Almost a year into playing an Echo Knight and I've only once had a moment with my DM of 'huh, do you think it would work like this?'. We thought about it, she made a house ruling on it, and we continue on. It doesn't need to be messy and complicated.
This mirror's my experience as well.
In the campaign I play in, I have a phantom rogue echo knight. Only one or two "how would this work" questions the entire time. Because my DM and I are both rule-of-cool advocates, we keep exploring the edges of where the echo knight and the phantom rogue features can create corner case synergy. In the campaign I DM, one player has an echo knight, and nothing odd or confusing has happened.
Hello, it has been a long time since the last post here, but I find myself in a problem and need some help to find a solution to a problem that has been occurring to me in the campaign that I am DM.
One of the players is an Echo Knight, and he has consistently used the fact that he can summon an Echo as a Bonus action to summon one at the forefront of the party and act as a permanent shield, like the Echo is at the frontline, creature A moves towards it and attacks the echo were if it hits him ends the echo, at his turn the player use a bonus action to summon another echo at the frontline forcing the creature to have to attack it once again, and if the creature defeats the echo and then moves forward towards the other members, they just retreat to leave space in the frontline for a new echo. Anda that has been done repeatedly where sometimes in a fight the echo is killed 10 or more times and the players are mostly unharmed.
Any thoughts on such a situation and how to fix that? Any help would be welcome. At first, I was thinking to limit the number of times he can manifest echo, but that would be going against all rules and decisions on this topic, later I was thinking of having the creatures ignore the echo and go directly toward the players, but that would create a whole new slew of problems.
One of the players is an Echo Knight, and he has consistently used the fact that he can summon an Echo as a Bonus action to summon one at the forefront of the party and act as a permanent shield, like the Echo is at the frontline, creature A moves towards it and attacks the echo were if it hits him ends the echo, at his turn the player use a bonus action to summon another echo at the frontline forcing the creature to have to attack it once again. And that has been done repeatedly where sometimes in a fight the echo is killed 10 or more times and the players are mostly unharmed.
Any thoughts on such a situation and how to fix that?
That is a perfect use for the echo, and I don't see any reason to nerf it. However, that should only be that effective for hallway encounters against a single opponent (with no ranged attacks) who has used its entire movement to get adjacent to the echo.
Outdoors, in a room, in a wider-than-5' space, facing multiple opponents -- add any one of these conditions to the encounter mix and the echo becomes effective at shutting down one opponent at a time.
If you want to see how to effectively counter this tactic even in a hallway, have your party face a mirror party and use this tactic against them. Your players will show you exactly how easy it is to counter the one-trick pony.
Hello, it has been a long time since the last post here, but I find myself in a problem and need some help to find a solution to a problem that has been occurring to me in the campaign that I am DM.
One of the players is an Echo Knight, and he has consistently used the fact that he can summon an Echo as a Bonus action to summon one at the forefront of the party and act as a permanent shield, like the Echo is at the frontline, creature A moves towards it and attacks the echo were if it hits him ends the echo, at his turn the player use a bonus action to summon another echo at the frontline forcing the creature to have to attack it once again, and if the creature defeats the echo and then moves forward towards the other members, they just retreat to leave space in the frontline for a new echo. Anda that has been done repeatedly where sometimes in a fight the echo is killed 10 or more times and the players are mostly unharmed.
Any thoughts on such a situation and how to fix that? Any help would be welcome. At first, I was thinking to limit the number of times he can manifest echo, but that would be going against all rules and decisions on this topic, later I was thinking of having the creatures ignore the echo and go directly toward the players, but that would create a whole new slew of problems.
The monsters/enemies can also learn and adapt through a combat just like a player would. If an enemy slashes through what they think is a creature and it melts away as soon as they touch it, they (and any allies who saw) might not fall for that again, especially if it has happened several times. Even creatures with a low intelligence would have reason to be suspicious after a while, and if you feel weird just deciding that they understand they shouldn't attack it you could always have them make an Intelligence check/save or something of the sort to see if they keep falling for it. This is only really necessary for low INT creatures, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for an enemy of an average INT to eventually switch tactics if hitting the thing that keeps poofing away and coming back clearly isn't doing anything.
