Best Eldritch Knight build in BG3

Of all of Baldur’s Gate 3’s Fighter subclasses, the Eldritch Knight has the most potential as a spellcaster. Through currents of magic, you can make a build capable of holding the frontlines while casting strong spells. Even without multiclassing, Eldritch Knights can be fierce combatants.

However, the Eldritch Knight isn’t the easiest class to turn into a powerhouse early in the game. Optimizing this subclass takes a lot of thought and planning, between spell choices and feats. Thankfully, there are a few steps you can take right away to make the build better for the late game.

The best Eldritch Knight build in BG3

In BG3, the Eldritch Knight Fighter subclass best serves the party as a frontline bruiser or ranged damage dealer with strong defensive options. Since you gain magical effects much slower than a full-power Wizard or Sorcerer, it is better to lean on your heightened weapon damage and use magic as a stopgap.

Eldritch Knight Features

In BG3, Eldritch Knight is one of the three options that the Fighter can take at level seven. It begins by granting the Fighter a niche form of spellcasting that focuses largely on Abjuration and Evocation magic. This spellcasting will improve throughout your campaign in BG3, but never gets better than second-level spells unless you focus on multiclassing.

Eldritch Knights also get the Weapon Bond action at level three, allowing them to attune to a weapon. While attuned, the Eldritch Knight can throw their weapon and it’ll return to their hand.

At level seven, the Eldritch Knight learns War Magic, which is a strong ability that allows them to make a bonus action weapon attack after casting a cantrip.

At level 10, Eldritch Knights gain the Eldritch Strike ability. This causes their weapon attacks to give their targets disadvantage on their next saving throw for a spell that’s casted before you end your next turn.

Best Eldritch Knight build without multiclassing

If you don’t want to multiclass, either because of your difficulty choice or wanting to preserve the level 12 Fighter dream, then you still have a competent build on your hands.

Our goal with this build is to abuse the Eldritch Knight’s Weapon Bond ability with a thrown weapon. Tavern Brawler gives us extremely high damage with thrown weapons, and BG3 has quite a few magic items that are designed to make thrown weapons deal more damage. In this case, your spells can be entirely defensive and focused on keeping yourself or your allies alive.

An Eldritch Knight’s Fighting Style can vary depending on your preference. Realistically, it’s best to choose either Dueling for one-handed weapons or Great Weapon Fighting for chucking two-handed weapons around. If you want to take advantage of some of the strong shields in the game, it’s best to choose Dueling.

When it comes to what race to choose, one of the best options is a Hill Dwarf, mainly because you’ll get some extra hit points. The main reason to choose this race, though, is for your endgame weapon. Don’t worry too much about your background and skills, since Fighters tend to be terrible at those regardless. However, if you expect to be wearing the Warped Headband of Intellect a lot, consider being the party’s Sage.

Best Eldritch Knight ability scores

Our recommended Eldritch Knight ability scores look like this:

• STR 17
• DEX 12
• CON 16
• INT 8
• WIS 12
• CHA 8

You might be looking at this list and scratching your head, wondering why we’ve decided to tank our Intelligence so much. Eldritch Knights don’t generally plan on casting spells that target enemies, and either of the spells it has will make enemies roll a saving throw. At most, they’ll use Magic Missile to secure kills. Dexterity is slightly more important for initiative rolls, so they can buff their party early in the fight or dome someone with a thrown weapon to lower their health in time for someone else to take the kill.

If you want your Eldritch Knight to be more than just a glorified weapon catapult, there’s still an option. You can use the Warped Headband of Intellect—found in Act One on the corpse of Lump the Enlightened in the Blighted Village—to boost your intelligence up to 17. If that’s still not enough for you, you can readily put Dexterity, Constitution, or Wisdom down to improve your baseline Intelligence to 14 or 16. However, if you sacrifice too much of your Constitution score, you’ll end up harming your hit points too much. If you drop your Dexterity to eight, you’ll still be fine to wear Heavy Armor.

You can also make a Dexterity-focused version of this build with Sharpshooter by putting your Dexterity to 16 and dumping Strength to eight. Then you can pump up Intelligence and Wisdom to your heart’s content, but you won’t be able to wear heavy armor.

Best Eldritch Knight feats

Your Eldritch Knight feats should be as follows:

• Fourth Level: Tavern Brawler (Strength Boost). Tavern Brawler doubles your Strength bonus when throwing weapons. Since our weapon always returns to us, we can have a +10 to attack and damage rolls with our weapon from Strength alone.
  • Sharpshooter works if someone else in your party wants to throw stuff. The Archery Fighting Style is amazing, after all.
• Sixth Level: Ability Score Improvement. This is going to be necessary for getting Strength to 20. Luckily, you’ll have an easy enough time reaching this point that you won’t need the Potion of Everlasting Vigor.
  • If you want to be more Intelligence-based, you can also use the Ability Score Improvement to boost Intelligence to a comfortable point for later levels. However, you’ll use those later levels to become somewhat durable.
• Eighth Level: Tough. Your Fighter will be battered by attacks all game, so buffing their health will come in handy. This also discourages enemies from attacking you, letting you focus on bosses while the AI struggles to handle you.
  • If you find that your Fighter rarely needs the extra 24 health, Mage Slayer or Lucky can help you control the battlefield or prevent bad RNG, respectively.
• 12th Level: Ability Score Improvement: Constitution to 18 means that your Fighter is quite durable. Having 150 hit points is Barbarian levels of durability, and that’s without other magical items.
  • Again, if you’re comfortable with your Fighter’s health, you can use Ritual Caster to reform your spell list around rituals like Longstrider or Enhanced Leap.

