They do bait attacks from the party, so that's actually a good point.
And the Knight does it while keeping her HP intact.
We may disagree on whether or not it’s OP’d, but damn, for a one trick pony class, it’s a helluva trick- and a helluva pony.
I would say how good it is is dependent on how tactically minded the person is who is playing it, and whether they optimize for it. On the high side, it's very powerful but not "broken" in my opinion. Guaranteed, people will be playing this in many different ways. The main combat feature is just a really flashy way to avoid a lot of hits. There's nothing telling all the monsters they have to pretend you don't exist and focus on your echo. If they have like 4+ intelligence they know your echo is not you.
They do bait attacks from the party, so that's actually a good point.
And the Knight does it while keeping her HP intact.
We may disagree on whether or not it’s OP’d, but damn, for a one trick pony class, it’s a helluva trick- and a helluva pony.
I would say how good it is is dependent on how tactically minded the person is who is playing it, and whether they optimize for it. On the high side, it's very powerful but not "broken" in my opinion. Guaranteed, people will be playing this in many different ways. The main combat feature is just a really flashy way to avoid a lot of hits. There's nothing telling all the monsters they have to pretend you don't exist and focus on your echo. If they have like 4+ intelligence they know your echo is not you.
It doesn't even necessarily avoid a lot of hits. It's AC is practically set and the farther through the game you get the easier that AC is going to be to hit even as it slowly increases with your proficiency bonus. It's AC starts at 16 basically and only increases to 20 for it's entire career. It never gets past mundane plate and a shield effectively. That wouldn't be so bad if it had a pile of hitpoints or some way to actively avoid blows. But it does eat up the Echo Knights Bonus Action every time it's summoned which limits a bunch of other things that the Echo Knight might want to do with it. it stops the uses of parts of different Feats. It stops teleporting shenanigans for the Echo Knight itself. it Stops the Activation of certain magical items. It even Stops an alternate rule i see used somewhat regularly that you can drink a potion for yourself as a bonus action if your table uses that.
it may stop a hit or two from an enemy. Which is damage your party doesn't take (which is still a good thing). But it also limits the Echo knight each time it does so. it's very limited in where it can appear so it can potentially become predictable for the enemy to deal with. And if you use it to make a reaction then you can't make a reaction for yourself. So either the Area the Echo is threatening or the area your threatening isn't really threatened. Things can inevitably get past just as if there was only one of you. For the trade off that the enemy can be AoO'd just a little more often.
It's Powerful but it's power is really not in it's defense. It's power is in it's mobility and offense. you can use it defensively to a small creative degree but that's not really where the Echo Knight Shines. And Shadow martyr only slightly improves it's defensiveness by knowing you can block one attack, But it's at the cost of your Reaction and potentially your Bonus Action to resummon it and the monster can potentially still make more attacks against that enemy. Blocking even one attack is valuable and I'm not going to deny that. But it needs supported by other tools. Not to mention it's far from unique. there are a variety of other abilities and ways to do this kind of thing.
I'd say what the Echo Knight Really amounts to is a really flashy way to make hits and move around. with the occasional side benefit. With how much benefit it actually is depending on how tactically it is used and how intelligent the enemy is in figuring out that the Echo Knight itself is still the biggest weakness to it's own powers.
(The First BBEG that figures out that they both can't threaten and attack him at once and has the hp to take AoO's is going to be a hard one to control by the Echo Knight. Specially if it has ways to take out the Echo and hit the Echo Knight at the same time.)
This discussion kind of leads me to the next obvious question. I do agree that Echo Knights are strong, and they do minimize some aspects of play. So, to shift this question to a DM perspective, how do you game master for or manage an Echo Knight in your party? Are there any tools or recommendations for handling Echo Knight players?
Heh. I’ll respectfully suggest that if a DM has to ask “so how do you stop this thing?” or, as SeanJP is suggesting, think up tricky ways to blunt the ability - that’s some fairly strong evidence that the subclass just might be a wee bit OP’d. A player ought to be able to play their character as deftly as possible without crashing the game; if it does, in my books, that’s OP.
As for the echo in water, we agreed it didn’t have to breathe and could just “hover” in the water as it does in air- but he reasonably cut the movement in half.
Respectfully, I could not disagree more. Plenty of dms just don't want to deal. That's why arakokra are usually banned, even though they're in no way op. When the dm says 'help me blunt this ability' its them being entirely selfish. Bear totem is in no way op; plenty of dms gripe about it. Echo knight is not op.
Yeah a sufficiently fast enemy with a powerful ranged attack will pretty much nullify the echo completely.
A flying enemy with a decent ranged attack is going to just fine against it too.
If you think that mobility/range is a game breaker then a CBE/Sharpshooter Aarockra was already busting your nuts anyway so this is nothing new.
Ranged attack PCs with sharpshooter are more of an issue than Echo Knight is IMO.