As Seeker said, in a hallway scenario where they CAN'T target anything else, this is a clever use on the player's part and your enemies will need to figure something out. But if a creature has the ability to move towards and attack someone other than the echo, there's no reason they need to continually hit it just because it's up front.
Hello, it has been a long time since the last post here, but I find myself in a problem and need some help to find a solution to a problem that has been occurring to me in the campaign that I am DM.
One of the players is an Echo Knight, and he has consistently used the fact that he can summon an Echo as a Bonus action to summon one at the forefront of the party and act as a permanent shield, like the Echo is at the frontline, creature A moves towards it and attacks the echo were if it hits him ends the echo, at his turn the player use a bonus action to summon another echo at the frontline forcing the creature to have to attack it once again, and if the creature defeats the echo and then moves forward towards the other members, they just retreat to leave space in the frontline for a new echo. Anda that has been done repeatedly where sometimes in a fight the echo is killed 10 or more times and the players are mostly unharmed.
Any thoughts on such a situation and how to fix that? Any help would be welcome. At first, I was thinking to limit the number of times he can manifest echo, but that would be going against all rules and decisions on this topic, later I was thinking of having the creatures ignore the echo and go directly toward the players, but that would create a whole new slew of problems.
The monsters/enemies can also learn and adapt through a combat just like a player would. If an enemy slashes through what they think is a creature and it melts away as soon as they touch it, they (and any allies who saw) might not fall for that again, especially if it has happened several times. Even creatures with a low intelligence would have reason to be suspicious after a while, and if you feel weird just deciding that they understand they shouldn't attack it you could always have them make an Intelligence check/save or something of the sort to see if they keep falling for it. This is only really necessary for low INT creatures, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for an enemy of an average INT to eventually switch tactics if hitting the thing that keeps poofing away and coming back clearly isn't doing anything.
As Seeker said, in a hallway scenario where they CAN'T target anything else, this is a clever use on the player's part and your enemies will need to figure something out. But if a creature has the ability to move towards and attack someone other than the echo, there's no reason they need to continually hit it just because it's up front.
I agree. Also, the Echo is a gray translucent image of the player. So it's not a great or exact copy of you. It has no smell/odor. It permits light to pass through it. Even low intelligence creatures, but with great senses may not see this as a danger or a real creature. YOU are the DM. Your creatures don't have to just mindlessly attack the Echo. Likely, he can't always position it in a doorway or some tight area. But when he can, just deal with it. It's smart play, for him to use it as a blocker. Add an extra monster or two, if you think this is effecting game balance (I don't think it should be effecting it that much, though).
Remember, YOU are the DM. If the monsters are intelligent, they may see it for what it is...not a real creature. If they are unintelligent, but with a keen sense of smell, they may also not react to it as a threat. You are running the monsters, not the player.
Hello, it has been a long time since the last post here, but I find myself in a problem and need some help to find a solution to a problem that has been occurring to me in the campaign that I am DM.
One of the players is an Echo Knight, and he has consistently used the fact that he can summon an Echo as a Bonus action to summon one at the forefront of the party and act as a permanent shield, like the Echo is at the frontline, creature A moves towards it and attacks the echo were if it hits him ends the echo, at his turn the player use a bonus action to summon another echo at the frontline forcing the creature to have to attack it once again, and if the creature defeats the echo and then moves forward towards the other members, they just retreat to leave space in the frontline for a new echo. Anda that has been done repeatedly where sometimes in a fight the echo is killed 10 or more times and the players are mostly unharmed.
