Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Eldritch Knight

I love combining arcane ability and combat prowess, so I thought the Eldritch Knight would be the best subclass for me. When I started playing though I felt as if I was behind my companions and when I played an Eldritch Knight with my friends was definitely behind them. I believe that most of this comes from how you need to spread out your stats with this class. You need a high combat stat followed up by a high constitution stat then if you want to cast spells effectively you need a high Intelligence score. I know that there is a headband that boosts a characters Intelligence up to 17 but there are so many more interesting items throughout the game that using it does not feel great.

I believe that the best way to make the Eldritch Knight more fun, would be to condense its ability score spread. If you were to change the 3rd level ability of the Eldritch Knight from what it is now to "You may use Intelligence instead of Strength or Dexterity when making attacks with your bound weapon" I believe that the class would be much more fun to play! Now I understand that power may be an issue, the current eldritch knight may be limited on purpose so that it cannot do something like cast hold person and then action surge effectively due to its lower intelligence. However Sorcerers can cast two fireballs (or two of any other spell) in a turn and Moon Druids have access to owlbear (among others). I am not saying those classes should be nerfed, I am just saying that there are already some strong things you can do in this game and I believe that allowing Eldritch Knight Fighters to fight using their Intelligence would only catch them up to the curve.

Thank you all for reading this! I hope that this change is at the very least considered.

P.S. The other fighters do not have the same issues as eldritch knight as their abilities scale off of Strength/Dexterity. So they only need Strength/Dexterity and Constitution to be an effective force on the battlefield.

It sounds like you’re looking for a Pact of the Blade Warlock, not an EK. Making Int your weapon stat for EKs might have some unfortunate effects on a Fightet/Wizard multiclass, which is already generally stronger than regular Fighters.

The draw of the EK is typically the stat independent spells, like Shield, and Bladeward+Warmagic. They’re a tank class, which has some unfortunate side effects in dnd 5e, since tanking is generally ineffective.

In BG3, EKs typically want to be throwing weapons builds with Tavern Brawler, since Bound Weapon automatically returns to your hand when thrown.

Err ... EK hardly gets anything out of intelligence.

EKs are full featured fighters. Just like Champions. Just like Battle Masters.

With a very minimal dose of Wizard. With a very small number of spells. With no higher access to spells than spell level two and even that happends very late.

They dont get extra spells from Intelligence. They learn spells like a Sorcerer.

They dont need high spell DC. Really you should focus on buffs and defense spells, not on attack spells. At most maybe get Magic Missle, which doesnt use DC and always hits.

"Play it THIS way!!!"

*

I agree, it would be nice to have an Eldritch Knight that relied on Int for combat. A change like this would make the class more interesting, opening up options. Good suggestion.

I always Eldritch Knight Lae-zel, as I see it as the "Githyanki Way".
She uses two spells - Magic Missile to assuredly kill enemies on 2-6 HP, and the flamethrower i.e. Flaming Hands. No need for INT.

I really don't understand this mindset. Why are you being so suddenly defensive when people point out what a class is generally good at (to the extent it is good at all, mind), especially in a thread where someone is explicitly saying that they feel they're not getting what they expected out of the class? Building a good EK in BG3 pretty much does boil down to a Tavern Brawler build, because the class isn't very good at anything else. Even with Int to hit and dmg, it still wouldn't really be good at anything else, largely because tank classes aren't great in 5e as a system.

It sounded like OP expected a Bladelock when they picked EK. Pointing out a clear disconnect between what a class does and what the player wants is usually pretty helpful.

@VisibleTarget

If you're looking for a melee/magic hybrid with a focus on spellcasting, you probably want a Pact of the Blade Warlock. You can use your Charisma to hit and dmg with your bound weapon, and you get a much stronger spellcasting progression with spellslots that (mostly) recharge on a short rest.

It's a suggestion/feedback forum.

If someone suggests that they'd like a certain feature or to be able to play a class a certain way, it feels decidedly and patently unhelpful to respond with advice about playing another way.

The forum exists to give suggestions and feedback. It's not designed to get responses about how you're playing the game wrong. Just like anyone else, I occasionally get frustrated, and maybe that's what's happening here, but to me, I can't help but shake this feeling that people are jumping in critiquing feedback for no reason.

If the point of the post had been: "How to play this class effectively given the current ruleset?" --then I think the given responses would have been appropriate. But the whole point of the suggestion is that it would be nice to have another way to play the class.

Personally, I can see someone not liking the warlock at all. The thought of selling a soul doesn't sit well with everyone. Folks who like certain game mechanics also care about certain game flavors.

I really isn't when I include the class that maps onto what they're asking for. It even has its own bound weapon feature. Doubly so when the suggestion in question wouldn't solve the problem of the EK being pretty weak overall and they'd still feel like they're bad with spells, on account of the EK having a very limited selection of spells.