In most normal situations, if you pick up sentinel, you can keep recreating your echo and teleporting as needed, and no matter how fast an enemy is it will have a hard time getting to you. That said, you can frustrate one enemy at a time in this way. There are other tricks. If there is something high like a roof top, teleport yourself up there while your echo does all the work on the ground. Being within 30 feet there's no issues.
Here's the kicker, it only disappears if it ends its turn more than 30 feet away from you. And then you can recreate it.
Yeah a sufficiently fast enemy with a powerful ranged attack will pretty much nullify the echo completely.
A flying enemy with a decent ranged attack is going to just fine against it too.
If you think that mobility/range is a game breaker then a CBE/Sharpshooter Aarockra was already busting your nuts anyway so this is nothing new.
Ranged attack PCs with sharpshooter are more of an issue than Echo Knight is IMO.
In most normal situations, if you pick up sentinel, you can keep recreating your echo and teleporting as needed, and no matter how fast an enemy is it will have a hard time getting to you. That said, you can frustrate one enemy at a time in this way. There are other tricks. If there is something high like a roof top, teleport yourself up there while your echo does all the work on the ground. Being within 30 feet there's no issues.
Here's the kicker, it only disappears if it ends its turn more than 30 feet away from you. And then you can recreate it.
Yeah this is where as a DM you could challenge with things like quicklings or flying enemies with range greater than 30ft.
It is a melee build after all and still needs to be within 5ft to attack.
It is a melee build after all and still needs to be within 5ft to attack.
I’ll respectfully suggest that you’re absolutely wrong - and the wrongness is the heart of the reason why I consider the class overpowered. The Echo Knight ISN’T a melee build- it’s a short-range ranged class, and a short range ranged class that is, fundamentally, overpowered and/or broken. Let me show you how I get from here to there:
All builds are risk/reward. Your melee build stomps off to the front lines with strong weapons and high AC seeking their reward: to inflict damage at close range, absorb attacks that would otherwise be aimed at the rest of the party, and to keep your companions safe. This is the melee ”reward”. But in order to get that reward,, a melee build must risk its ample, but limited, hit points. Yes they have armour and buffs and companions to mitigate some of that risk- but once those hit points are expended, the melee build is done and dead. And fair enough. Risk/reward.
With the echo, where’s the risk? The knight gets each and every offensive benefit of a melee build (and then some with unleash incarnation) without risking any hit points by way of the echo, whose effective range is from 0’ to 60’ (yes, 60’, do the math- and that of course includes in the air) away from the knight. The echo is therefore a ranged weapon, no different from a bolt or arrow or spell attack insofar as risk to the character goes- but with every advantage of melee weapons and combat, including but not limited to opportunity attacks..
Think of it this way: an archer or glass cannon snipes from far with no immediate risk to the character. The Knight does exactly the same when she deploys her echo from a safe position, albeit with shorter range. The real difference though: if a melee enemy manages to get up close to a ranged weapon/glass cannon character, that character’s in deep, deep trouble. They need to disengage, misty step, or otherwise vamoose immediately if they want to stay alive. But if a melee enemy manages to get into range with the knight, well shit, they’re suddenly in the mix a high AC, high HP, wickedly armed martial character who can more than happily defend herself.
Yes, there’s still risk. Yes, the knight can still be killed. But surely you’ll agree that by playing this way, the echo knight is rigging the odds immensely in her favour, to a degree that literally no other class or subclass I can think of can, with the possible exception of a peace cleric or a coffeelock. All reward with minuscule, even negligible risk = OP.
It is a melee build after all and still needs to be within 5ft to attack.
I’ll respectfully suggest that you’re absolutely wrong - and the wrongness is the heart of the reason why I consider the class overpowered. The Echo Knight ISN’T a melee build- it’s a short-range ranged class, and a short range ranged class that is, fundamentally, overpowered and/or broken. Let me show you how I get from here to there:
All builds are risk/reward. Your melee build stomps off to the front lines with strong weapons and high AC seeking their reward: to inflict damage at close range, absorb attacks that would otherwise be aimed at the rest of the party, and to keep your companions safe. This is the melee ”reward”. But in order to get that reward,, a melee build must risk its ample, but limited, hit points. Yes they have armour and buffs and companions to mitigate some of that risk- but once those hit points are expended, the melee build is done and dead. And fair enough. Risk/reward.
With the echo, where’s the risk? The knight gets each and every offensive benefit of a melee build (and then some with unleash incarnation) without risking any hit points by way of the echo, whose effective range is from 0’ to 60’ (yes, 60’, do the math- and that of course includes in the air) away from the knight. The echo is therefore a ranged weapon, no different from a bolt or arrow or spell attack insofar as risk to the character goes- but with every advantage of melee weapons and combat, including but not limited to opportunity attacks..
