About the eldrich knight, are those spells cast as normal spells (ie: they take up your fighter actions) or are they things you can cast then also do your fighter stuff?
Necause otherwise you end up with the mystic theurge problem: yes you can cast both arcane and divine magic, but you can never really be both. On one turn you're a wizard and on the second turn you're a cleric. If I want to play a knight who bolsters himself with his magic, I don't want to spend a few turns playing wizard then a few turns playing fighter: I want to be "alright I magic myself up and I punch this guy with my sword". Anything less then that is missing the point.
Hell, this is probably even worse an idea in 5th ed, since most every buff spells requires concentration to maintain... which can be broken by being hit. So unless our Eldrich knight has major bonuses to maintaining concentration, I doubt he'll be buffing himself into combat anytime soon.
I really need to see this path/archetype/variant/whatnot to see how it works, but the more I think about it in the context of what I know about 5th, the more it looks like an easily ignorable option.
The Eldritch Knight still has to use an action in order to cast a spell. I think at a higher level (8-ish) you can cast a cantrip as a bonus action when you attack with a weapon, but no bonus action for level spells.
There is a feat (called War Caster I believe) that gives you advantage on concentration checks, allows you to cast somatic spells with no free hand, and allows you to cast offensive spell on OAs.
The "Battle Master" (which I'm assuming to the warlord) better offer mundane healing or I am calling major shenanigans.
Nope, gonna be the fighter from the playtest that gets maneuvers.
Strike 1, Mearls. That warlock better own
I was lucky enough to get a read of the before print PHB pdf. The Battle Master could choose 3 from a pool of about 12 maneuver when they first pick the archetype. Quite a few of them were for control purposes, but a few were very warlord-y including a maneuver that allowed an ally to move off turn and another that gives an ally temporary hitpoints as a free action.
The Eldritch Knight is a 1/4 caster that has access to only abjuration or evocation spells from the wizard spell list. For an idea of what the spellcasting table looked like, they get 2 1st Level spells at level 3, 2nd level spells at level 7-ish, and 4th level spells at level 18-ish.
No healing on the faux-warlord? Or I can just not buy it. No healing on the Warlord was the final line for me. I'm out. See you kids in 7th Edition.
Unfortunately you cannot shout your allies back to health in this version, just give them temporary hit points. The temporary hit points given are similar to the clerics power word: heal, however.
By feat did you mean "FEATure that they get automatically because it's essentially a feat tax for Eldritch Knights"?
Although I'm surprisingly okay with Warlords being able to grant temporary healing instead of healing healing. It fits more in the flavour of inspiration to me. The idea of " healing surge" being how much healing a body can take was fantastic. Then you could have magical healing restore actual hit points at the cost of surges and inspiration give THP for free.
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oxybeEntei is appaled and disappointed in youRegistered Userregular
About the eldrich knight, are those spells cast as normal spells (ie: they take up your fighter actions) or are they things you can cast then also do your fighter stuff?
Necause otherwise you end up with the mystic theurge problem: yes you can cast both arcane and divine magic, but you can never really be both. On one turn you're a wizard and on the second turn you're a cleric. If I want to play a knight who bolsters himself with his magic, I don't want to spend a few turns playing wizard then a few turns playing fighter: I want to be "alright I magic myself up and I punch this guy with my sword". Anything less then that is missing the point.
Hell, this is probably even worse an idea in 5th ed, since most every buff spells requires concentration to maintain... which can be broken by being hit. So unless our Eldrich knight has major bonuses to maintaining concentration, I doubt he'll be buffing himself into combat anytime soon.
I really need to see this path/archetype/variant/whatnot to see how it works, but the more I think about it in the context of what I know about 5th, the more it looks like an easily ignorable option.
The Eldritch Knight still has to use an action in order to cast a spell. I think at a higher level (8-ish) you can cast a cantrip as a bonus action when you attack with a weapon, but no bonus action for level spells.
There is a feat (called War Caster I believe) that gives you advantage on concentration checks, allows you to cast somatic spells with no free hand, and allows you to cast offensive spell on OAs.
Advantage on concentration is actually pretty decent, keeping in context that the fighter likely has a high con & gets his proficiency bonus to it, however we really need to see the monster damage output before figuring out if that's actually useful. If monster damage, especially melee monsters, is rather high, then the fighter who self-buffs might still be in trouble why trying to maintain his self-buffs.