A more extreme example of this could be someone saying they're feeling dissatisfied their singleclass Wizard isn't doing so well as a melee dmg character and someone pointing out that obviously it wouldn't, because that's not what the class does. Then you come in all defensively about how we're telling people to play a certain way.

Pointing out that the class they picked and the playstyle they seem to expect doesn't line up seems more like common curtesy than hostility to me. That you're taking it so personally seems like something you might want to look into.

The game also doesn't force you to pick any [WARLOCK] dialogue options in the game. Nor is every patron The Fiend. But if someone still doesn't want Warlock, then the playstyle being asked for here still wouldn't be covered by EKs using Int to hit and dmg. Clearly they're bothered by the class being weak by what I can read in the OP. But luckily there are similar classes they can play that's stronger and has a similar playstyle: Pact of the Blade Warlock and Fighter/Wizard multiclasses being the primary options.

I've played well over 3000 hours of this game.

I would enjoy playing an Eldritch Knight that used Int instead of Str or Dex.

I think that would make for an interesting character. And I don't think your suggestions of what "I probably actually want..." are accurate.

Nor do I think your example about a wizard doing melee damage is the same thing at all.

The Eldritch Knight is a warrior who can cast some spells. Note: there's no weird warlock "catch" to it. It's just a warrior who can cast spells. Which spells *you* think the warrior should cast may fit your playstyle. It's not necessarily mine, though, so I'm not terribly interested in hearing how the class *should* be played. I know perfectly well that I'd enjoy a high Int Eldritch Knight character, one with a high spell attack and save, along with an impressive melee attack. I've given up battle master maneuvers, after all. Now I have some spells instead, and I'd like to be able to use them. All of them and not be forced to pick just the ones without saves or attack rolls.

As for whether or not a Fighter/Wizard multi would be better, shrug. Maybe someone wants that third attack and fourth feat.

--the point is, it's a valid suggestion. it's a good suggestion. i support the suggestion. This is the kind of feedback that gets Eldritch Knight closer to where people want it for the sake of the fantasy. I don't understand how trying to tell the OP to play another class instead--which isn't the same thing--is reasonable. Or more importantly, helpful.

Maybe off topic a bit, but I still so no reason whatsoever for Larian to have omitted melee cantrips like Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade from BG3. It doesn't fall under the umbrella of their laughably weak excuse concerning difficulty balancing high level spells and it certainly isn't an oversight or afterthought. Like wtf

Eldritch Knight may suffer mechanically, but it reigns supreme thematically, right up there with Paladin.

But also, yeah, Bladelock is the superior gish and actually fulfills the role with respect towards its intentions, just to add my hat in that ring as well.

The thing I really dislike the most about using the circlet is figuring out the identity of the eldritch knight. Who is this character? He's a trained warrior who's skilled in the art of the arcane. Oh, yeah, and he has an eight intelligence. Well, why is this dumb guy training as an eldritch knight? He really hit the jackpot when he found the circlet that helped him so much with his career choice.

EK is a Fighter and it shouldn't substitute Str or Dex with Int. There are other classes that do that, that aren't Fighters.

What needs to happen for the EK, is allowing them to switch one attack per turn with a spell. That's what Battlemasters do - they enhance their attacks with Maneuvers. EK's need to be able to enhance their Extra Attack sequence with a spell. Their main ability (War Magic) is really badly designed for the class as it contradicts rather than compliments the Fighter's main feature.

They don't get many spell slots to begin with. Much less compared to how many Maneuvers Battle Masters can use per Long Rest. Hence it's only fair the EK would be able to "spike" more when they choose to use their spells. Being able to replace attacks with spells would also open the door to offensive spells instead of the best way of playing an EK just being spamming defensive spells before combat and Shield as Reactions.

I hate the gimmicky "EK cantrips" (Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade) that were some kind of an attempt to make War Magic decent. Those cantrips didn't fix the class, but trapped it into using those exact Cantrips and nothing else. EK needs to be flexible like a 5th level EK attacking once, and then throwing a Fire Bolt at another distant enemy. That gives them something unique.

And I hate building a character around an item like Headband of Intellect, and completely dumping Int for a class that is supposed to be good at it. It should not be the best way of building a hybrid spellcaster.

EK builds kinda died after they nerfed lighting charges. It was a good way to add stats to damage for gish builds. I run EK5/abj wiz6/frost sorc1(for AoA) get tavern brawler and throw spears/arcane missiles or offtank with projected ward and counterspell.

The key with EKs is you are using magic to increase your defense not your offense. You have a few offensive spells that are useful without multiclassing into a wizard. I suggest 3 builds for the EK.