Think of it this way: an archer or glass cannon snipes from far with no immediate risk to the character. The Knight does exactly the same when she deploys her echo from a safe position, albeit with shorter range. The real difference though: if a melee enemy manages to get up close to a ranged weapon/glass cannon character, that character’s in deep, deep trouble. They need to disengage, misty step, or otherwise vamoose immediately if they want to stay alive. But if a melee enemy manages to get into range with the knight, well shit, they’re suddenly in the mix a high AC, high HP, wickedly armed martial character who can more than happily defend herself.
Yes, there’s still risk. Yes, the knight can still be killed. But surely you’ll agree that by playing this way, the echo knight is rigging the odds immensely in her favour, to a degree that literally no other class or subclass I can think of can, with the possible exception of a peace cleric or a coffeelock. All reward with minuscule, even negligible risk = OP.
Thoughts?
Its still melee and limited to a shorter range than a full on ranged build.
Its mobility isn't really that big of a deal compared to that.
A longbow can shoot 600ft or a handcrossbow with sharpshooter can shoot 120ft and with CBE can meet or beat damage from GWM thanks to the archery style offset of the Sharpshooter penalty DPR wise.
The ranged fighter has the same CON and HP compared to a melee build and only slightly worse AC (likely 1) than a greatweapon build.
I’m not talking optimization by way of feat or feats and I’m not talking race, all of which would go ON TOP OF AND IN ADDITION TO CLASS- I’m talking about a subclass, simpliciter, which as a third level, bargain basement ability, allows the player to engage in a “ranged melee” strategy that gives the character every advantage of melee combat without risking hit points - along with all the non-combat teleport utility functions that let it ignore a significant number of conditions and circumstances that could flummox entire parties, never mind single characters. What other class has access to that range of abilities? What other class has anything close to that range of abilities?
I mean, if you’re comparing a third level base class against a double feat CBE/sharpshooter character as a basis for saying a class is or isn’t overpowered, might as well say that it’s not overpowered compared to a level 20 wizard with a wish spell so it’s not overpowered. And as for “it’s still melee”, it is, I guess, in the sense that you’re still making melee attacks; it’s not, however, insofar as the character isn’t put into any kind of danger or risk that are fundamental features of melee combat.
Okay. In any event, I’ve made my arguments and provided paint-by-number instructions on how to create and play, if not a broken and vastly overpowered subclass character, then at least a ridiculously powerful subclass character that comes online at level 3 and just doesn’t quit as the levels progress. I’m convinced enough that it’s OP’d that I’ve banned the subclass at my table- though naturally, other DM’s can make their own judgements, disagree, and do as they see fit at theirs. Reasonable people can reasonably disagree.
Heh. One last suggestion, as a token of my appreciation for this reasoned argument: if you DM’s do allow the subclass at your table, please try to make sure your players don’t find my posts. 😉
conskin, if we aren’t bringing feats into this, what are all these benefits you keep talking about? Opportunity attacks, sure. What other advantage is melee verse ranged? Well, ranged gets one of the few fighting styles in the game that is actually really good.
The echo is really good, no doubt. And it will absorb some of the attacks, but it will NOT absorb most of them. It’s a one hit kill, now picture multiple enemies on the battlefield with multi attack. The math works out that the echo will not absorb the vast majority of attacks. It can literally only take one hit per round then it disappears.
Is it a great and powerful sub class? Yes. But comparing it to the peace domain cleric is straight hyperbole, in my opinion.
I could point out the distinctions being paved over- a 1d8 arrow versus 1d12 greataxe. Arrows needing a straight line or volley path versus full x- y- and z- axis tactical maneuverability. No opportunity attacks. No ability to shove or arguably grapple. The fact that flying races can’t fly through a keyhole, between bars, through a crack in a stone wall, around a blind corner using a simple mirror, through a window- but I won’t. There’s no convincing the unconvinceable.
What I will say is this: all the points you’re making would stack with the Echo Knight. Wanna be a ranged weapon Knight? Okay. Every turn consists of the knight scrunching safely behind full cover, shoot the echo up in the air every round with a full view of the field, pelting arrows down. Wanna be an aaracockra Knight? Okay. You get the benefit of flight and insane maneuverability along with the ability to blink through obstacles. The damn thing stacks.
Bottom line: if you don’t think it’s broken and are happy with it at your table, then bless you, it’s your table. I’ve set out my reasons why it’s banned at mine. Any further argument would just be me repeating myself and/or trying to convince the unconvinceable.
I'm not sure why we're arguing about if the Echo Knight is over powered or not? It seems completely objective. Every game and party is different. If you're a DM and think it is, then ban it. If you're a player and think it imbalances the game, then don't play it. If not, have at it. If you want to educate other people as to what to watch out for, I think that point was made pages ago. I would like to suggest that instead of arguing over if it is OP or not, let's talk about how to manage it in your game if you do have one. What are some situations that would challenge and Echo Knight (and their party) reasonably? And are there tweaks that could be made to the rules for Echo Knight that might balance them a bit more with a non-optimized party?
It was already mentioned that they would struggle against fast ranged attackers, that is a good one.
I would actually think that they would do okay vs slower fliers given the Echo's vertical mobility, but it would limit their teleportation swapping unless they want to fall.
