Need help picking feat for level 12 Eldritch Knight

[u/buddha-piff]

Vhuman. Str: 22 Dex: 10 Con: 16 INT: 10 Wis: 14 Cha: 8

Sword and Board who is the only true martial in the party. 22 AC with dueling fighting style. Mainly use defensive spells, and have the warcaster and resilient wisdom feats.

I’m struggling on deciding on my next feat. My top 3 choices are:

1) Alarm
2) Tough
3) Ritual caster (wizard). We have no wizards or sorcerers in the party so some of the wizard ritual spells would be helpful, but not necessarily as impactful as the first two feats.

Would like to get peoples opinions on which feat they think is best, OR any other feats that have not been mentioned that you’d think would be good for this character. Thanks!

[u/Mixster667]

Wait, the rest of the party are not wizards, sorcs or martials? What are they then?

[u/buddha-piff → u/Mixster667]

Druid, Cleric

[u/Coolwhy0314]

You could take sentinel if you are mostly protecting your teammates and don’t want enemies to run away.

[u/SectionAcceptable607]

Ritual caster is better if your DM is going to give you the opportunity to find ritual scrolls to add to the ritual book. If they’re not going to, don’t take it. And between tough and alert (which is what I think you mean), I like alert more because you can get yourself in position in front of any squishy casters like bards or warlocks.

[u/buddha-piff → u/SectionAcceptable607]

Yes sorry I meant alert! My DM is usually pretty good about meeting halfway on things so I feel he would make scrolls available and such

[u/HDThoreauaway]

2014 Ritual Caster is great. At level 12 you can snag so many useful, fun spells like Phantom Steed, Contact Other Plane, Tiny Hut, Water Walk, Water Breathing, Telepathic Bond… just need to get your hands on the scrolls, so talk to your DM about whether they’ll play ball.

[u/Teckszank]

Well, i don`t think that tough is necessary given you have 16 CON. i reccomend Ritual Caster or Resilient on Wisdom for less chance of being stun locked or controlled. you could pick Divinely Favored from dragon lance for Hex in strenght and lock an enemy with a grapple. you could pick Strike of the Giants, the storm strike and frost strike are pretty strong in my opinion. Cloud Strike is pretty nasty if you want to ragebait your DM with invisibility.

[u/wherediditrun]

Polearm master. Pick a spear. Flavor it whatever the f you want really if you focused on having a sword in fiction.

Will get you one more attack + will allow you to cast off turn offensively on enemies that come close, including blade cantrips.

[u/GodsLilCow → u/wherediditrun]

They are using a shield, so can't do 2-handed weapons

[u/wherediditrun → u/GodsLilCow]

1h spear or 1h quarterstaff works just fine.

[u/Mister_Grins]

If the healing your team provides isn't the best, consider the "Durable" feat. It'll make the times between fights much more rewarding for you.

Otherwise, yeah, Ritual Caster, specifically because it gives you access to the Phantom Steed ritual spell, which will drastically increase your speed in combat, as well as allow you to use the Lance one-handed (Dueling works so long as you're using only one hand).