Any thoughts on such a situation and how to fix that? Any help would be welcome. At first, I was thinking to limit the number of times he can manifest echo, but that would be going against all rules and decisions on this topic, later I was thinking of having the creatures ignore the echo and go directly toward the players, but that would create a whole new slew of problems.
I’m one for simple solutions, just use 10’ hall ways and ranged attacks.
Can I ready an action to attack when a creature approaches my echo? And if I’m using the optional mark rules, would I still have an opportunity attack?
You can ready an action to attack when a creature approaches your echo - but attacking using a readied action would use your reaction, so you would not have any way to make an opportunity attack until your reaction refreshes at the start of your next turn.
Can I ready an action to attack when a creature approaches my echo? And if I’m using the optional mark rules, would I still have an opportunity attack?
You can't ready an action to make an attack through the echo. Manifest Echo only lets you attack through the echo when you use the Attack action on your turn. It doesn't interact with the Ready action.
Marking is a little more complicated, only because of the fact that it states that it doesn't expend your reaction to make the opportunity attack after successfully marking a target, while Manifest Echo clearly states that using the ability DOES use your reaction. It's two specific rules applying to a general rule, so that's a question for your DM.
Can I ready an action to attack when a creature approaches my echo? And if I’m using the optional mark rules, would I still have an opportunity attack?
There are only two instances when an echo knight can attack from their echo's space:
When they take an Opportunity Attack after an enemy moves at least 5 feet away from the echo.
If using the optional Mark rule, then we must examine its purpose. While the user can take a reaction, they can make one additional opportunity attack. But they can only make this attack against a marked target. And it is possible to mark multiple targets in a single turn.
The character who marks a target with their reaction no longer has a reaction after marking them with their opportunity attack. This is an edge case not explicitly covered by the rules. My gut instinct is no, they cannot take another opportunity attack. Another DM might rule differently.
Going into the explanations within Dunamancy the echo is a version of yourself from a different timeline that is summoned by a dunamancy spell in the form of a shadowy echo.
While this doesn't specify much either but if it is a shadowy echo version of you from a different timeline then that leads down the argument of it being a creature. Though I believe it is often accepted as a magical object rather than a normal object.
To me the echo never actually does anything except move. Since dunamancy covers spells around time and space which explains the teleport, then when an attack is made from the echos space its not the echo attacking, its you manipulating space through dunamancy and making an attack from there (maybe a temporary teleport swap for the action) same with a saving throw, the echo isn't doing anything but your character is through dunamancy by effecting time and space and saving the echo.
Going into the explanations within Dunamancy the echo is a version of yourself from a different timeline that is summoned by a dunamancy spell in the form of a shadowy echo.
While this doesn't specify much either but if it is a shadowy echo version of you from a different timeline then that leads down the argument of it being a creature. Though I believe it is often accepted as a magical object rather than a normal object.
To me the echo never actually does anything except move. Since dunamancy covers spells around time and space which explains the teleport, then when an attack is made from the echos space its not the echo attacking, its you manipulating space through dunamancy and making an attack from there (maybe a temporary teleport swap for the action) same with a saving throw, the echo isn't doing anything but your character is through dunamancy by effecting time and space and saving the echo.
I am positive I am not the only one wondering, but what are you attempting to explain? That the Echo is a creature based on a set of features from an entirely separate class, or that you are the Echo and you're using features that don't exist for the class based on a loose interpretation of something unrelated to the game?
If it's the former, we've discussed ad nauseum that the Echo isn't a creature becuase the entire text has the absence of "creature" in it. It is not required to be anything else, it just isn't a creature.
If it's the latter, see the previous text, and add that you're free to interpret how you like, but that won't change how the Echo functions in the game.
I have a question for rules. I haven't really seen anything regarding this.
But If the Knight were to pick an item up, such as like a treasure chest or some other heavy object that would take two hands to carry, can the Knight then swap places with the Echo and still hold onto said item in question?
