As the title suggests, I've just convinced my group to start playing 5E, and I could do with some veterans' advice.
Hobgoblin Eldritch Knight, using a 27 point buy, have a Intelligence of 14. Planning on getting War Caster at the 4th level and Ritual Caster at the 6th level.
Aim to have Shocking Grasp and Prestidigitation as my first Cantrips , and Chromatic Orb, Mage Armor and Find Familiar at 3 level. Would aim for a Bat Familiar for Blindsight and adorableness.
Shocking Grasp because, well, I'm likely to be in the thick of the fighting and forcing an enemy to not be able to use their Reactions is always fun in a Caster-heavy group.
Prestidigitation is always golden, even if just for flavour. Being able to light a fire, clean my armor, warm up our rations etc, always good.
Chromatic Orb is, again, forced to only work against a 'creature' and costing 50 gold per pop, an expensive little spell, but the ability to freely cycle between six different types of damage, fire, cold, lightning, acid, poison and thunder, means I'll always have an option against a target's Resistance.
Mage Armor is mostly for my Familiar and maybe my spellcasting allies. Having the bat bump their AC up to 15 and then be able to deliver my Touch Attack for me, delivering a nasty little zap from Shocking Grasp to an opponent who may not have seen said Bat fluttering up near the roof is always fun.
At 6th, I've permission to take the Ritual Caster Feat, so I can start to stockpile Ritual-tagged spells from the Wizard spell-list and can swap out Find Familiar for something more useful in combat, like Thunderwave, Protection from Evil and Good or just good ol' Continual Flame. I'd probably go for Continual Flame since our Party has two members without Darkvision, a Human Wild Sorcerer and a Halfling Way of the Shadows Monk, and ensuring they've always got a light when we're meandering through Undermountain is going to be crucial.
At 10 level, would have added Ray of Frost to the Cantrips, and Thunderwave, Gust of Wind and Scorching Ray to my list of spells.
15 level, no new cantrips, would have added Fly, Fireball and Dispel Magic to my list of spells.
20 level, would have added Stoneskin, Protection From Elements and Banishment to my list of spells.
So ... should I replacing Prestidigitation with Mending, perhaps, to facilitate repairing gear since the other casters in the party, a pair of Tiefling Bards, a Human Sorcerer, a Half-Drow Druid, are all picking straight damage or healing magic, with only one of the Bards willing to agree to having Mending on their list at 1st level, I am curious if maybe we should 'double dip' on this nifty little cantrip so we've got two folks in the Undermountain who can magically repair things should we not be able to return to the surface in a hurry to replace lost or damaged equipment?
Are there any spells that a medium-to-short range character should be focusing on? With the Sorcerer loading up on Evocations, Transmutations and Divination spells, and the Bards stockpiling Illusions and Healing, and our Druid boning up on, well, the randomest selection of spells I've ever seen, I am curious if I should remain in this narrow focus on single-target spells and utility cantrips, or if I should try to broaden my horizons more?
Just a note, chromatic orb doesn't consume the material, so once you drop 50gp on the material, you dont have to again. But you will have to pull out the material in order to cast tge spell which may be difficult with a weapon and shield.
Also, if you get to level 15, I recommend counterspell over dispel magic (unless you already have 2 casters with counterspell and none with dispel).
Yeah, Counterspell does seem to be more effective for me, allowing the casters to focus on having Dispel on hand (might be difficult with the Sorcerer's bent on blowing stuff up), but with War Caster, I don't need to worry about Somatic Components, so I'd assume a ring with a 50gp diamond set into it would count as having the reagent on hand? I'll have to double-check with my DM on that when we're done with this session.
The thing about Eldritch Knights is that Fighters are already really good at killing things with their weapons, so a single-target damage spell like Chromatic Orb doesn't bring much to the table. With your spell slots lagging behind severely compared to full spellcasters, what you really want are spells that make you a better Fighter instead of a better 1/3rd of a wizard.