I actually think an Echo Knight would really struggle against multiple smaller combatants. They are great against single, tough targets, but an Echo might only be able to pin or distract one or two enemies at a time.
I think tighter spaces would also limit the benefits of teleportation. Though the Echo does becomes an even more effective blocker.
Fast melee enemies in a wide open space might be harder to deal with if they have some intelligence. Unless the Knight has Sentinel.
Enemies with many attacks might also challenge an Echo Knight. The Echo would suck up at least one hit a round. But once it is down, the enemy can still move unimpeded before making additional attacks. and it sucks up the Knight's bonus action to bring it back.
Of course fighting another Echo Knight would be exciting.
Spell casters and AOE damage might also be a challenge. On second thought, isn't the Echo immune to a lot of AoE spells because it is considered an object?
What do you think, what would other fun or appropriate challenges be for an Echo Knight?
I'm introducing the Echo Knight into my game. One idea I was kicking around to balancing them a bit with the rest of the party is to take away the Echo's ability to fly (and/or be summoned mid-air). By the flavor and description, if an Echo is just another alternate version of the Knight from another timeline, why should the Echo be able to fly if the Knight can't. This would dramatically cut down on the ability to pass a lot of obstacles, and somewhat reduce the Echo's (and thus Knight's) maneuverability in combat. Would this be too much of a nerf, or would they still be quite good?
One other idea I had to tweak the rules was to require concentration to keep the Echo up. If the Knight gets hit and fails a con save, then the Echo vanishes. I don't see this as a major limit, but it might suck up some more resources. Would you be okay with this as a player?
I could point out the distinctions being paved over- a 1d8 arrow versus 1d12 greataxe. Arrows needing a straight line or volley path versus full x- y- and z- axis tactical maneuverability. No opportunity attacks. No ability to shove or arguably grapple. The fact that flying races can’t fly through a keyhole, between bars, through a crack in a stone wall, around a blind corner using a simple mirror, through a window- but I won’t. There’s no convincing the unconvinceable.
What I will say is this: all the points you’re making would stack with the Echo Knight. Wanna be a ranged weapon Knight? Okay. Every turn consists of the knight scrunching safely behind full cover, shoot the echo up in the air every round with a full view of the field, pelting arrows down. Wanna be an aaracockra Knight? Okay. You get the benefit of flight and insane maneuverability along with the ability to blink through obstacles. The damn thing stacks.
Bottom line: if you don’t think it’s broken and are happy with it at your table, then bless you, it’s your table. I’ve set out my reasons why it’s banned at mine. Any further argument would just be me repeating myself and/or trying to convince the unconvinceable.
Good luck with your games!
I did a poll one time on opportunity attacks to see what people were actually getting as in my play styles I rarely if ever saw them happen:
87% of people had one or fewer AoO per combat with roughly 37% saying they got hardly any ever.
Now for some where YMMV so much that is happening MAYBE once per combat I have a hard time thinking this is a "game breaking" feature.
Grappling/Shoving is ok I guess...but you are giving up an attack to do so? The unfortunate reality of DnD combat is dead is better.
You always want to be killing something rather than debuffing as Action Economy favors those with more actions....and dead creatures take no actions.
Also the ranged fighter build has Trip Attack, Grapple Attack, Menacing Attack, and several other ways to mitigate/debuff a target without giving up damage to do so.
A ranged echo knight would be terrible...the unleash incarnation would not proc with ranged attacks, you get no subclass benefits to increase your ranged attacks, and basically all the best features of the subclass are wasted as they rely on melee attack range. No synergy besides what you can already accomplish with movement and cover.
Aarococka would be redundant....you already have the best part of Echo Knight and it really offers nothing new to your game other than letting you do melee attacks from the air? Again your damage is already 90% or more there from a SS/CBE build so why bother?
So no nothing you have stated even remotely gives me pause to say its not a broken subclass by any stretch of the imagination.
I'm not sure why we're arguing about if the Echo Knight is over powered or not? It seems completely objective. Every game and party is different. If you're a DM and think it is, then ban it. If you're a player and think it imbalances the game, then don't play it. If not, have at it. If you want to educate other people as to what to watch out for, I think that point was made pages ago. I would like to suggest that instead of arguing over if it is OP or not, let's talk about how to manage it in your game if you do have one. What are some situations that would challenge and Echo Knight (and their party) reasonably? And are there tweaks that could be made to the rules for Echo Knight that might balance them a bit more with a non-optimized party?
It was already mentioned that they would struggle against fast ranged attackers, that is a good one.
I would actually think that they would do okay vs slower fliers given the Echo's vertical mobility, but it would limit their teleportation swapping unless they want to fall.
I actually think an Echo Knight would really struggle against multiple smaller combatants. They are great against single, tough targets, but an Echo might only be able to pin or distract one or two enemies at a time.
I think tighter spaces would also limit the benefits of teleportation. Though the Echo does becomes an even more effective blocker.