If you are grappled and your movement speed is zero, and you have no feature or special cause to have gained movement requisite to teleport while grappled, then you cannot teleport to escape the grapple until you gain the requisite speed the expend for teleporting. There are obvious specific rulings which change the general rule without violating their principal behavior in the game, and both of those which you gave are specific rules which grant exceptions to being at 0 movement while grappled.
Referencing Freedom of Movement is a tenuous comparison to make here. FoM is an exception to a specific rule where, without the exception, the feature is 100% non-functional. That's not the case with Manifest Echo. It's teleport feature and the required movement sacrifice to use it have a function that is independent from the grappling mechanic but interacts with it on a fringe basis. The fringe use should not supersede the general use when determining RAI. The feature still functions perfectly fine without making the same exception that FoM does. We shouldn't assume that the intended use of the ability is for it to function in ways that aren't directly addressed in the text. Arguably, the movement sacrifice could even be included in the ability partly for clarifying the way Manifest Echo interacts with the grappled condition.
Never punish your players for using their class in a clever way. Let the Knight shine. After all it is still a martial class with a very limited potential if it comes to affecting the battle field in a bigger scope. I assume it is early in your campaign and the Echo specialty is very fun at that time.
If the knight is giving your npcs, beasts and monsters a hard time, that is fine. Most low INT, low awarenes or inexperienced creatures should feel threatened by this "ghost" and they should attack or flee from it. If this Echo manifested right now behind you, you would feel threatened and frightened. Now, if it comes to thinking creatures, after seeing the Knight do his magic, maybe they will try to come up with a solution to this teleporting magician - after some pondering/strategizing of course.
Try to make the evil guys' attempt to cope with the Echo funny and/or erroneous. Have your players watch the enemy communicating about it - even in combat. Make some enemies swing wildly in different directions and scream something like: "Here he is! NO! Here! Gnalf, behind you! He is everywhere! AAHH"
If necessary, generate some "additional" enemies or things to overcome to clog up some of the parties capabilities. Maybe some special task to accomplish that only teleporting guy could shine at. Maybe some range fighting or even flying creatures "way up over there", where only the Knight can teleport to.
You can fake your own death. Here is how. You make an echo of yourself as a bonus action, somewhere out of their line of sight, then give a cheesy line "I will not be taken alive" and use echo Avatar feature as your action. Then as you are deafened and blinded, you walk backwards off a cliff and count to six while your echo is running away in another direction, after counting to six, you swap your place with your echo.
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This mirror's my experience as well.
In the campaign I play in, I have a phantom rogue echo knight. Only one or two "how would this work" questions the entire time. Because my DM and I are both rule-of-cool advocates, we keep exploring the edges of where the echo knight and the phantom rogue features can create corner case synergy. In the campaign I DM, one player has an echo knight, and nothing odd or confusing has happened.
Hello, it has been a long time since the last post here, but I find myself in a problem and need some help to find a solution to a problem that has been occurring to me in the campaign that I am DM.
One of the players is an Echo Knight, and he has consistently used the fact that he can summon an Echo as a Bonus action to summon one at the forefront of the party and act as a permanent shield, like the Echo is at the frontline, creature A moves towards it and attacks the echo were if it hits him ends the echo, at his turn the player use a bonus action to summon another echo at the frontline forcing the creature to have to attack it once again, and if the creature defeats the echo and then moves forward towards the other members, they just retreat to leave space in the frontline for a new echo. Anda that has been done repeatedly where sometimes in a fight the echo is killed 10 or more times and the players are mostly unharmed.
Any thoughts on such a situation and how to fix that? Any help would be welcome. At first, I was thinking to limit the number of times he can manifest echo, but that would be going against all rules and decisions on this topic, later I was thinking of having the creatures ignore the echo and go directly toward the players, but that would create a whole new slew of problems.
That is a perfect use for the echo, and I don't see any reason to nerf it. However, that should only be that effective for hallway encounters against a single opponent (with no ranged attacks) who has used its entire movement to get adjacent to the echo.