For 2nd level spells, Warding Wind, Shadow Blade*, Magic Weapon*, Misty Step* and Enlarge/Reduce* are all great choices. (*Not abjuration or conjuration.) A note on Protection From Evil And Good: ask your DM how the material component works. It's supposed to use up the holy water each time you cast it, but some DMs don't do that. Your mileage will vary greatly depending on that.
Don't forget you can replace an old spell with a new one each level, too. You'll probably want to trade out some of the 1st level spells that are losing their effectiveness for 2nd and 3rd level spells later on.
Yeah, Counterspell does seem to be more effective for me, allowing the casters to focus on having Dispel on hand (might be difficult with the Sorcerer's bent on blowing stuff up), but with War Caster, I don't need to worry about Somatic Components, so I'd assume a ring with a 50gp diamond set into it would count as having the reagent on hand?
You need to have material components in your hand.
The thing about Eldritch Knights is that Fighters are already really good at killing things with their weapons, so a single-target damage spell like Chromatic Orb doesn't bring much to the table. With your spell slots lagging behind severely compared to full spellcasters, what you really want are spells that make you a better Fighter instead of a better 1/3rd of a wizard.
For 2nd level spells, Warding Wind, Shadow Blade*, Magic Weapon*, Misty Step* and Enlarge/Reduce* are all great choices. (*Not abjuration or conjuration.) A note on Protection From Evil And Good: ask your DM how the material component works. It's supposed to use up the holy water each time you cast it, but some DMs don't do that. Your mileage will vary greatly depending on that.
Don't forget you can replace an old spell with a new one each level, too. You'll probably want to trade out some of the 1st level spells that are losing their effectiveness for 2nd and 3rd level spells later on.
Yeah, Counterspell does seem to be more effective for me, allowing the casters to focus on having Dispel on hand (might be difficult with the Sorcerer's bent on blowing stuff up), but with War Caster, I don't need to worry about Somatic Components, so I'd assume a ring with a 50gp diamond set into it would count as having the reagent on hand?
You need to have material components in your hand.
Sadly, we only have access to the Player's Manual, the DM's Guide, the Monster Manual and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, the Dragon Heist manual and the Dungeon of the Mad Mage manual, so my list of spells is ... somewhat limited. That said, I was aiming more for Evocation and Abjuration, but those spells look good and I really don't know how the classes 'play' in 5E. This is our first campaign so I was operating under the assumption that once we hit mid-level, my spell-casting would be punchy but more situational stop-gaps for elemental damage and utility rather than my go-to tool-kit for everything, unlike a full caster.
Shield, naturally, is a no-brainer for an "OH SHI-!" spell, just I was looking at the duration and a one-round +5 to AC was a bit ... eh? But taking a second look, as a reaction, that's not bad for a 'stop the Giant's Greataxe cleaving me in two' Action while my Fighter gets the heck outta dodge for some healing. Can't be used in a Surprise Round, but if you could, that would probably be utterly broken and everybody would have it. If my Fighter is going to be reliably murderous with just melee and ranged weapons, then I'll happily drop some of the blasty effect spells.
And at low level, even with the War Caster Feat, getting a +5 bump to my AC in a hurry so I can get to some tactically advantageous positions, cover, flanking, etc, is a good burn of a 1st level spell slot. The fact that it doesn't scale with spell slots sounds weird at first, but then it also means I can keep the majority of my 1st level spell slots for this spell, since I'm likely to be in the thick of things anyways and when I'm being flanked by ten billion Drow because the other players are almost all full casters and nobody wants to play the melee game with me, this sounds very useful.
Alternatively, Absorb Elements sounds ridiculously cool. Not only do I halve Elemental Damage as a Reaction, which will be ridiculously useful considering everybody else in the party but the Halfling Monk and the Half-Drow Druid will be throwing AoEs around like water balloons, but I can reduce the damage I take from friendly fire and turn it into an extra 1d6 fire, cold, shock, acid or thundering damage from me to the nastiest thing in my face.