Fast melee enemies in a wide open space might be harder to deal with if they have some intelligence. Unless the Knight has Sentinel.
Enemies with many attacks might also challenge an Echo Knight. The Echo would suck up at least one hit a round. But once it is down, the enemy can still move unimpeded before making additional attacks. and it sucks up the Knight's bonus action to bring it back.
Of course fighting another Echo Knight would be exciting.
Spell casters and AOE damage might also be a challenge. On second thought, isn't the Echo immune to a lot of AoE spells because it is considered an object?
What do you think, what would other fun or appropriate challenges be for an Echo Knight?
I'm introducing the Echo Knight into my game. One idea I was kicking around to balancing them a bit with the rest of the party is to take away the Echo's ability to fly (and/or be summoned mid-air). By the flavor and description, if an Echo is just another alternate version of the Knight from another timeline, why should the Echo be able to fly if the Knight can't. This would dramatically cut down on the ability to pass a lot of obstacles, and somewhat reduce the Echo's (and thus Knight's) maneuverability in combat. Would this be too much of a nerf, or would they still be quite good?
One other idea I had to tweak the rules was to require concentration to keep the Echo up. If the Knight gets hit and fails a con save, then the Echo vanishes. I don't see this as a major limit, but it might suck up some more resources. Would you be okay with this as a player?
Oh yeah I agree Echo Knight is a good subclass and is even in my top 3 for figther...its just not overpowered by any stretch.
Also something that can disengage as a BA (Goblins) will mostly just ignore most of what they get at 3rd level unless you take the sentinel feat but that is true for any polearm fighter.
Spell effects or spells that limit view (darkness, walls, etc...) as you have to be able to see the spot to create the Echo.
Stuff that hits hard...most builds will want to use Polearms or heavy weapons to keep up so they will have a lower AC unless your DM is generous and gives you plate right away.
Illusions....nothing in the build gives you much for determining what is real or fake so you could have a creature with copies of itself that spread out and its hard to tell which one is the right one.
Any competent spellcaster will generally take out a melee fighter pretty quickly if isolated. Environmental effects that damage. Any ambient damage will keep the echo from sticking around. Blinding effects/spells....need to be able to see to place echo.
Take a look at the Living Shadow dark gift in Ravenloft and its downside, ominous will. With a few tweaks, you’d add another point of risk to the Knight- an unlimited ability that comes with a cost that potentially gets worse the more you use it.
Don’t limit the ability, which would be nerfing- add an extra cost to it. Tweak the demand for the ability, not the supply.
conskin, if we aren’t bringing feats into this, what are all these benefits you keep talking about?
Thought I’d been clear. That’s okay, I can rephrase.
There are two benefits that kick in with the Echo Knight at level 3 that, in my opinion, are so ridiculously powerful they break the class:
Engage in melee without risk of melee damage an unlimited number of times; and
Skip past physical and environmental obstacles and hazards an unlimited number of times.
If that’s hyperbole I’ll eat my hat.
It's NOT without risk of melee damage. You can put an echo in someone's face and make attacks from there, sure. But you did not address the rest of my post, including:
"And it will absorb some of the attacks, but it will NOT absorb most of them. It’s a one hit kill, now picture multiple enemies on the battlefield with multi attack. The math works out that the echo will not absorb the vast majority of attacks. It can literally only take one hit per round then it disappears."
So picture an entire round of combat. Multiple enemies on the battlefield, many of whom have multi-attack. Your echo can get hit ONCE and then it disappears. It can literally only absorb a maximum of ONE attack per round.
conskin, if we aren’t bringing feats into this, what are all these benefits you keep talking about?
Thought I’d been clear. That’s okay, I can rephrase.
There are two benefits that kick in with the Echo Knight at level 3 that, in my opinion, are so ridiculously powerful they break the class:
Engage in melee without risk of melee damage an unlimited number of times; and
Skip past physical and environmental obstacles and hazards an unlimited number of times.
If that’s hyperbole I’ll eat my hat.
It's NOT without risk of melee damage. You can put an echo in someone's face and make attacks from there, sure. But you did not address the rest of my post, including:
"And it will absorb some of the attacks, but it will NOT absorb most of them. It’s a one hit kill, now picture multiple enemies on the battlefield with multi attack. The math works out that the echo will not absorb the vast majority of attacks. It can literally only take one hit per round then it disappears."
So picture an entire round of combat. Multiple enemies on the battlefield, many of whom have multi-attack. Your echo can get hit ONCE and then it disappears. It can literally only absorb a maximum of ONE attack per round.
Yeah that was for sure one really really easy way to bypass any benefit from the subclass is just to send a swarm of low CR minions out. You only get one reaction so hitting one is only going to do so much for you....
Overall there is an abundant amount of ways to bypass the subclass if you really need/want to.
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And the Knight does it while keeping her HP intact.
We may disagree on whether or not it’s OP’d, but damn, for a one trick pony class, it’s a helluva trick- and a helluva pony.
