This is a similar build to Martin's recent Arcane Knight PRC build (not to be confused with Tengudor's non-PRC Arcane Knight build), although it's actually something I've been fiddling with since first reading about the Eldritch Knight. Personally, I don't like having to rely on Still Spell/Auto Still Spell in order to deal with arcane spell failure. Instead, I went with a higher dex character that, especially after his dex buffing, can have just as good AC with a low spell failure armor (leather earlier on, but with epic buffs later any armor would decrease the AC). I also went with a greatsword, as I won't be using a shield for this build. Anyway, without further ado:
Epic Spells: These are the epic spells you'll definitely want to research - Contingent Resurrection, Epic Mage Armor, Epic Warding, and Herculean Empowerment. Greater Ruin, Greater Timestop, and Singular Sunder are a few others that could be useful.
Without items or buffs, this character has a DC of 20 + spell level for most spells, 26 + spell level for evocation. He has a caster level of 38. Including his spell penetration feats, he has a +44 to beat spell resistance, +48 for evocation spells. In other words, he has the casting ability of a near pure mage, but also can be a strong melee presence when fully buffed. This enables him to be very flexible. He can go full melee against magic immune creatures, but he can also go full spellcaster without having to rely solely on spells without saving throws. And, due to Improved Combat Casting, he can cast spells in combat without provoking AoOs as well. While testing it, I was able to take on a huge mass of enemies, including 3-4 mithril golems, a number of elementals, and 4-5 dragons, and I managed to take them all down with more than half my health left (and that was without bothering to cast Energy Buffer, even though most of the damage I took was elemental). Definitely was a fun character to play around with.
Steve
Edited By Stravinsky00 on 04/06/05 11:59
One minor modification:
It would probably be better to switch levels 5 and 6 in the leveling scheme (this build is intended to be playable from level 1 as much as possible). In other words, take your 3rd wizard level at character level 5, and your 3rd fighter level at character level 6. That will postpone the +1 to AB the fighter level will give you, but I think earlier access to 2nd level spells (Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Fox's Cunning, Flame Weapon, Death Armor, Ghostly Visage, etc.) is worth it (especially in any boss type battles).
Steve
You could replace 2 levels Eldritch Knight with 2 levels of Fighter to get an extra feat. Combat casting is pretty useless, I would exchange them for epic skill focus (spellcraft) and epic skill focus (lore) to be a better epic spell caster.
That's definitely changes you could make. My goal was to make it as close to a pure caster as possible while still being a good fighter, which is why I wouldn't trade the two fighter levels for 2 EK levels. I also don't really need the extra feat. You can also drop Combat Casting and Improved Combat Casting if you want. Move Greater Spell Focus earlier where Combat Casting was and take Epic Skill Focus(Spellcraft) there. As for what to do in place of Improved Combat Casting...you can't take an Epic Skill Focus there, because I took ICC as an EK bonus feat, and the Epic Skill Focuses aren't there. Taking two levels of fighter instead wouldn't do it, since I don't think it's on the fighter bonus feat list either (The EK bonus feat list is basically the fighter list, minus weapon spec, plus a few wizard feats). You'd have to lose one of the other wizard feats I took on every 3rd level (perhaps maximize, although I wouldn't want to lose it), and throw in maybe another Epic Toughness at level 22. Personally though, I like Improved Combat Casting, since it lets you cast a spell when surrounded by enemies without causing AoOs which could drain your damage reducing shield even faster. Combat Casting itself is mostly worthless though, and is only there because it's a prereq for Improved Combat Casting.
As for Epic Spells, the epic skill focuses would definitely give you more options, but for the most part I intended to just use a few epic spells for protection, and thus don't personally need much higher Spellcraft or Lore as long as I can get Epic Gloves of Spellcraft. But, this wasn't made for PvP, and higher spellcraft would let you get access to more powerful damaging and interesting epic spells.
Steve
Edited By Stravinsky00 on 04/17/05 01:58
Get rid of great cleave and take maximize instead. Getting two more levels of fighter lets you take improved knockdown.
This build does take maximize actually, albeit not until late. And it's funny you mentioned the Improved Knockdown...I've been using this build to play through An Ancient Heart, and I ended doing exactly that (i.e. dropping Great Cleave and taking Improved Knockdown instead). Definitely will get a lot more use out of Improved Knockdown than Great Cleave. But I still don't see a reason for more fighter levels, since I can get exactly those feats that you've suggested without changing any levels around.
Steve
Here is a modified leveling scheme including some of GiantEvilHead's suggestions. I haven't technically tested the leveling yet, but I'll check now and post back here if there are any problems.
Here's another way to level the character (using the same feats as the one I just posted) that's a bit better for playing from level 1 to 40 I think. I would have just edited the last message, but it was too late:
1: Fighter(1) - Weapon Focus (Greatsword), Power Attack 2: Wizard(1) - specialize in Illusion 3: Fighter(2) - Cleave, Knockdown 4: Wizard(2) 5: Fighter(3) 6: Wizard(3) - Toughness 7: Fighter(4) - Weapon Specialization (Greatsword) 8: Wizard(4) 9: Wizard(5) - Spell Focus (Evocation), Practiced Spellcaster (Wizard) 10: Eldritch Knight(1) - Improved Knockdown 11: Eldritch Knight(2) 12: Eldritch Knight(3) - Improved Critical (Greatsword) 13: Eldritch Knight(4) 14: Eldritch Knight(5) 15: Eldritch Knight(6) - Greater Spell Focus (Evocation) 16: Eldritch Knight(7) 17: Eldritch Knight(8) 18: Eldritch Knight(9) - Spell Penetration 19: Eldritch Knight(10) 20: Fighter(5) 21: Eldritch Knight(11) - Maximize Spell 22: Eldritch Knight(12) - Epic Weapon Focus (Greatsword) 23: Fighter(6) - Epic Weapon Specialization (Greatsword) 24: Eldritch Knight(13) - Epic Skill Focus (Spellcraft) 25: Eldritch Knight(14) 26: Eldritch Knight(15) - Epic Spell Focus (Evocation) 27: Eldritch Knight(16) - Greater Spell Penetration 28: Eldritch Knight(17) 29: Eldritch Knight(18) - Epic Spell Penetration 30: Eldritch Knight(19) - Great Intelligence I 31: Eldritch Knight(20) 32: Eldritch Knight(21) - Epic Toughness I 33: Eldritch Knight(22) - Great Intelligence II 34: Eldritch Knight(23) 35: Eldritch Knight(24) - Epic Prowess 36: Eldritch Knight(25) - Epic Skill Focus (Lore) 37: Eldritch Knight(26) 38: Eldritch Knight(27) - Armor Skin (could be Epic Toughness II) 39: Eldritch Knight(28) - Focused Spell Penetration (Evocation) 40: Eldritch Knight(29)
Beware of specializing in illusion with a fighter/mage build. You loose enchantment which contains heroism and greater heroism, arguably to of the best buff spells in the game.
Hrm, good point. You can easily just not specialize at all if you wish. I honestly have not looked into many of the new PRC spells. I've been sticking to the non-PRC ones, since just using a PRC character tends to be unbalancing enough in a non-PRC module without that. Plus, at least for spells above level 3, you'll need to have access to scrolls in order to learn them. You'd need to either play a module with PRC scrolls incorporated, or wait until you have access to the Epic Spell Laboratory (or cheat your way into it), since I believe there is a scroll merchant there besides the normal epic spell stuff. But it is true that, unlike with the normal spells, there are at least some enchantment spells that may outweigh the benefits of an extra spell per level. Greater Heroism alone makes the enchantment school worthwhile.