And yes, I am aware I can change out spells whenever I level, and since you can 'boost' spells in 5th Edition by using higher level spell slots, Earth Tremor sounds like an amazing little AoE to be flinging about while I'm in the thick of combat, or to cover our escape after fleeing a horde of P.O.'ed enemies, because it will even make difficult terrain if used on earth and stone, which will further slow enemies down and allow the casters to lay down some covering fire on whatever is still standing afterwards. Definitely gonna see if my local store can get me that manual so I can give it to the DM and see what she says. Unfortunately, we're a small country town and we have only one 'gaming' store that still exists and/or bothers to sell tabletop gaming manuals, and this place has ... issues ... with ordering stuff in. I've been waiting five weeks for Volo's Guide to Monsters now. They sold the manuals I had ordered in to somebody else and then the employee had the gall to say 'early bird gets the worm' before the manager came out to apologise ... and this neckbearded troglodyte still works there.
Definitely gotta get Warding Wind. Not only does it mean I can slow down people trying to get around me and attack the rest of the party, fudges with melee attacks going in and out of the AoE, gets rid of a lot of those pesky Cloud spells and it deafens everybody in the effect, including me, but you can't have everything. That sounds ridiculously good for standing in the middle of a group of casters and just ruining their day.
Considering I'll be swapping out Find Familiar at 6th level when I pick up my Ritual Caster Feat, taking Misty Step instead sounds hilarious fun and meme. "Nothing personnel, kid." indeed. Best of all, I'm looking at the wording of Actions and Bonus Actions, I could theoretically move within 30 feet of a group hiding in a building, use Misty Step to teleport into the room (reading the spell's wording, I don't have to teleport to the ground, just an 'unoccupied space' in 30 feet of me) and then start laying about with a weapon. Admittedly, I am not certain on the RAW on teleporting into the threatened range of an enemy causing attacks of opportunity, but I'll dig that up later, or I'll just go with the DM's ruling.
And about the Chromatic Orb using a Diamond Ring. Theoretically it is in your hand (using the 'Interacting with objects around you' list on page 190 of the Player's Guide) and I could probably fluff using the ring by 'thrust my fist at the target and Chromatic Orb is cast from my ring' when I'm using the War Caster feat to get around casting spells with somatic components with a sword and shield in my hands. Still, it does seem a bit fluffery and meta-game-ish, so I'll point that out to the DM between now and our next gaming session, so thank you again for pointing that out.
Shield, naturally, is a no-brainer for an "OH SHI-!" spell, just I was looking at the duration and a one-round +5 to AC was a bit ... eh? But taking a second look, as a reaction, that's not bad for a 'stop the Giant's Greataxe cleaving me in two' Action while my Fighter gets the heck outta dodge for some healing.
Combat usually lasts 3-5 rounds, and your AC should be fairly high to begin with as a fighter, so this spell is making you borderline untouchable for a significant amount of time without taking up your action or bonus action. It's definitely one of the best ways to spend a 1st level slot.
Best of all, I'm looking at the wording of Actions and Bonus Actions, I could theoretically move within 30 feet of a group hiding in a building, use Misty Step to teleport into the room (reading the spell's wording, I don't have to teleport to the ground, just an 'unoccupied space' in 30 feet of me) and then start laying about with a weapon.
Teleporting into a room with Misty Step usually isn't possible unless there's windows you can use to peek inside. The spell requires you to see your destination.
Admittedly, I am not certain on the RAW on teleporting into the threatened range of an enemy causing attacks of opportunity, but I'll dig that up later, or I'll just go with the DM's ruling.
You only provoke attacks when you leave an enemy's reach, and teleporting out avoids opportunity attacks anyways.