Best Eldritch Knight Spells

As an Eldritch Knight, your spell list is odd. The Eldritch Knight learns two spells immediately and a new spell at levels four, seven, eight, 10, and 11. From those options, only one spell at level three and level eight can be from a list that isn’t an Abjuration or Evocation spell. We recommend the following options.

By level 10, hopefully, you’re accustomed to wearing the Warped Headband of Intellect to get some meager saving throw DCs on those spells. With the help of Eldritch Strike, Gust of Wind can be fairly threatening—disadvantage on a Strength saving throw is not something every enemy can afford.

Our two non-Abjuration or Evocation options are Sleep and Misty Step. Sleep can secure kills against foes with 24 or 32 health, making sure you get the kill with either War Magic or letting someone else step in. Misty Step is a bonus action to reposition, letting you get into range of your Throwing weapon or prevent yourself from being drowned in lava during fights in the later acts.

Best Eldritch Knight Gear

Of course, even with all that magic, no Eldritch Knight is complete without equipment. Let’s talk shop.

• Weapon: Dwarven Thrower.
  • Even though this will come back to us without needing Weapon Bond, the extra 1d8 to 2d8 damage from landing hits makes it worthwhile. This is the reason we’re a Dwarf anyway, and it’s sold by a merchant in Rivington.
  • If you’d prefer to be a Half-Orc for damage, you can use something like the Mask of the Shapeshifter or learn Disguise Self.
  • Feel free to horde a few emergency weapons, like Voss’s Longsword, to bond to. These weapons might deal more damage than the Dwarven Thrower in specific situations, making them worth bonding to before a fight occurs.
• Shield: Sentinel Shield.
  • Grants huge bonuses to initiative and Perception checks. It’s a drop from Lann Tarv in the Moonrise Towers.
• Head: Marksmanship Hat or Warped Headband of Intellect.
  • The Marksmanship hat, sold at Moonrise Tower once it’s cleared up, makes thrown attacks more accurate.
  • If your accuracy isn’t a problem, your best helm for defense works. The Helm of Balduran is a great one, though everyone’s gonna fight over that.
• Armor: Adamantine Splint Armor.
  • Crafted during the Adamantine Forge quest, this armor prevents critical hits on you while also reducing damage taken significantly.
• Gloves: Helldusk Gloves.
  • Found in the House of Hope. These deal a lot of damage for attacks and also buff your spells, as meager as that is.
  • You can also choose the Gloves of Giant’s Strength which are also located in the House of Hope. They’ll bump your Strength to 23, meaning you can go to Withers, drop your Strength to eight, and wear those gloves for the rest of the game for a plus-two to attack and damage rolls.
• Boots: Evasive Shoes.
  • Any defensive boot will work, but these Last Light Inn shoes just give a plus-one to your AC, which is nice for anyone.
• Cloak: Mantle of the Holy Warrior.
  • Provides Crusader’s Mantle, a good concentration spell that bumps up damage. Get it from the Stormshore Tabernacle from Vicar Humbletoes.
• Amulet: Fey Semblance Amulet
  • Gives advantage for all mental saving throws, something your Fighter is going to have trouble with otherwise. You can get it by completing the Avenge the Hag Survivors quest.
• Rings: Ring of Flinging and Risky Ring.
  • The Ring of Flinging is a small boost in damage while the Risky Ring basically guarantees you’ll hit.
  • Rings of Flinging are purchased through early-game vendors while the Risky Ring is from Moonrise Towers.
  • Take Risky Ring off before a fight involving a lot of casters and replace it with a Killer’s Sweetheart or Ring of Arcane Synergy.

Best Eldritch Knight build with multiclassing

The Eldritch Knight is one of the harder Fighter subclasses to multiclass with, and yet it is the one that you might want to multiclass the most. Level 11 Fighter gives you three attacks, but Eldritch Knight gets very little benefit past level seven.

Best Eldritch Knight multiclass options in BG3

The only two classes that you can realistically multiclass Eldritch Knight with are Wizard and Warlock.

• Wizard levels are great for an Eldritch Knight since they unlock spell learning through the spellbook and give the Knight more spells to work with. Just one Wizard level grants third-level spells, including Haste. If you want Fireball or other spells to be effective, consider putting more levels into Wizard. Abjuration Wizard can even buff out your hit points further.
• The Warlock class offers a unique damage build through War Magic. With Warlock levels, you can Eldritch Blast three times and then shoot an arrow, dealing significant damage through Sharpshooter or high crit weapons on your person. Use Pact of the Blade to your advantage and just boost your Charisma to the moon. The Potent Robe and a bow shot, with Hex applied, means you can be dealing upwards of 72 damage in a turn without spending many resources.

That’s all you need to know about building a successful Eldritch Knight in Baldur’s Gate 3. While it can take a lot of planning ahead to get it right, by the late game you’ll thank yourself for starting this build early on.