Allows to cast with no free hands is... ok, i guess. Most casters probably won't have something in their off-hand anyways, so for them it's of limited use, but i can see this being used with clerics and the Eldirch Knight.
Offensive spells in 5th ed seem to require higher level spell slots to be useful in the DPS race at higher levels, so with our "magical fighter" gaining 3rd level slots at 18th, i'm not expecting much on that part... you're probably better off using your normal physical attack on OAs.
All in all, unless you're playing a Duelist-type Eldritch Knight (by virtue of needing an empty hand for their single-hand weapon damage boost) you'll need this feat to cast your spells without first sheathing your weapon, which still requires your main action to cast, and it's very likely it won't be even nearly as potent as anything a proper caster could put out due to your lack of higher level slots to power these spells.
you can read my collected ravings at oxybesothertumbr.tumblr.com
If the spells last long enough that you can cast before combat and maintain during, the action requirement may not be that big a deal. The inherent feat tax is hilarious and utterly unsurprising. The "start getting toys at 3rd that you actually probably wrote into your backstory already but inexplicably can't use for the first two levels of play" is shameful, yet worthy of a certain gif that's used on occasion in this thread.
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
Well one of the first spells available to an Eldritch Knight is going to be Mage Armor, so assuming that...
1) you have a fighter with at least a 16 dex (and a high con for those Concentration checks, and a high Int for your Save DC),
2) you are not wearing armor (so don't choose the Defense fighting style),
3) you don't mind always losing a spell slot to Mage Armor, and
4) you only adventure for 8 hours per day
Then (at least AC-wise) you're on par with a 14-dex fighter with a Chain Shirt. But you get to cast a spell once a day, so there's that.
Of course, keep in mind that casting a spell precludes you from using the fighter's Extra Attack feature since that only triggers when you use the Attack action, which is specifically a melee or ranged attack. Casting a spell is the Cast a Spell action. Sure, some spells require you to make a ranged attack, but that's not actually the Attack action. It also negates all the other attack-oriented Fighting Styles in the basic rules, so let's hope there are more in the PHB.
At 20th level, when you are the ultimate Eldritch Knight, you get the incredible opportunity to trade in 5 attacks (with 5 chances to crit, which could crit on 18-20 if you were a Champion instead) to do 8d6 damage (or half if the target makes its Dex save).
But maybe the actual subclass has some features that make it a better choice? It sounds like you get some cantrips, so that's cool.
Well one of the first spells available to an Eldritch Knight is going to be Mage Armor, so assuming that...
1) you have a fighter with at least a 16 dex (and a high con for those Concentration checks, and a high Int for your Save DC),
2) you are not wearing armor (so don't choose the Defense fighting style),
3) you don't mind always losing a spell slot to Mage Armor, and
4) you only adventure for 8 hours per day
Then (at least AC-wise) you're on par with a 14-dex fighter with a Chain Shirt. But you get to cast a spell once a day, so there's that.
Of course, keep in mind that casting a spell precludes you from using the fighter's Extra Attack feature since that only triggers when you use the Attack action, which is specifically a melee or ranged attack. Casting a spell is the Cast a Spell action. Sure, some spells require you to make a ranged attack, but that's not actually the Attack action. It also negates all the other attack-oriented Fighting Styles in the basic rules, so let's hope there are more in the PHB.
At 20th level, when you are the ultimate Eldritch Knight, you get the incredible opportunity to trade in 5 attacks (with 5 chances to crit, which could crit on 18-20 if you were a Champion instead) to do 8d6 damage (or half if the target makes its Dex save).
But maybe the actual subclass has some features that make it a better choice? It sounds like you get some cantrips, so that's cool.
I remember that Eldritch Knights get the feature to bond up to two weapons to themselves. The bonded weapon(s) can be teleported to hand as a free action which, I guess, allows them to drop weapon, cast, and then retrieve the weapon in the same turn. It could also be used for a l throwing weapon build I guess, although it eats up a bonus action.
Pre-level 10 they get another feature that allows them to make a bonus attack whenever they cast a cantrip, and somewhere between levels 13-18 (15 I think) they can teleport whenever they action surge. They are also given a couple non-abjuration/evocation spells such as magic weapon and longstrider. I can't remember the other features they get...
I don't think the Eldritch Knight will be nearly as bad as some are saying. At level 3, instead of having a double crit chance by taking the Champion archetype, you have a couple uses of some AOE or buffs as well the use of ranged offensive cantrips which can save an action from not having to draw a bow.