I would say how good it is is dependent on how tactically minded the person is who is playing it, and whether they optimize for it. On the high side, it's very powerful but not "broken" in my opinion. Guaranteed, people will be playing this in many different ways. The main combat feature is just a really flashy way to avoid a lot of hits. There's nothing telling all the monsters they have to pretend you don't exist and focus on your echo. If they have like 4+ intelligence they know your echo is not you.
It doesn't even necessarily avoid a lot of hits. It's AC is practically set and the farther through the game you get the easier that AC is going to be to hit even as it slowly increases with your proficiency bonus. It's AC starts at 16 basically and only increases to 20 for it's entire career. It never gets past mundane plate and a shield effectively. That wouldn't be so bad if it had a pile of hitpoints or some way to actively avoid blows. But it does eat up the Echo Knights Bonus Action every time it's summoned which limits a bunch of other things that the Echo Knight might want to do with it. it stops the uses of parts of different Feats. It stops teleporting shenanigans for the Echo Knight itself. it Stops the Activation of certain magical items. It even Stops an alternate rule i see used somewhat regularly that you can drink a potion for yourself as a bonus action if your table uses that.
it may stop a hit or two from an enemy. Which is damage your party doesn't take (which is still a good thing). But it also limits the Echo knight each time it does so. it's very limited in where it can appear so it can potentially become predictable for the enemy to deal with. And if you use it to make a reaction then you can't make a reaction for yourself. So either the Area the Echo is threatening or the area your threatening isn't really threatened. Things can inevitably get past just as if there was only one of you. For the trade off that the enemy can be AoO'd just a little more often.
It's Powerful but it's power is really not in it's defense. It's power is in it's mobility and offense. you can use it defensively to a small creative degree but that's not really where the Echo Knight Shines. And Shadow martyr only slightly improves it's defensiveness by knowing you can block one attack, But it's at the cost of your Reaction and potentially your Bonus Action to resummon it and the monster can potentially still make more attacks against that enemy. Blocking even one attack is valuable and I'm not going to deny that. But it needs supported by other tools. Not to mention it's far from unique. there are a variety of other abilities and ways to do this kind of thing.
I'd say what the Echo Knight Really amounts to is a really flashy way to make hits and move around. with the occasional side benefit. With how much benefit it actually is depending on how tactically it is used and how intelligent the enemy is in figuring out that the Echo Knight itself is still the biggest weakness to it's own powers.
(The First BBEG that figures out that they both can't threaten and attack him at once and has the hp to take AoO's is going to be a hard one to control by the Echo Knight. Specially if it has ways to take out the Echo and hit the Echo Knight at the same time.)
Respectfully, I could not disagree more. Plenty of dms just don't want to deal. That's why arakokra are usually banned, even though they're in no way op. When the dm says 'help me blunt this ability' its them being entirely selfish. Bear totem is in no way op; plenty of dms gripe about it. Echo knight is not op.
Yeah a sufficiently fast enemy with a powerful ranged attack will pretty much nullify the echo completely.
A flying enemy with a decent ranged attack is going to just fine against it too.
If you think that mobility/range is a game breaker then a CBE/Sharpshooter Aarockra was already busting your nuts anyway so this is nothing new.
Ranged attack PCs with sharpshooter are more of an issue than Echo Knight is IMO.
In most normal situations, if you pick up sentinel, you can keep recreating your echo and teleporting as needed, and no matter how fast an enemy is it will have a hard time getting to you. That said, you can frustrate one enemy at a time in this way. There are other tricks. If there is something high like a roof top, teleport yourself up there while your echo does all the work on the ground. Being within 30 feet there's no issues.
Here's the kicker, it only disappears if it ends its turn more than 30 feet away from you. And then you can recreate it.
Yeah this is where as a DM you could challenge with things like quicklings or flying enemies with range greater than 30ft.
It is a melee build after all and still needs to be within 5ft to attack.
I’ll respectfully suggest that you’re absolutely wrong - and the wrongness is the heart of the reason why I consider the class overpowered. The Echo Knight ISN’T a melee build- it’s a short-range ranged class, and a short range ranged class that is, fundamentally, overpowered and/or broken. Let me show you how I get from here to there:
All builds are risk/reward. Your melee build stomps off to the front lines with strong weapons and high AC seeking their reward: to inflict damage at close range, absorb attacks that would otherwise be aimed at the rest of the party, and to keep your companions safe. This is the melee ”reward”. But in order to get that reward,, a melee build must risk its ample, but limited, hit points. Yes they have armour and buffs and companions to mitigate some of that risk- but once those hit points are expended, the melee build is done and dead. And fair enough. Risk/reward.
With the echo, where’s the risk? The knight gets each and every offensive benefit of a melee build (and then some with unleash incarnation) without risking any hit points by way of the echo, whose effective range is from 0’ to 60’ (yes, 60’, do the math- and that of course includes in the air) away from the knight. The echo is therefore a ranged weapon, no different from a bolt or arrow or spell attack insofar as risk to the character goes- but with every advantage of melee weapons and combat, including but not limited to opportunity attacks..
