What is a caster level worth?

[beardman]

Building a backup and thinking about going into eldritch knight. This particular character is a tiefling (la bought off) so the only cost of entry is the lost cl at first. In return I get a fighter bonus feat (prolly martial study for mountain hammer) and full bab. I'm looking at abusing polymorph and alter self for all they're worth and using my familiar for all it's worth so the bab would be useful.

The question is, is all that worth a caster level? Thoughts?

[SolEiji]

Difficult to say.  It really remembers on the optimization level of your game.  I can say that eldritch knight is not typically the most optimal choice for a gish-type build.  It's not terrible, but often there are better things.  With that said, polymorph spells (and transmutation in general) tend to focus on long durations and no save DCs, so losing 1 CL isn't too bad.

[phaedrusxy]

Like Eiji said... maybe. When you're 1 level away from picking up a nice spell that you want, you'll definitely find yourself thinking "man, I could have had that, if I hadn't went into eldritch knight..." but other times you probably won't miss it, and might even think it is worth it, if that fighter feat is a good one that you get a lot of mileage out of.

[Raineh Daze]

It's worth a nice cake.

[SolEiji]

It's worth a nice cake.

But what flavor?  That's important.

Ice Cream Cake automatically raises it by +1 tier.

[beardman]

How many hd does fudge the whale have? That'll be one delicious polymorph.

Btw, the fighter feat is going to martial study->mountain hammer. It's a get out of  one imprisonment without spells situation free.

[Rebel7284]

I think the usual Gish build is something like Wizard 6/Fighter 1/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Finish with Sacred Exorcist or Eldritch Knight.

Your build would be something like Wizard 5/Eldritch Knight 3/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight +7 which gets a fairly impressive combination of 19 levels of casting progression and 17 BAB at the cost of not getting Spellsword's ASF reduction (which you can replicate with money anyway).

In either case, of course, only go this way if you like hitting things with a sharp stick.  Focusing on your casting may be more optimal, but may find this style of play fun and that's what matters.  Also, some improved familiars from Complete Warrior have BAB requirements.  Riding a Winter Wolf may be fun.

Note that you can get the best of both worlds with prestige classes like Incantatrix and Spelldancer when combined with Persistent Spell to make buffs last all day.  Often used with Arcane Disciple (War Domain) to get Divine Power to persist.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

What is a caster level worth?


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