I think there is good reason to think that the Eldritch Knight spun off of the early concepts for a melee warlock class.
1. For one, there are the references to "eldritch" in the subclass, a concept that is unique to the Warlock class's features, and which never gets explained for the Eldritch Knight. There are easily more apt descriptions for a fighter who moonlights as a wizard, like war mage, battle mage, spell fighter, etc. (some of which were used in later in 5e).
2. Its suspicious that the 3rd level ability to summon a weapon is shared with the pact of the blade warlock. Its almost identical, but with the pact weapon getting additional benefits.
3. War magic, Eldritch Strike, and Improved War Magic are all of very limited use to the Eldritch Knight after level 11 and with the restrictions on spell choices. War magic becomes interesting but less useful as soon as the EK gets a 3rd attack. Eldritch strike just seems to rub it in the EK's face that their spell choices are so limited, hinting that it was meant to be used on a class with more spell choices. Improved War Magic never uses its utility entirely, but it also isn't especially strong for player who only has access to low level spells to begin with.
It seems more intuitive that these abilities were originally toyed with for a melee warlock, but were deemed too potent. A pact of the blade warlock who gets to fire off an eldritch blast and then get a free melee attack? Cast a 7th level spell and get a free attack? Make melee attacks one turn to land an eldritch strike, in order to land a big spell the next turn? All of this sounds like it makes far more sense for a character class capped at 2 attacks, who also has full spellcasting.
4. Eldritch Strike especially makes more sense for a Warlock thematically, since it doesn't do outright damage, but insidiously weakens the target to some use of Warlock spellwork. I cannot think of another train of thought that would have led to this ability being thrown on a fighter subclass based specifically on abjuration and evocation spells. While they get some access to other spells on the Wizard spell list and a few of the evocation spells they get access to can benefit from this, but it is a really un-intuitive ability to give them.
Maybe I'm just reading way too much into all the "Eldritch" bits. What do ya'll think?
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I think there is good reason to think that the Eldritch Knight spun off of the early concepts for a melee warlock class.
1. For one, there are the references to "eldritch" in the subclass, a concept that is unique to the Warlock class's features, and which never gets explained for the Eldritch Knight. There are easily more apt descriptions for a fighter who moonlights as a wizard, like war mage, battle mage, spell fighter, etc. (some of which were used in later in 5e).
2. Its suspicious that the 3rd level ability to summon a weapon is shared with the pact of the blade warlock. Its almost identical, but with the pact weapon getting additional benefits.
3. War magic, Eldritch Strike, and Improved War Magic are all of very limited use to the Eldritch Knight after level 11 and with the restrictions on spell choices. War magic becomes interesting but less useful as soon as the EK gets a 3rd attack. Eldritch strike just seems to rub it in the EK's face that their spell choices are so limited, hinting that it was meant to be used on a class with more spell choices. Improved War Magic never uses its utility entirely, but it also isn't especially strong for player who only has access to low level spells to begin with.
It seems more intuitive that these abilities were originally toyed with for a melee warlock, but were deemed too potent. A pact of the blade warlock who gets to fire off an eldritch blast and then get a free melee attack? Cast a 7th level spell and get a free attack? Make melee attacks one turn to land an eldritch strike, in order to land a big spell the next turn? All of this sounds like it makes far more sense for a character class capped at 2 attacks, who also has full spellcasting.
4. Eldritch Strike especially makes more sense for a Warlock thematically, since it doesn't do outright damage, but insidiously weakens the target to some use of Warlock spellwork. I cannot think of another train of thought that would have led to this ability being thrown on a fighter subclass based specifically on abjuration and evocation spells. While they get some access to other spells on the Wizard spell list and a few of the evocation spells they get access to can benefit from this, but it is a really un-intuitive ability to give them.
Maybe I'm just reading way too much into all the "Eldritch" bits. What do ya'll think?