Except, of course, casting spells.
Not only that, EK is full BAB, Magus only 3/4 BAB. Magus arcane pool fueled abilities last for 1 round typically (lol) until you finally get the ability to spend 2 points to make it last 1min per lvl. Then look at the size of the pool to realize you won't be using that stuff a lot. And... spellcasting is definitely much, much weaker. Otoh you have to wait quite some time before you can take EK levels.
Weapon enhancement lasts for a minute from the start. It easily compensates for the lag in BAB progression. I use it almost constantly.
If you want level 9 spells with Eldritch Knight, you’ll also need 7 levels of wizard, which erases most of the BAB advantage anyway. Wiz 7/Fighter1/EK10 has a BAB of 14 (good luck hitting level 20 in this game!). Magus 18 has a BAB of 13 and has 9 + INT bonus in his arcane pool to juice his weapons or recall spells or use any of the shorter term abilities.
As for the extra spells, an Eldritch Knight sure needs them! Once your Magus hits level 7 and can wear medium armor, he requires a lot less self buffing, to say nothing of heavy armor at level 11. The Magus is much less of a glass cannon.
For his tenth level ability, the Eldritch Knight can... basically perform spell combat on criticals. Which is nice, but a Magus can do that from level 1, at any time. When a Magus crits with his weapon using spellstrike, his spells crit, too. EK has nothing like that. And when your level 5 Magus can make his weapon Keen, that happens often, especially with a scimitar or an estoc (15-20 critical threat range!).
EK feels like less than the sum of its parts to me, at least in this particular CRPG. Sure, you get more spells and more fighter feats and a slightly higher BAB, but these abilities have less synergy. The Magus’ abilities compound in a way the Eldritch Knight’s don’t.
spell.
to everyone who multiclassed her.
