Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Echo Knight also caught my eye.
1) Has anyone tried this in 5.5/2024 rules?
2) What kind of feats have folks found useful? Most attractive are: Sentinel, Great Weapon Master, and of course Mage Slayer. Heavy Armor Master potentially. But would love to find a way to get Zhentarim Tactics to work also. Know that & Sentinel don't trigger for your Echo, but being able to warp and lock down two areas seems cool.
3) Species: Dragonborn? Shifter? Hobgoblin? If attempting Zhentarim, would kind of want to go Human to ensure Inspriation to trigger Zhentarim Ruffian's Initiative boost.
4) Multiclassing: tempting to mix Barbarian or something, but the base Fighter base class is improved enough I kind of want to plough through to get things like upgraded Indomitable at 9 and Extra Attack at 11.
Thoughts?
I’m trying to do a multiclass similar to what you described. I’m currently a level 8 Ancestral Guardian (5.0) Barbarian that just took a level in fighter. My plan is to become an Echo Knight so that my target has disadvantage on everything (including my Echo) but me. I’m still working out the kinks and have looked for help in the past, but in general all have warned me to steer clear from the Echo Knight in all forms. At this point, I think my character build is screwed anyway, so I might as well try it, but I’d much rather take a time machine to undo my feat choice at level 4 and go from there.
If you do decide to go this route, please let me know how it goes!
Sounds cool!
What were your feat choices so far, may I ask?
My feats were Sentinel and Mage Slayer.
The problem wasn’t so much the feats as my rolled ability scores. I started with a total of 18 in strength and 14 in constitution. Originally I was going to just take ASI’s the whole way, but I thought it needed those feats to be optimal despite having a reaction already as an Ancestral Guardian to block damage.
When I read about multiclass options I learned about Echo Knights and thought I could use fighter’s extra feats to still get maximum constitution, but I realized too late with the hit dice that my HP would still be worse than if I had stayed Barbarian.
i have been playing for a few years now, but I still have so much to learn. The class I know best is Warlock, but our DM wanted us to pick characters different from the one-shots we played with, so I had to try and learn something different. Barbarian seemed easiest to me; plus bo one else was “tanking.” (I know, I know, DnD parties can be anything and don’t have to fill roles. I’m just OCD like that and was into World of Warcraft, so I wanted everyone’s character to be unique.)
A fun mix for feat choices is to take both Sentinel and Zhentarim Tactics (with the prerequisite Zhentarim Ruffian).
From Sentinel:
From Zhentarim Tactics:
Basically, you get an Opportunity Attack whether your target hits you or your friend, reducing their speed to 0 on a hit. And, thanks to the prerequisite Zhentarim Ruffian (an Origin Feat), you get advantage on the damage roll for your Opportunity Attacks. It's a great combo for a melee front-liner.
Zhentarim Tactics looks super fun. Have you tried it?
One fiddly part is that it only buffs DEX or CHA, so it wouldn't advance a primary stat. I've messed around with feat order, and it's hard to figure out how to fit it in levels 4-8 with things like Great Weapon Master, Sentinel, Mage Slayer or Heavy Armor Master. Could frontload the fun stuff and go Sentinel (4), GWM (6), ZT (8), and hope Fighter's Indomitable at 9 can hold you down on mental saves until level 12?
The required origin feat Zhentarim Ruffian looks pretty decent as well. To get the most of it though, think you'd probably want to play Human to ensure you have Inspiration, unless someone in your party takes Musician or something. But yeah, fun combo.
I used this feat combo on a Rogue actually. Took 1 level of Fighter to get a fighting style for Blind fighting and shield proficiency, then went the rest of the way as Arcane Trickster. In combat I would cast Fog Cloud over then enemy, then move up to them and use Booming Blade with a Rapier as my main attack. Thanks to the Fog Cloud, enemies usually had Disadvantage, but I could see them thanks to having Blindsight and so almost always had Advantage. Sentinel kept them from being able to Disengage and run away, and if they actually managed to hit me, I still got to hit them back.
I called him my "Arcane Stalker".