And about the Chromatic Orb using a Diamond Ring. Theoretically it is in your hand (using the 'Interacting with objects around you' list on page 190 of the Player's Guide) and I could probably fluff using the ring by 'thrust my fist at the target and Chromatic Orb is cast from my ring' when I'm using the War Caster feat to get around casting spells with somatic components with a sword and shield in my hands. Still, it does seem a bit fluffery and meta-game-ish, so I'll point that out to the DM between now and our next gaming session, so thank you again for pointing that out.
The rules clearly state you need a hand free for the material components and claiming that it's "in" your hand because you put on a ring is a pretty transparent attempt to cheat the system. You're going to need to hold the material components for your other spells somehow anyways. Just drop your weapon if you have to, you can always summon it back as a bonus action using Weapon Bond.
I tend to think that spells that don't have a saving throw are the best spells for the EK. That way you don't need to worry about maxing out your Intelligence.
Level 1:
Absorb Elements is nice for when you take elemental damage. It has the added benefit of giving you a little bit of damage.
Shield for when you could really use that added AC in a round.
Counterspell to keep enemy casters from casting spells.
Haste is a nice spell. If you're doing it for the damage you might be better off with upcasting shadow blade but it also provides armor. Sucks pretty bad if you ever lose concentration though.
Level 4:
Fire Shield is a strong and versatile spell that doesn't require concentration.
Polymorph is an incredible and versatile spell. Are you low on hit points? Now you're a Tyrannosaurus Rex complete with 136 hit points! Your teammate having the same problem of low hit points? Now he or she can be a T-Rex!
Those are just the combat options. Of course there are a ton of useful out of combat spells you can roll with too.
As the title suggests, I've just convinced my group to start playing 5E, and I could do with some veterans' advice.
Hobgoblin Eldritch Knight, using a 27 point buy, have a Intelligence of 14. Planning on getting War Caster at the 4th level and Ritual Caster at the 6th level.
Aim to have Shocking Grasp and Prestidigitation as my first Cantrips , and Chromatic Orb, Mage Armor and Find Familiar at 3 level. Would aim for a Bat Familiar for Blindsight and adorableness.
Shocking Grasp because, well, I'm likely to be in the thick of the fighting and forcing an enemy to not be able to use their Reactions is always fun in a Caster-heavy group.
Prestidigitation is always golden, even if just for flavour. Being able to light a fire, clean my armor, warm up our rations etc, always good.
Chromatic Orb is, again, forced to only work against a 'creature' and costing 50 gold per pop, an expensive little spell, but the ability to freely cycle between six different types of damage, fire, cold, lightning, acid, poison and thunder, means I'll always have an option against a target's Resistance.
Mage Armor is mostly for my Familiar and maybe my spellcasting allies. Having the bat bump their AC up to 15 and then be able to deliver my Touch Attack for me, delivering a nasty little zap from Shocking Grasp to an opponent who may not have seen said Bat fluttering up near the roof is always fun.
At 6th, I've permission to take the Ritual Caster Feat, so I can start to stockpile Ritual-tagged spells from the Wizard spell-list and can swap out Find Familiar for something more useful in combat, like Thunderwave, Protection from Evil and Good or just good ol' Continual Flame. I'd probably go for Continual Flame since our Party has two members without Darkvision, a Human Wild Sorcerer and a Halfling Way of the Shadows Monk, and ensuring they've always got a light when we're meandering through Undermountain is going to be crucial.
At 10 level, would have added Ray of Frost to the Cantrips, and Thunderwave, Gust of Wind and Scorching Ray to my list of spells.
15 level, no new cantrips, would have added Fly, Fireball and Dispel Magic to my list of spells.
20 level, would have added Stoneskin, Protection From Elements and Banishment to my list of spells.