Think of it this way: an archer or glass cannon snipes from far with no immediate risk to the character. The Knight does exactly the same when she deploys her echo from a safe position, albeit with shorter range. The real difference though: if a melee enemy manages to get up close to a ranged weapon/glass cannon character, that character’s in deep, deep trouble. They need to disengage, misty step, or otherwise vamoose immediately if they want to stay alive. But if a melee enemy manages to get into range with the knight, well shit, they’re suddenly in the mix a high AC, high HP, wickedly armed martial character who can more than happily defend herself.
Yes, there’s still risk. Yes, the knight can still be killed. But surely you’ll agree that by playing this way, the echo knight is rigging the odds immensely in her favour, to a degree that literally no other class or subclass I can think of can, with the possible exception of a peace cleric or a coffeelock. All reward with minuscule, even negligible risk = OP.
Thoughts?
Its still melee and limited to a shorter range than a full on ranged build.
Its mobility isn't really that big of a deal compared to that.
A longbow can shoot 600ft or a handcrossbow with sharpshooter can shoot 120ft and with CBE can meet or beat damage from GWM thanks to the archery style offset of the Sharpshooter penalty DPR wise.
The ranged fighter has the same CON and HP compared to a melee build and only slightly worse AC (likely 1) than a greatweapon build.
So if thats not broken...then this isnt.
Hang on. We’re talking apples and oranges here.
I’m not talking optimization by way of feat or feats and I’m not talking race, all of which would go ON TOP OF AND IN ADDITION TO CLASS- I’m talking about a subclass, simpliciter, which as a third level, bargain basement ability, allows the player to engage in a “ranged melee” strategy that gives the character every advantage of melee combat without risking hit points - along with all the non-combat teleport utility functions that let it ignore a significant number of conditions and circumstances that could flummox entire parties, never mind single characters. What other class has access to that range of abilities? What other class has anything close to that range of abilities?
I mean, if you’re comparing a third level base class against a double feat CBE/sharpshooter character as a basis for saying a class is or isn’t overpowered, might as well say that it’s not overpowered compared to a level 20 wizard with a wish spell so it’s not overpowered. And as for “it’s still melee”, it is, I guess, in the sense that you’re still making melee attacks; it’s not, however, insofar as the character isn’t put into any kind of danger or risk that are fundamental features of melee combat.
Okay. In any event, I’ve made my arguments and provided paint-by-number instructions on how to create and play, if not a broken and vastly overpowered subclass character, then at least a ridiculously powerful subclass character that comes online at level 3 and just doesn’t quit as the levels progress. I’m convinced enough that it’s OP’d that I’ve banned the subclass at my table- though naturally, other DM’s can make their own judgements, disagree, and do as they see fit at theirs. Reasonable people can reasonably disagree.
Heh. One last suggestion, as a token of my appreciation for this reasoned argument: if you DM’s do allow the subclass at your table, please try to make sure your players don’t find my posts. 😉
conskin, if we aren’t bringing feats into this, what are all these benefits you keep talking about? Opportunity attacks, sure. What other advantage is melee verse ranged? Well, ranged gets one of the few fighting styles in the game that is actually really good.
The echo is really good, no doubt. And it will absorb some of the attacks, but it will NOT absorb most of them. It’s a one hit kill, now picture multiple enemies on the battlefield with multi attack. The math works out that the echo will not absorb the vast majority of attacks. It can literally only take one hit per round then it disappears.
Is it a great and powerful sub class? Yes. But comparing it to the peace domain cleric is straight hyperbole, in my opinion.
Thought I’d been clear. That’s okay, I can rephrase.
There are two benefits that kick in with the Echo Knight at level 3 that, in my opinion, are so ridiculously powerful they break the class:
If that’s hyperbole I’ll eat my hat.
1. Ranged fighter is already doing this and getting 80% of the damage numbers (or more if battlemaster)
2. Flying races
Again not overpowered at all compared to what already exists.
Okay.
I could point out the distinctions being paved over- a 1d8 arrow versus 1d12 greataxe. Arrows needing a straight line or volley path versus full x- y- and z- axis tactical maneuverability. No opportunity attacks. No ability to shove or arguably grapple. The fact that flying races can’t fly through a keyhole, between bars, through a crack in a stone wall, around a blind corner using a simple mirror, through a window- but I won’t. There’s no convincing the unconvinceable.
What I will say is this: all the points you’re making would stack with the Echo Knight. Wanna be a ranged weapon Knight? Okay. Every turn consists of the knight scrunching safely behind full cover, shoot the echo up in the air every round with a full view of the field, pelting arrows down. Wanna be an aaracockra Knight? Okay. You get the benefit of flight and insane maneuverability along with the ability to blink through obstacles. The damn thing stacks.
