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the problems with builds like this could be the effectiveness of it passed certain difficulties. on normal/hard anything can really be done. elite and reaper you start needing things like dc or dps to really make it work. ddo wiki can be helpful on some of these answers if you're just looking to build it and not worry about tough difficulties.
the ability to self-heal would be nice, but either warforged or palemaster might mess with the flavor of the character. As a lawful neutral, negative energy stuff is a bit out on a limb, but sometimes I allow myself 1-2 necromancy spells. I'm not too concerned with being optimal at the highest difficulty content- more looking to take this kind of thing as far as it can go.
The feats are nice, but having never played through, I'm not too sure how important they are. Is there anything really great that they can get?
No. There's no prereq for EK tree. Sometimes you have to close and re-open the enhancement tree for it to accept the spending of points. Rarer bugs might even require to you restart DDO.
[Edit: Was wandering back through here and suddenly realized what the problem was. Figured I'd mention it in case someone else has the same one. DDO will by default open the Racial enhancement tree plus the first 6 others to which you may have access. But you can only see 3 or 4 on the screen at a time. If you go looking for others on the pulldown menu, you won't find them because they're already open, just not visible. There's an arrow to the right of the rightmost visible tree that scrolls the open trees list so you can see the others that are open but offscreen.]
Since your major damage-dealer is less the weapon than the spellsword effects, things like Improved Critical aren't... umm.. critical. Obviously Doublestrike and Melee speed are still relevant. Eldritch Strike and Spellsword damage are both affected by Spell Power, so you want Force and at least one elemental spell power. However, Maximize/Empower don't affect Eldritch Strike nor Spellsword, according to the forums.
Big issue is, of course, that you have to optimize gear/feats/enhancements for BOTH spells AND physical combat, which leads to obvious limitations. IMO, few of the melee feats are worth slotting, apart from combat style, but that's also a personal choice.
So a lot of what you have to do is decide on your focus. How much spellcasting and which spells? Damage spells or CC? Do you need DC-based spells? Which school(s)? SWF, TWF or THF? That will give you your Feat list possibilities. Then you either have to pare that list down, or take the FIghter levels. Normal toon gets 7 Feats to L20, but Wizard gets an additional 5. Take 1 Fighter level and you just swap a Wizard Feat for a Fighter Feat. No net benefit. 2 Fighter nets you 1 Feat (2F - 1W). 4 Fighter nets you 2. Not worth it, imo. Note that Eldritch Strike and Spellsword are powered by CHARACTER level, not Wizard level, so there's less downside to multiclassing. {Edit: Correction.. Eldritch Strike damage is based on character level; Spellsword damage is based on Wizard level.} OTOH, the EK L20 cap enhancement is worth a lot if you're playing into Epics (i.e. not TRing at L20).
FWIW, here are the notes I made after playing this build:
"Arti 2 for Runearm (spellpower and some DPS)
Arti 3 mostly for USP+8 and stable Runearm charge tier 2 (Note: This took the place of EK Core 18. Not a good tradeoff, all in all, for someone playing into Epics. Mine was a TR at 20 life.)
Eldritch Knight/Pale Master
Used Harper Tree for Int to damage. By the time it became available, it was underwhelming. If you do, don't skip Know the Angles.
As built, doesn't scale well into epics. Melee damage is trivial. OTOH, Epic Defensive fighting combines well with Knight's Transformation. Used Draconic ED, but didn't really meld well.
Runearm damage was still relevant up to L20 cap.
Crowd control at touch range is an iffy prospect. Died too often because of it.
Needed 3 spellpowers: Spellsword (usually fire), Force, and Negative (because of Pale Master).
Changing element focus was painful: spellsword, belt, runearm, and often a couple shortcut slot swaps. It made for occasional errors (suboptimal DPS), and some tendency to avoid switches."
I hope some of that helps. Any specific questions, hit me up.
With reference to the 'Remember When...' thread, once upon a time, you couldn't see enhancements until you earned their prereqs. It made building a decent toon a nightmare for newbies. Luckily, that's no longer the case. But that time did birth the DDOWiki website, so we do benefit from it today.
So, to answer your question: There's an order to some Feats (TWF, ITWF, GTWF, for example. Or Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack). In most cases, those sequences are obvious (though not for my second example). But even when there's no such sequence, various feats do have prerequisites. Thus, it is wise to pre-plan your build at LEAST to the extent of knowing what stats you'll need to take the Feats you want. Example: TWF requires 15 Dexterity; Improved and Greater TWF require 17 Dexterity. (Note that Feat prereqs are ONLY met by the combination of initial stat, levelups, and Tomes. Gear and enhancements, for example, don't count. The reason is obvious: you can change those things and then you'd no longer qualify for the Feat.)
You can see the prereqs of any Feat in the game if you click the 'Show Unavailable' button at the bottom of the Feat list on your Character Sheet. Or you can look them up on DDOWiki. It's worth considering using a Character Planner such as the one at https://github.com/Maetrim/DDOBuilder/releases
The combat style Feats all have prerequisites. There's usually a BAB prereq (which makes them available to Wizards later than to Fighters and such). Then TWF requires Dexterity, THF requires Strength, and SWF requires Balance skill. The main advantage for an EK in taking the feats is to hit more targets: more targets = more spellsword procs, though if you have primary stat to dmg (Int for Wiz, Cha for Sorc), then those bonuses also apply.
In short, blindly taking the best of whatever Feats are offered will make a somewhat gimped toon as compared to actually planning ahead.
While you asked only for options for this build, I note that the 'melee and magic arcane caster' and your questions about fighter levels do allow consideration of another option: A build that is mostly Fighter, but with some levels in Wizard for buffs (esp Haste/Displacement). You'd only need 5 levels of Wizard to make this work (2 L3 Spells and potentially the Tier 5 EK enhancements).