So ... should I replacing Prestidigitation with Mending, perhaps, to facilitate repairing gear since the other casters in the party, a pair of Tiefling Bards, a Human Sorcerer, a Half-Drow Druid, are all picking straight damage or healing magic, with only one of the Bards willing to agree to having Mending on their list at 1st level, I am curious if maybe we should 'double dip' on this nifty little cantrip so we've got two folks in the Undermountain who can magically repair things should we not be able to return to the surface in a hurry to replace lost or damaged equipment?
Are there any spells that a medium-to-short range character should be focusing on? With the Sorcerer loading up on Evocations, Transmutations and Divination spells, and the Bards stockpiling Illusions and Healing, and our Druid boning up on, well, the randomest selection of spells I've ever seen, I am curious if I should remain in this narrow focus on single-target spells and utility cantrips, or if I should try to broaden my horizons more?
Just a note, chromatic orb doesn't consume the material, so once you drop 50gp on the material, you dont have to again. But you will have to pull out the material in order to cast tge spell which may be difficult with a weapon and shield.
Also, if you get to level 15, I recommend counterspell over dispel magic (unless you already have 2 casters with counterspell and none with dispel).
Yeah, Counterspell does seem to be more effective for me, allowing the casters to focus on having Dispel on hand (might be difficult with the Sorcerer's bent on blowing stuff up), but with War Caster, I don't need to worry about Somatic Components, so I'd assume a ring with a 50gp diamond set into it would count as having the reagent on hand? I'll have to double-check with my DM on that when we're done with this session.
Cheers for that, DxJxC.
The thing about Eldritch Knights is that Fighters are already really good at killing things with their weapons, so a single-target damage spell like Chromatic Orb doesn't bring much to the table. With your spell slots lagging behind severely compared to full spellcasters, what you really want are spells that make you a better Fighter instead of a better 1/3rd of a wizard.
Some great 1st level choices are Shield, Absorb Elements, Earth Tremor and Thunderwave (which you were going to pick up later anyways.)
For 2nd level spells, Warding Wind, Shadow Blade*, Magic Weapon*, Misty Step* and Enlarge/Reduce* are all great choices. (*Not abjuration or conjuration.) A note on Protection From Evil And Good: ask your DM how the material component works. It's supposed to use up the holy water each time you cast it, but some DMs don't do that. Your mileage will vary greatly depending on that.
Don't forget you can replace an old spell with a new one each level, too. You'll probably want to trade out some of the 1st level spells that are losing their effectiveness for 2nd and 3rd level spells later on.
You need to have material components in your hand.
Sadly, we only have access to the Player's Manual, the DM's Guide, the Monster Manual and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, the Dragon Heist manual and the Dungeon of the Mad Mage manual, so my list of spells is ... somewhat limited. That said, I was aiming more for Evocation and Abjuration, but those spells look good and I really don't know how the classes 'play' in 5E. This is our first campaign so I was operating under the assumption that once we hit mid-level, my spell-casting would be punchy but more situational stop-gaps for elemental damage and utility rather than my go-to tool-kit for everything, unlike a full caster.
Shield, naturally, is a no-brainer for an "OH SHI-!" spell, just I was looking at the duration and a one-round +5 to AC was a bit ... eh? But taking a second look, as a reaction, that's not bad for a 'stop the Giant's Greataxe cleaving me in two' Action while my Fighter gets the heck outta dodge for some healing. Can't be used in a Surprise Round, but if you could, that would probably be utterly broken and everybody would have it. If my Fighter is going to be reliably murderous with just melee and ranged weapons, then I'll happily drop some of the blasty effect spells.
And at low level, even with the War Caster Feat, getting a +5 bump to my AC in a hurry so I can get to some tactically advantageous positions, cover, flanking, etc, is a good burn of a 1st level spell slot. The fact that it doesn't scale with spell slots sounds weird at first, but then it also means I can keep the majority of my 1st level spell slots for this spell, since I'm likely to be in the thick of things anyways and when I'm being flanked by ten billion Drow because the other players are almost all full casters and nobody wants to play the melee game with me, this sounds very useful.