The "Death Knight"

6 levels of fighter with EK + 6 levels of Wizard (necromancy) This gives you all of the buffs for being a necro wizard and 3 feats along with major bonuses for being a fighter.

or

PURE EK 12 levels of fighter.

or the EK+ build
11 fighter + 1 Wizard to scribe spells.

Those cantrips aren't that good for Eldritch Knights anyway; they're best on classes that only get one attack, or have a maximum of two attack with no action surge.

Ultimately Eldritch Knight in Baldur's Gate 3 is a lot like Eldritch Knight in 5th edition D&D, exactly as they aimed for it to be; it's a Fighter with a little bit of spellcasting sprinkled on top. You don't want to use action spells because that means you're not doing what Fighter is best at, namely making a bunch of attacks; you want spells you can do in addition to that, and which don't care too much about your Intelligence. That's why Shield is so good, likewise Magic Missile, some other highlights for combat are Expeditious Retreat (ironically for running towards enemies) and Fog Cloud. For cantrips it's all about the utility options like Friends for advantage on charisma checks, Dancing Lights or Light to cope with darkness, Mage Hand for fondling distant objects, and maybe Minor Illusion for triggering traps (since distracting enemies still uses the DC).

That said, it's not impossible to build an Eldritch Knight, but you'll be building them very differently; e.g- you'll probably want to focus on Dexterity so you can be more of a ranged character, that way you don't have to worry as much as Constitution (you'll be trying to avoid taking damage by being distant), this then frees you up to take more Intelligence so you can use attack and save DC spells. But that really requires you to plan for this from the start (start out as an archer, then become more of an eldritch archer later) or you'll likely need to respec later.

The EK is not working as they intended. They gave them Evocation spells, but the most effective way to play one is to ignore Evocation and dump your spellcasting stat, on a spellcaster subclass.

Your main class is the Fighter, but EK's ability directly contradicts Extra Attack, your main ability. That's why the EK feels off. An 11th level EK casting a 1st or 2nd level spell instead of attacking three times gets a really bad deal.

They have recognized that in One DnD playtest and War Magic now allows you to do exactly as I suggested all along - replacing one of your attacks with a Cantrip. It's a good step in fixing the subclass, but I think they should also allow leveled spells. It wouldn't break anything with the meager amount of spell progression EK's get. If you invest in Intelligence, burn a spell slot and trade one attack for a Scorching Ray, you should spike in damage. You're still going to be more efficient using that spell slot for Blur before attacking, but at least you would have some kind of a choice if you need a damage spike to save an ally or something.

The splitting between ability scores for weapons and casting is not limited to the Eldritch Knight class, and my understanding is that this is in accordance with D&D 5e rules. If Larian is going to allow Eldritch Knight to perform weapon attacks using Intelligence, I suppose they'll have to consider allowing classes like War Domain Cleric to attack using Wisdom or Paladin using Charisma as well.

The EK already does attack with Intelligence - with spells.

If all attacks are conveniently bundled under one ability, we might as well remove ability scores and just have "Attack". And since everyone would just max that single ability score that affects everything, we can now consolidate "Attack" directly into Proficiency Bonus. See where I'm going?

Eldritch Knight is in my opinion a usefull subclass... but only if you mutliclass.
You won't be able to be very good with spells and with weapons at the same time except if you're a pact of the blade warlock or a druid with shillelagh...

The warlock Eldritch knight have 3 attacks per turn, which is what you expect from a fighter. But he also has usefull spells thanks to the warlock.
With a limited number of Eldritch knight levels, you can also have VERY powerfull spells that don't require any intelligence... Shield is the best defensive spell and that's something you can have with an eldritch knight.
Then you have magic missile eventually, but also protection from evil and good, longstrider, misty step,... and a few others.
Eldritch Knight 7 Warlock 5 is good and gives you 3 feats. With a few items is is a good build that only need charisma and constitution.

Sames goes for the druid and shilellagh that only need wisdom and constitution.
Currently building a spore druid 7 eldritch knight 5 and it mostly works as well as other martial multiclass.
With a good staff without anything in the offhand you can grabd great weapon master and do massive damage. With a few items your attacks are close or even better than 2H weapon damages.
But you are a druid so you can also cast a few spells. With fighter levels you are proficient in constitution ST, you wear a heavy armor, and you have the shield spell which makes you extremely hard to hit for ennemies.
You can also eventually wildshape... ofc wildshape sucks a lot in the release version tbh.

But I agree that a full Eldritch knight is really dissapointing because on top of NOT having a lot of (high level) spells... You are bad at using them.
That said being able to use weapons with intelligence may be too powerfull.


Well... INT define the difficulty check of the spell... So the lower is your intelligence, the higher is the chance your ennemies suced their saving throw...