Outdoors, in a room, in a wider-than-5' space, facing multiple opponents -- add any one of these conditions to the encounter mix and the echo becomes effective at shutting down one opponent at a time.
If you want to see how to effectively counter this tactic even in a hallway, have your party face a mirror party and use this tactic against them. Your players will show you exactly how easy it is to counter the one-trick pony.
The monsters/enemies can also learn and adapt through a combat just like a player would. If an enemy slashes through what they think is a creature and it melts away as soon as they touch it, they (and any allies who saw) might not fall for that again, especially if it has happened several times. Even creatures with a low intelligence would have reason to be suspicious after a while, and if you feel weird just deciding that they understand they shouldn't attack it you could always have them make an Intelligence check/save or something of the sort to see if they keep falling for it. This is only really necessary for low INT creatures, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for an enemy of an average INT to eventually switch tactics if hitting the thing that keeps poofing away and coming back clearly isn't doing anything.
As Seeker said, in a hallway scenario where they CAN'T target anything else, this is a clever use on the player's part and your enemies will need to figure something out. But if a creature has the ability to move towards and attack someone other than the echo, there's no reason they need to continually hit it just because it's up front.
I agree. Also, the Echo is a gray translucent image of the player. So it's not a great or exact copy of you. It has no smell/odor. It permits light to pass through it. Even low intelligence creatures, but with great senses may not see this as a danger or a real creature. YOU are the DM. Your creatures don't have to just mindlessly attack the Echo. Likely, he can't always position it in a doorway or some tight area. But when he can, just deal with it. It's smart play, for him to use it as a blocker. Add an extra monster or two, if you think this is effecting game balance (I don't think it should be effecting it that much, though).
Remember, YOU are the DM. If the monsters are intelligent, they may see it for what it is...not a real creature. If they are unintelligent, but with a keen sense of smell, they may also not react to it as a threat. You are running the monsters, not the player.
I’m one for simple solutions, just use 10’ hall ways and ranged attacks.
Can I ready an action to attack when a creature approaches my echo? And if I’m using the optional mark rules, would I still have an opportunity attack?
You can ready an action to attack when a creature approaches your echo - but attacking using a readied action would use your reaction, so you would not have any way to make an opportunity attack until your reaction refreshes at the start of your next turn.
You can't ready an action to make an attack through the echo. Manifest Echo only lets you attack through the echo when you use the Attack action on your turn. It doesn't interact with the Ready action.
Marking is a little more complicated, only because of the fact that it states that it doesn't expend your reaction to make the opportunity attack after successfully marking a target, while Manifest Echo clearly states that using the ability DOES use your reaction. It's two specific rules applying to a general rule, so that's a question for your DM.
There are only two instances when an echo knight can attack from their echo's space:
If using the optional Mark rule, then we must examine its purpose. While the user can take a reaction, they can make one additional opportunity attack. But they can only make this attack against a marked target. And it is possible to mark multiple targets in a single turn.
The character who marks a target with their reaction no longer has a reaction after marking them with their opportunity attack. This is an edge case not explicitly covered by the rules. My gut instinct is no, they cannot take another opportunity attack. Another DM might rule differently.
Going into the explanations within Dunamancy the echo is a version of yourself from a different timeline that is summoned by a dunamancy spell in the form of a shadowy echo.
While this doesn't specify much either but if it is a shadowy echo version of you from a different timeline then that leads down the argument of it being a creature. Though I believe it is often accepted as a magical object rather than a normal object.
To me the echo never actually does anything except move. Since dunamancy covers spells around time and space which explains the teleport, then when an attack is made from the echos space its not the echo attacking, its you manipulating space through dunamancy and making an attack from there (maybe a temporary teleport swap for the action) same with a saving throw, the echo isn't doing anything but your character is through dunamancy by effecting time and space and saving the echo.