Alternatively, Absorb Elements sounds ridiculously cool. Not only do I halve Elemental Damage as a Reaction, which will be ridiculously useful considering everybody else in the party but the Halfling Monk and the Half-Drow Druid will be throwing AoEs around like water balloons, but I can reduce the damage I take from friendly fire and turn it into an extra 1d6 fire, cold, shock, acid or thundering damage from me to the nastiest thing in my face.
And yes, I am aware I can change out spells whenever I level, and since you can 'boost' spells in 5th Edition by using higher level spell slots, Earth Tremor sounds like an amazing little AoE to be flinging about while I'm in the thick of combat, or to cover our escape after fleeing a horde of P.O.'ed enemies, because it will even make difficult terrain if used on earth and stone, which will further slow enemies down and allow the casters to lay down some covering fire on whatever is still standing afterwards. Definitely gonna see if my local store can get me that manual so I can give it to the DM and see what she says. Unfortunately, we're a small country town and we have only one 'gaming' store that still exists and/or bothers to sell tabletop gaming manuals, and this place has ... issues ... with ordering stuff in. I've been waiting five weeks for Volo's Guide to Monsters now. They sold the manuals I had ordered in to somebody else and then the employee had the gall to say 'early bird gets the worm' before the manager came out to apologise ... and this neckbearded troglodyte still works there.
Definitely gotta get Warding Wind. Not only does it mean I can slow down people trying to get around me and attack the rest of the party, fudges with melee attacks going in and out of the AoE, gets rid of a lot of those pesky Cloud spells and it deafens everybody in the effect, including me, but you can't have everything. That sounds ridiculously good for standing in the middle of a group of casters and just ruining their day.
Considering I'll be swapping out Find Familiar at 6th level when I pick up my Ritual Caster Feat, taking Misty Step instead sounds hilarious fun and meme. "Nothing personnel, kid." indeed. Best of all, I'm looking at the wording of Actions and Bonus Actions, I could theoretically move within 30 feet of a group hiding in a building, use Misty Step to teleport into the room (reading the spell's wording, I don't have to teleport to the ground, just an 'unoccupied space' in 30 feet of me) and then start laying about with a weapon. Admittedly, I am not certain on the RAW on teleporting into the threatened range of an enemy causing attacks of opportunity, but I'll dig that up later, or I'll just go with the DM's ruling.
And about the Chromatic Orb using a Diamond Ring. Theoretically it is in your hand (using the 'Interacting with objects around you' list on page 190 of the Player's Guide) and I could probably fluff using the ring by 'thrust my fist at the target and Chromatic Orb is cast from my ring' when I'm using the War Caster feat to get around casting spells with somatic components with a sword and shield in my hands. Still, it does seem a bit fluffery and meta-game-ish, so I'll point that out to the DM between now and our next gaming session, so thank you again for pointing that out.
Combat usually lasts 3-5 rounds, and your AC should be fairly high to begin with as a fighter, so this spell is making you borderline untouchable for a significant amount of time without taking up your action or bonus action. It's definitely one of the best ways to spend a 1st level slot.
Teleporting into a room with Misty Step usually isn't possible unless there's windows you can use to peek inside. The spell requires you to see your destination.
You only provoke attacks when you leave an enemy's reach, and teleporting out avoids opportunity attacks anyways.
The rules clearly state you need a hand free for the material components and claiming that it's "in" your hand because you put on a ring is a pretty transparent attempt to cheat the system. You're going to need to hold the material components for your other spells somehow anyways. Just drop your weapon if you have to, you can always summon it back as a bonus action using Weapon Bond.
I tend to think that spells that don't have a saving throw are the best spells for the EK. That way you don't need to worry about maxing out your Intelligence.
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Those are just the combat options. Of course there are a ton of useful out of combat spells you can roll with too.
Oooh, and Booming Blade is pretty strong with Warcaster and/or War Magic.