Had an interesting thought about the "Mage Slayer" feat and how it might be compatible with the Echo Knight. An upcoming small adventure I'm DMing in the Wildemount setting will have one player playing a Echo Knight from the Kryn Dynasty going against a few Volstrucker agents and the player brought up wanting to grab "Mage Slayer". The feat has some okay abilities attached but the biggest downside is that they are all limited to 5 foot range. IMO that makes the Feat rather unappealing because you are expecting a melee character to close in on a range character with a multitude of ways to ensure that they do not get within your reach.
This is where Echo Knights come in. The "Manifest Echo" ability basically extends a Fighters reach by 30ft at least ion an direction, including vertical. The wording for the for the feature doesn't specify nor have I seen anything that states to the contrary but I am totally down for letting my player utilize the "Mage Slayer" feat through his Echo. Being able to keep that kind of pressure on a spellcaster is a Fighter's wet dream. It will make encounters a lot more interesting in the future.
I think maybe the second ability would work, but not the first and third. It says the mage is within 5 feet of you. Your echo is not you, so the creature next to your echo isn’t next to you. With the second ability, you make the attack from the echo’s location, so I’d let the disadvantage work.
Or do you know that already and you’re wondering if allowing it anyway would be game breaking?
I think maybe the second ability would work, but not the first and third. It says the mage is within 5 feet of you. Your echo is not you, so the creature next to your echo isn’t next to you. With the second ability, you make the attack from the echo’s location, so I’d let the disadvantage work.
Or do you know that already and you’re wondering if allowing it anyway would be game breaking?
I'm not worried about it being game breaking as I prefer to reward my players when they have clever ideas instead or trying to nerf something because of "balance". As the DM, I have just as many if not more tools at my disposal to make encounters challenging that don't involve me weakening them.
But my justification for allowing Mage Slayer to work fully through the Echo comes from the wording of the "Manifest Echo" ability. Specifically this:
"When a creature that you can see within 5 feet of your echo moves at least 5 feet away from it, you can use your reaction to make an opportunity attack against that creature as if you were in the echo’s space."
To me, because the Echo can use reactions as if it were the player in that space the Echo occupies, I feel that it is fair to say that the Echo carries with it the player's abilities. You're right in saying that the Echo isn't the player, because it's an extension of the player.
I see, but the ability doesn’t say it does that, so it doesn’t do that. It doesn’t say it can use all reactions, it only says OAs. It says OAs, so you can use OAs, it doesn’t say you can fully act as if you are in the echo’s square, so you can’t. At least, that’s my understanding. And the echo isn’t taking a reaction like it was the main character. The echo doesn’t have a reaction. The character is using their reaction just from the echo’s square. It’s an important distinction because it doesn’t go both ways. If someone then tried to move past the actual character, they would be able to freely, since the character already spent its reaction.
Either way, if the echo is already there, couldn’t the player just teleport to that square and actually be next to the mage? Seems like that would be a pretty effective way to combine the class and the feat.
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Had an interesting thought about the "Mage Slayer" feat and how it might be compatible with the Echo Knight. An upcoming small adventure I'm DMing in the Wildemount setting will have one player playing a Echo Knight from the Kryn Dynasty going against a few Volstrucker agents and the player brought up wanting to grab "Mage Slayer". The feat has some okay abilities attached but the biggest downside is that they are all limited to 5 foot range. IMO that makes the Feat rather unappealing because you are expecting a melee character to close in on a range character with a multitude of ways to ensure that they do not get within your reach.
This is where Echo Knights come in. The "Manifest Echo" ability basically extends a Fighters reach by 30ft at least ion an direction, including vertical. The wording for the for the feature doesn't specify nor have I seen anything that states to the contrary but I am totally down for letting my player utilize the "Mage Slayer" feat through his Echo. Being able to keep that kind of pressure on a spellcaster is a Fighter's wet dream. It will make encounters a lot more interesting in the future.
I think maybe the second ability would work, but not the first and third.
It says the mage is within 5 feet of you. Your echo is not you, so the creature next to your echo isn’t next to you.
With the second ability, you make the attack from the echo’s location, so I’d let the disadvantage work.
Or do you know that already and you’re wondering if allowing it anyway would be game breaking?
I'm not worried about it being game breaking as I prefer to reward my players when they have clever ideas instead or trying to nerf something because of "balance". As the DM, I have just as many if not more tools at my disposal to make encounters challenging that don't involve me weakening them.
But my justification for allowing Mage Slayer to work fully through the Echo comes from the wording of the "Manifest Echo" ability. Specifically this:
"When a creature that you can see within 5 feet of your echo moves at least 5 feet away from it, you can use your reaction to make an opportunity attack against that creature as if you were in the echo’s space."
To me, because the Echo can use reactions as if it were the player in that space the Echo occupies, I feel that it is fair to say that the Echo carries with it the player's abilities. You're right in saying that the Echo isn't the player, because it's an extension of the player.
I see, but the ability doesn’t say it does that, so it doesn’t do that. It doesn’t say it can use all reactions, it only says OAs.
It says OAs, so you can use OAs, it doesn’t say you can fully act as if you are in the echo’s square, so you can’t. At least, that’s my understanding.
And the echo isn’t taking a reaction like it was the main character. The echo doesn’t have a reaction. The character is using their reaction just from the echo’s square. It’s an important distinction because it doesn’t go both ways. If someone then tried to move past the actual character, they would be able to freely, since the character already spent its reaction.
Either way, if the echo is already there, couldn’t the player just teleport to that square and actually be next to the mage? Seems like that would be a pretty effective way to combine the class and the feat.