I am positive I am not the only one wondering, but what are you attempting to explain? That the Echo is a creature based on a set of features from an entirely separate class, or that you are the Echo and you're using features that don't exist for the class based on a loose interpretation of something unrelated to the game?
If it's the former, we've discussed ad nauseum that the Echo isn't a creature becuase the entire text has the absence of "creature" in it. It is not required to be anything else, it just isn't a creature.
If it's the latter, see the previous text, and add that you're free to interpret how you like, but that won't change how the Echo functions in the game.
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I have a question for rules. I haven't really seen anything regarding this.
But If the Knight were to pick an item up, such as like a treasure chest or some other heavy object that would take two hands to carry, can the Knight then swap places with the Echo and still hold onto said item in question?
I don't see why not, you teleport with any objects you are carrying as with any other teleport feature
Good job on this. I would make one correction though.
For Movement # 20, it is not at all clear that being grappled means you can't swap places to teleport out of the grapple if after teleporting you would have the 15' movement. Precedent from similar abilities suggests that you can: see for example the discussion at https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/k5dx62/comment/gee81c3/ and https://rpgbot.net/dnd5/characters/classes/fighter/subclasses/echo-knight/, as well as Jeremy Crawford's tweet at https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/932413630305275904.
If you are grappled and your movement speed is zero, and you have no feature or special cause to have gained movement requisite to teleport while grappled, then you cannot teleport to escape the grapple until you gain the requisite speed the expend for teleporting. There are obvious specific rulings which change the general rule without violating their principal behavior in the game, and both of those which you gave are specific rules which grant exceptions to being at 0 movement while grappled.
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Chief Innovationist, Acquisitions Inc. The Series 2
Successfully completed the Tomb of Horrors module (as part of playing Tomb of Annihilation) with no party deaths!
nm misread post
Referencing Freedom of Movement is a tenuous comparison to make here. FoM is an exception to a specific rule where, without the exception, the feature is 100% non-functional. That's not the case with Manifest Echo. It's teleport feature and the required movement sacrifice to use it have a function that is independent from the grappling mechanic but interacts with it on a fringe basis. The fringe use should not supersede the general use when determining RAI. The feature still functions perfectly fine without making the same exception that FoM does. We shouldn't assume that the intended use of the ability is for it to function in ways that aren't directly addressed in the text. Arguably, the movement sacrifice could even be included in the ability partly for clarifying the way Manifest Echo interacts with the grappled condition.
Never punish your players for using their class in a clever way. Let the Knight shine. After all it is still a martial class with a very limited potential if it comes to affecting the battle field in a bigger scope. I assume it is early in your campaign and the Echo specialty is very fun at that time.
If the knight is giving your npcs, beasts and monsters a hard time, that is fine. Most low INT, low awarenes or inexperienced creatures should feel threatened by this "ghost" and they should attack or flee from it. If this Echo manifested right now behind you, you would feel threatened and frightened. Now, if it comes to thinking creatures, after seeing the Knight do his magic, maybe they will try to come up with a solution to this teleporting magician - after some pondering/strategizing of course.
Try to make the evil guys' attempt to cope with the Echo funny and/or erroneous. Have your players watch the enemy communicating about it - even in combat. Make some enemies swing wildly in different directions and scream something like: "Here he is! NO! Here! Gnalf, behind you! He is everywhere! AAHH"
If necessary, generate some "additional" enemies or things to overcome to clog up some of the parties capabilities. Maybe some special task to accomplish that only teleporting guy could shine at. Maybe some range fighting or even flying creatures "way up over there", where only the Knight can teleport to.
Always make it fun and entertaining.
You can fake your own death. Here is how. You make an echo of yourself as a bonus action, somewhere out of their line of sight, then give a cheesy line "I will not be taken alive" and use echo Avatar feature as your action. Then as you are deafened and blinded, you walk backwards off a cliff and count to six while your echo is running away in another direction, after counting to six, you swap your place with your echo.