Bottom line: if you don’t think it’s broken and are happy with it at your table, then bless you, it’s your table. I’ve set out my reasons why it’s banned at mine. Any further argument would just be me repeating myself and/or trying to convince the unconvinceable.
Good luck with your games!
I'm not sure why we're arguing about if the Echo Knight is over powered or not? It seems completely objective. Every game and party is different. If you're a DM and think it is, then ban it. If you're a player and think it imbalances the game, then don't play it. If not, have at it. If you want to educate other people as to what to watch out for, I think that point was made pages ago. I would like to suggest that instead of arguing over if it is OP or not, let's talk about how to manage it in your game if you do have one. What are some situations that would challenge and Echo Knight (and their party) reasonably? And are there tweaks that could be made to the rules for Echo Knight that might balance them a bit more with a non-optimized party?
What do you think, what would other fun or appropriate challenges be for an Echo Knight?
I'm introducing the Echo Knight into my game. One idea I was kicking around to balancing them a bit with the rest of the party is to take away the Echo's ability to fly (and/or be summoned mid-air). By the flavor and description, if an Echo is just another alternate version of the Knight from another timeline, why should the Echo be able to fly if the Knight can't. This would dramatically cut down on the ability to pass a lot of obstacles, and somewhat reduce the Echo's (and thus Knight's) maneuverability in combat. Would this be too much of a nerf, or would they still be quite good?
One other idea I had to tweak the rules was to require concentration to keep the Echo up. If the Knight gets hit and fails a con save, then the Echo vanishes. I don't see this as a major limit, but it might suck up some more resources. Would you be okay with this as a player?
I did a poll one time on opportunity attacks to see what people were actually getting as in my play styles I rarely if ever saw them happen:
How Often Do You Get Attacks of Opportunity? - Rules & Game Mechanics - Dungeons & Dragons Discussion - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com)
87% of people had one or fewer AoO per combat with roughly 37% saying they got hardly any ever.
Now for some where YMMV so much that is happening MAYBE once per combat I have a hard time thinking this is a "game breaking" feature.
Grappling/Shoving is ok I guess...but you are giving up an attack to do so? The unfortunate reality of DnD combat is dead is better.
You always want to be killing something rather than debuffing as Action Economy favors those with more actions....and dead creatures take no actions.
Also the ranged fighter build has Trip Attack, Grapple Attack, Menacing Attack, and several other ways to mitigate/debuff a target without giving up damage to do so.
A ranged echo knight would be terrible...the unleash incarnation would not proc with ranged attacks, you get no subclass benefits to increase your ranged attacks, and basically all the best features of the subclass are wasted as they rely on melee attack range. No synergy besides what you can already accomplish with movement and cover.
Aarococka would be redundant....you already have the best part of Echo Knight and it really offers nothing new to your game other than letting you do melee attacks from the air? Again your damage is already 90% or more there from a SS/CBE build so why bother?
So no nothing you have stated even remotely gives me pause to say its not a broken subclass by any stretch of the imagination.
Oh yeah I agree Echo Knight is a good subclass and is even in my top 3 for figther...its just not overpowered by any stretch.
Also something that can disengage as a BA (Goblins) will mostly just ignore most of what they get at 3rd level unless you take the sentinel feat but that is true for any polearm fighter.
Spell effects or spells that limit view (darkness, walls, etc...) as you have to be able to see the spot to create the Echo.
Stuff that hits hard...most builds will want to use Polearms or heavy weapons to keep up so they will have a lower AC unless your DM is generous and gives you plate right away.
Illusions....nothing in the build gives you much for determining what is real or fake so you could have a creature with copies of itself that spread out and its hard to tell which one is the right one.
Any competent spellcaster will generally take out a melee fighter pretty quickly if isolated. Environmental effects that damage. Any ambient damage will keep the echo from sticking around. Blinding effects/spells....need to be able to see to place echo.
Take a look at the Living Shadow dark gift in Ravenloft and its downside, ominous will. With a few tweaks, you’d add another point of risk to the Knight- an unlimited ability that comes with a cost that potentially gets worse the more you use it.
Don’t limit the ability, which would be nerfing- add an extra cost to it. Tweak the demand for the ability, not the supply.
It's NOT without risk of melee damage. You can put an echo in someone's face and make attacks from there, sure. But you did not address the rest of my post, including:
"And it will absorb some of the attacks, but it will NOT absorb most of them. It’s a one hit kill, now picture multiple enemies on the battlefield with multi attack. The math works out that the echo will not absorb the vast majority of attacks. It can literally only take one hit per round then it disappears."
So picture an entire round of combat. Multiple enemies on the battlefield, many of whom have multi-attack. Your echo can get hit ONCE and then it disappears. It can literally only absorb a maximum of ONE attack per round.
Yeah that was for sure one really really easy way to bypass any benefit from the subclass is just to send a swarm of low CR minions out. You only get one reaction so hitting one is only going to do so much for you....
Overall there is an abundant amount of ways to bypass the subclass if you really need/want to.