I guess if you can get Fire Bolt as an At-Will power that would make it a better choice. It's basically a superior longbow, assuming that you have a decent Int modifier. Sounds like the "correct" Eldritch Knight will be an Int/Con/Str build with heavy armor. Or drop Str and just spam Shocking Grasp and Fire Bolt, if you get two At-Wills. If cantrips work the same way for them as they do for real casters, physical weapons would really just be for emergencies.
KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
Sounds like they tried to take some of the Swordmage ideas from 4th and cram them into old school play, to me.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
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oxybeEntei is appaled and disappointed in youRegistered Userregular
I may or may not have gotten a look at what might be a VERY alpha build of 5th ed between yesterday and today so take what is to follow with a VERY big grain of salt:
Eldritch knight, in this build of 5th, can only learn Evocation or Abjuration spells (and the document i have does not make finding them particularly easy), learn and get bonus (specific) spells at 3, 7, 13 & 19. the EK starts with 2+bonus and finishes with 8 spells known + 4 bonus ones. he also starts with 2 cantrips then gains an extra one at 10 & 16
3 -He has the swordmage's teleport-y sword thing, but doing so requires using up your bonus action. you can have 2 weapons set to teleport, but only one per bonus action.
7 - When the EK uses a cantrip he can make one attack as a bonus action.
10 - When he punches a monster, they have disadvantage on the next saving throw on a spell he casts before the end of his next turn.
15 - 30ft teleport before or after they action surge.
18 - when you cast any spell, make one attack as a bonus action.
One thing to note though is that i am still unsure how to figure out the fighter's Caster Level. Is a 5th level fighter one with a caster level of 3 (as he's only gotten 3 levels in which he can cast spells) or does he have a caster level of 5 (overall character level)?
you can read my collected ravings at oxybesothertumbr.tumblr.com
I can kind of understand the whole 'levels 1 and 2 have limited options' thing, in that beginner players might want to learn a core of what their class does before specializing/picking up more options. Of course, I think there are better ways to do it, but there is some logic behind having idiot levels.
Again, reading about the eldritch knight sounds like it could be neat, but then I go read the rules and get bored/frustrated again.
I can kind of understand the whole 'levels 1 and 2 have limited options' thing, in that beginner players might want to learn a core of what their class does before specializing/picking up more options. Of course, I think there are better ways to do it, but there is some logic behind having idiot levels.
Again, reading about the eldritch knight sounds like it could be neat, but then I go read the rules and get bored/frustrated again.
I find reading the eldritch knight rules inspiring. Finally, those infinite monkeys hitting random keys did something. It's not Shakespeare, it's not even coherent, but hey.
Toon on
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
I love dreamkiller as the name for a class. I imagine it's based around telling your enemies why their most hoped for things will never happen.
"Goblins don't have any market for a 'ronco pocket fish slicer'."
"There's already a 'god of people named Steve'. And she hates you, personally."
"No matter how many feats you spend you will never be as good in combat as the druid's animal companion."
Reminds me of my favorite spell from maybe the 3.0/3.5 Book of Vile Darkness. I can't recall what it was called, but it was an evil spell that found the target's favorite thing and destroyed it.
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
Well, let's be honest, while I'm not sure if anyone else is an Adventure Time fan, but Princess Bubblegum is OP as fuck. She's basically immortal to both aging and injury, and her only dump stat is wisdom, which is only a problem insofar as her ability to create entirely new species from scratch sometimes goes awry.
"I just finished programming a proper simulation of a soul. In fact, it's much easier to manipulate than a real one."
It's LFQW all over again.
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
So are there any resources for someone wanting to learn how to play DnD play by post?
Well, let's be honest, while I'm not sure if anyone else is an Adventure Time fan, but Princess Bubblegum is OP as fuck. She's basically immortal to both aging and injury, and her only dump stat is wisdom, which is only a problem insofar as her ability to create entirely new species from scratch sometimes goes awry.
"I just finished programming a proper simulation of a soul. In fact, it's much easier to manipulate than a real one."
It's LFQW all over again.
Oh course she's OP, she's an NPC. The first hint should be the fact that she's basically a benevolent supervillain. Like, she's Doctor Doom it's just that the show is set in Latvia so it's not a problem for the heroes.
Well, let's be honest, while I'm not sure if anyone else is an Adventure Time fan, but Princess Bubblegum is OP as fuck. She's basically immortal to both aging and injury, and her only dump stat is wisdom, which is only a problem insofar as her ability to create entirely new species from scratch sometimes goes awry.