At this point, I need to correct an error I made above: The Eldritch Strike damage is based on Character level. The Spellsword damage is based on Wizard level. The Spellsword enhancement DOES get you Ghost Touch without gear, which is nice for a first-life toon. But it changes the flavor of the build considerably. (I'll correct that error in situ above.)
Some things are easy to respec; others are hard.
Stats: No respec possible without some kind of Reincarnation. Best you can do otherwise is spend your levelup stats to fix an issue or buy a Tome.
Feats: You can swap one feat free each life by running Lockania's DragonMark quest in the Harbor and then going to Fred the Mindflayer in House Jorasco. Beyond that, Feat respecs are hard.
Enhancements: Easy to respec and reasonably inexpensive, but gets more expensive if you do it again too soon (within 3 days, iirc).
Epic Destinies and Twists of Fate: Similar to Enhancements, except if you aren't a VIP, you have to do it at the Fatecaller.
Spells: Depends on class. Wizards and Clerics can make swaps at any rest shrine. Sorcerers and Favored Souls can swap one spell every three days.* (* Blood of a Dragon allows multiple).
Skills: Respec requires Reincarnation.
So as you can see, it varies.
If I use an orb, then I can get an AC bonus from the Shield spell, correct? A +4 bonus doesn't seem huge, but it may be worth it if the high-level shields are only, say, 5 or 6 AC.
Also, is it easy or standard to get a Deflection AC bonus from equipment?
I am thinking of going for the Sentinel Dragonmark, and from my best guess the +2-5 Deflection bonus from the SLA is pretty good, but I don't want to fall for taking it then discover that every good set of equipment comes with like a +10 Deflection bonus.
I think I am comfortable going for full Wizard, since the EK tree allows use of the necessary items and spells aren't super-powerful until high lvl.
Thanks for all the responses so far.
Fair bit to unpack here.
Yes, SWF is allowed with an Orb in the offhand, but not a shield UNLESS you're a Bard Swashbuckler and take the Skirmisher Swashbuckling Style enhancement (requires Bard L3), which allows a buckler in the offhand and still maintains SWF bonuses.
EK adds proficiency options for weapons, armor, and shield as you level. Some are in the Core enhancements, others are optional. Here's the list:
Core 1 - Eldritch Strike: Passive You gain proficiency with Simple Weapons.*
(* Wizards normally are proficient with only about half of these weapons.)
Core 3 - Spellsword: While this is enabled, your weapon and shield attacks have Ghost Touch. Passive You also gain proficiency in Light Armor and Martial weapons.
Tier 2 - Shield Training: You gain proficiency with all shields except Tower Shields, and your Arcane Spell Failure chance from equipped shields is reduced by 5%.
Tier 4 - Armored Arcana: You gain proficiency in Medium Armor, and you no longer suffer Arcane Spell Failure from Light Armor, Medium Armor or Mithral Body.
Thus, by L4 EK you could use any non-Exotic weapon, Medium Armor, and any Shield with an ASF (Arcane Spell Failure) of 5% or less with zero penalties (aside from the aforementioned limit on SWF with a shield equipped). Heavy Armor or larger Shields would impose ASF issues you'd need to address (and you'd need to take the Heavy Armor Feat to wear it effectively at all). (Note that you can use all Martial Weapons from L1 simply by taking the Master's Touch spell.)
Mage Armor is terrible. Even Cloth often provides better protection. However the Improved Mage Armor enhancement's AC bonus of up to 10% should apply even if you're wearing actual armor. Similarly the Shield spell's protection vs Magic Missile is useful even if you use a physical Shield, and the Improved Shield enhancement's PRR bonus is also valuable. And yes, the Shield spell will provide an AC bonus in the absence of a physical Shield (e.g. when using an Orb). High level shields can provide MUCH better AC, but +4 is better than zero.
Deflection bonus in gear isn't all that common and most sources of Deflection give +2 to +4 to AC.: https://ddowiki.com/page/Deflection_bonus). The major exception is Sapphire (Blue) Augments of Protection and/or gear with the Protection characteristic. Even so, I'm not personally a huge fan of the Dragonmark of Sentinel. Note that the Protection from Evil spell gives a +2 Deflection bonus to AC as well as 'The target is also warded from Evil magical controls and compulsions.' Frankly, I'm not quite sure what the latter actually protects from, but why pass it up? And it also means that whatever Deflection value the DM of Sentinel gives is devalued by the +2 you can get with just that spell. Edit: The entry on Protection from Evil says, "The target is also warded from Evil magical controls and compulsions, providing complete immunity to spells of the type: Dominate Person/Monster, Command and Greater Command regardless of the caster's alignment."
FWIW, I run with clickie versions of Shield and Prot/Evil on any toon that can't cast them. Only 5 min per use, but worth it to avoid worrying about Magic Missiles and some forms of mental attack spells.
Was wandering back through here and suddenly realized what the problem was. Figured I'd mention it in case someone else has the same one. DDO will by default open the Racial enhancement tree plus the first 6 others to which you may have access. But you can only see 3 or 4 on the screen at a time. If you go looking for others on the pulldown menu, you won't find them because they're already open, just not visible. There's an arrow to the right of the rightmost visible tree that scrolls the open trees list so you can see the others that are open but offscreen.
In my prior experience in other games, Protection Against Evil only provides a bonus against creatures with an Evil alignment. According to the wiki, this bonus can stack with other Deflection bonuses, even though you're only supposed to be able to have one deflection bonus.
"But you can only see 3 or 4 on the screen at a time"- yeah, that was exactly the problem. I even submitted a premature bug report over it ;)