action economy).
The strength of the Eldritch Knight is when you pull out spells like Magic Weapon or Haste on top of your allies' buff spells, and then finish it with an Action Surge. Like I said before, the Fighter is the best buff target.
Put another way, what benefit does the Eldritch Knight Fighter 20 get that a Fighter 2/Full Caster 18 doesn't get?
Unfortunately, I think that the Fighter just falls behind starting at level 6ish+, and none of its subclasses options can fix it.
Second, I admit that the Eldritch Knight gets some great spells. But it gets fewer of them then literally every other spellcaster in the book (other then the Arcane Trickster, which also sucks). And only having one or two 6th level or higher spells is indeed a big deal, because each one of them is basically an encounter winning effect.Last edited by Strill; 2014-10-06 at 04:23 PM.
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2014-10-06, 04:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
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2014-10-06, 04:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2013
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Re: Know Your Enemy: A fighter's handbook
Ahhhh, talking about multiclassing... Yeah, you're right on that mark. If you went fighter (eldrich knight) 4/ Wizard (any) 16, you would get 5 feats and a level 9 slot (though you would not get level 9 spells... Which I've had such a hard time explaining to 3.5 veterans. >_>) You would also lose out on one of your level 6 slots, and would have fewer spells prepared with this method, but a few more cantrips.
Over all not the most optimal build, but it gives you a bit more survivability and gets you the "base" number of feats.
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2016-08-16, 06:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
Re: Know Your Enemy: A fighter's handbook
To help out, these expectancies may assume all hits. to figure out expected damage from an attack it should be (accuracy * (average weapon damage)) = expected Damage per round.
In these type's of calculations your select a target AC then add all your proficiencies including the +2 from Bows and your accuracy is the number you need to hit /20.
So if I attack a monster withan AC 18 at level at level 15 and a longbow(proficiency bonus + 5, dex +4) than my expected dpr should be
(9/20) * (5.5 + 5.5 + 5.5 + 4 + 4 + 4) = 9/20 * 28.5 or roughly 12.8 Damage per round.
9/20 is my accuracy to hit
28.5 is the damage on average i would do with 100% accuracy
12.8 is the average i would do per round with my bonuses
Add in the +2 for bow specialization then
(11/20 * (5.5 + 5.5 + 5.5 + 4 +4 + 4) = 11/20 * 28.5 = 15.6 Damage per round
Since accuracy is multiplied by damage to get expected damage we can conclude that the increase in accuracy is equal to the increase of damage. This is simple law of multiplication. So a +2 for all intents and purposes should be calculated as a 10% increase in DPR for the most part. Since you can now eliminate 2 rolls on the 1d20 that could have missed.
The one case where this does not apply is if we currently posses enough accuracy to hit the creature 100% of the time, that is our bonus >= target AC. (Of course we need to consider that there is always the nature 1 scenario.) As such, this means that any precision bonus we gain will increase our DPR by 0. Given the nature of AC in DND 5e, this should be really hard to do.Last edited by Purespoo; 2016-08-16 at 06:59 PM.