"I just finished programming a proper simulation of a soul. In fact, it's much easier to manipulate than a real one."
It's LFQW all over again.
Oh course she's OP, she's an NPC. The first hint should be the fact that she's basically a benevolent supervillain. Like, she's Doctor Doom it's just that the show is set in Latvia so it's not a problem for the heroes.
Well, let's be honest, while I'm not sure if anyone else is an Adventure Time fan, but Princess Bubblegum is OP as fuck. She's basically immortal to both aging and injury, and her only dump stat is wisdom, which is only a problem insofar as her ability to create entirely new species from scratch sometimes goes awry.
"I just finished programming a proper simulation of a soul. In fact, it's much easier to manipulate than a real one."
It's LFQW all over again.
Princess Bubblegum is a Bond villain/techno witch who happens to like Finn and Jake.
She's also Adventure Time's Deus Ex Machina. It's not clear if this was intentional or just where the character ended up. But it's all bacon pancakes.
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
edited August 2014
So uh, this article explains a lot about where 5th Ed went, and also goes on to expose some of the... nastier stuff going on behind the scenes.
Kay on
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
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oxybeEntei is appaled and disappointed in youRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I know me and a few others mentioned the rather unfortunate credits earlier in the thread but beyond that i didn't really pay much attention to, well, how much attention those credits were getting. I'm familiar with the pundit, which is where my dismay came from. Zac, i really never cared for his "old school" style so i simply ignored things related to him. I will also state that I never interacted with either of them (to my knowledge) as we ran in different internet groups.
you can read my collected ravings at oxybesothertumbr.tumblr.com
So are there any resources for someone wanting to learn how to play DnD play by post?
@silence1186 Maybe if you did a Google search you'd locate something, but it's basically like table top except that you post instead. They obviously tend to be slower (people may only post 1-3 times a day), but otherwise pretty similar. Outside of combat it's a first-come first-serve thing (but typically nice not to try and hog the interaction). Inside combat you have turns just like normal. So far my experience with them is they are hit or miss as to whether or not they keep going. I've seen two that have run longer than a few months and about a dozen that have lasted a few weeks at best before fizzling out.
Posts
By feat did you mean "FEATure that they get automatically because it's essentially a feat tax for Eldritch Knights"?
Although I'm surprisingly okay with Warlords being able to grant temporary healing instead of healing healing. It fits more in the flavour of inspiration to me. The idea of " healing surge" being how much healing a body can take was fantastic. Then you could have magical healing restore actual hit points at the cost of surges and inspiration give THP for free.
Advantage on concentration is actually pretty decent, keeping in context that the fighter likely has a high con & gets his proficiency bonus to it, however we really need to see the monster damage output before figuring out if that's actually useful. If monster damage, especially melee monsters, is rather high, then the fighter who self-buffs might still be in trouble why trying to maintain his self-buffs.
Allows to cast with no free hands is... ok, i guess. Most casters probably won't have something in their off-hand anyways, so for them it's of limited use, but i can see this being used with clerics and the Eldirch Knight.
Offensive spells in 5th ed seem to require higher level spell slots to be useful in the DPS race at higher levels, so with our "magical fighter" gaining 3rd level slots at 18th, i'm not expecting much on that part... you're probably better off using your normal physical attack on OAs.
All in all, unless you're playing a Duelist-type Eldritch Knight (by virtue of needing an empty hand for their single-hand weapon damage boost) you'll need this feat to cast your spells without first sheathing your weapon, which still requires your main action to cast, and it's very likely it won't be even nearly as potent as anything a proper caster could put out due to your lack of higher level slots to power these spells.
One nice but rather subtle thing about 4th was that you didn't have the 15 minute "SPELL UP!" bullshit you have to do in 3rd.
1) you have a fighter with at least a 16 dex (and a high con for those Concentration checks, and a high Int for your Save DC),
2) you are not wearing armor (so don't choose the Defense fighting style),
3) you don't mind always losing a spell slot to Mage Armor, and
4) you only adventure for 8 hours per day
Then (at least AC-wise) you're on par with a 14-dex fighter with a Chain Shirt. But you get to cast a spell once a day, so there's that.
Of course, keep in mind that casting a spell precludes you from using the fighter's Extra Attack feature since that only triggers when you use the Attack action, which is specifically a melee or ranged attack. Casting a spell is the Cast a Spell action. Sure, some spells require you to make a ranged attack, but that's not actually the Attack action. It also negates all the other attack-oriented Fighting Styles in the basic rules, so let's hope there are more in the PHB.
At 20th level, when you are the ultimate Eldritch Knight, you get the incredible opportunity to trade in 5 attacks (with 5 chances to crit, which could crit on 18-20 if you were a Champion instead) to do 8d6 damage (or half if the target makes its Dex save).
But maybe the actual subclass has some features that make it a better choice? It sounds like you get some cantrips, so that's cool.
I remember that Eldritch Knights get the feature to bond up to two weapons to themselves. The bonded weapon(s) can be teleported to hand as a free action which, I guess, allows them to drop weapon, cast, and then retrieve the weapon in the same turn. It could also be used for a l throwing weapon build I guess, although it eats up a bonus action.
Pre-level 10 they get another feature that allows them to make a bonus attack whenever they cast a cantrip, and somewhere between levels 13-18 (15 I think) they can teleport whenever they action surge. They are also given a couple non-abjuration/evocation spells such as magic weapon and longstrider. I can't remember the other features they get...
I don't think the Eldritch Knight will be nearly as bad as some are saying. At level 3, instead of having a double crit chance by taking the Champion archetype, you have a couple uses of some AOE or buffs as well the use of ranged offensive cantrips which can save an action from not having to draw a bow.
I also imagine they would make decent Archers.
Eldritch knight, in this build of 5th, can only learn Evocation or Abjuration spells (and the document i have does not make finding them particularly easy), learn and get bonus (specific) spells at 3, 7, 13 & 19. the EK starts with 2+bonus and finishes with 8 spells known + 4 bonus ones. he also starts with 2 cantrips then gains an extra one at 10 & 16
3 -He has the swordmage's teleport-y sword thing, but doing so requires using up your bonus action. you can have 2 weapons set to teleport, but only one per bonus action.
7 - When the EK uses a cantrip he can make one attack as a bonus action.
10 - When he punches a monster, they have disadvantage on the next saving throw on a spell he casts before the end of his next turn.
15 - 30ft teleport before or after they action surge.
18 - when you cast any spell, make one attack as a bonus action.
One thing to note though is that i am still unsure how to figure out the fighter's Caster Level. Is a 5th level fighter one with a caster level of 3 (as he's only gotten 3 levels in which he can cast spells) or does he have a caster level of 5 (overall character level)?
Figher + Wizard
Defense+Warfare
Earth+Hunting
Etc
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Sailor
Earth in Titan Quest is fire/DMG resist
Yomama.
Again, reading about the eldritch knight sounds like it could be neat, but then I go read the rules and get bored/frustrated again.
I find reading the eldritch knight rules inspiring. Finally, those infinite monkeys hitting random keys did something. It's not Shakespeare, it's not even coherent, but hey.
"Goblins don't have any market for a 'ronco pocket fish slicer'."
"There's already a 'god of people named Steve'. And she hates you, personally."
"No matter how many feats you spend you will never be as good in combat as the druid's animal companion."
Why I fear the ocean.
Wolf
Hey, Princess is a perfectly cromulent class.
I don't know what this is...
But who's DM'ing, because !signmeup.
...yeah, me too.
Well, let's be honest, while I'm not sure if anyone else is an Adventure Time fan, but Princess Bubblegum is OP as fuck. She's basically immortal to both aging and injury, and her only dump stat is wisdom, which is only a problem insofar as her ability to create entirely new species from scratch sometimes goes awry.
"I just finished programming a proper simulation of a soul. In fact, it's much easier to manipulate than a real one."
It's LFQW all over again.
Oh course she's OP, she's an NPC. The first hint should be the fact that she's basically a benevolent supervillain. Like, she's Doctor Doom it's just that the show is set in Latvia so it's not a problem for the heroes.
She can't be Doom.
She's admitted that she made a mistake.
Why I fear the ocean.
She's also Adventure Time's Deus Ex Machina. It's not clear if this was intentional or just where the character ended up. But it's all bacon pancakes.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
@silence1186 Maybe if you did a Google search you'd locate something, but it's basically like table top except that you post instead. They obviously tend to be slower (people may only post 1-3 times a day), but otherwise pretty similar. Outside of combat it's a first-come first-serve thing (but typically nice not to try and hog the interaction). Inside combat you have turns just like normal. So far my experience with them is they are hit or miss as to whether or not they keep going. I've seen two that have run longer than a few months and about a dozen that have lasted a few weeks at best before fizzling out.