Critical Role Echo Knight is Wildemount's Most Popular Subclass

D&D Beyond shared some stats about the things people are using from Explorers Guide to Wildemount. These are stats from 28 million characters.

 

[gyor]

The Echo Knight reminds me a ton of the Echo Walker from Age of Wonders: Plametfall.

 

[Burnside]

I have a group that just hit level 3 and one player is running a tiefling echo knight. I’m finding that the duplicate ability is REALLY powerful for a level 3 character. TBH it feels more like an ability you should get at level 5 or 6.

It’s also a little ill-defined. Can the duplicate speak? The character can attack from the duplicate’s position - can they take other actions? Open doors? Grapple? Pick something up?

 

[jgsugden]

The Manifest Echo and related text specifies the things you can do with the echoes - and that is it:

• As a free action command it to move up to 30 feet on your turn.
• Switch places with it for 15 feet of movement.
• You can attack from either your location or the echo's space.
• You can make an OA with it using your reaction.
• You can make a few bonus attacks with the Unleash Incarnation ability.

Later, the Echo Avatar, gives you increased range and the ability to see through the echo. Shadow Martyr allows you to eat an attack meant for someone else. Reclaim Potential gives you some bonus HPs, and Legion of One adds extra echoes.

You can't use it to open doors. It can set off traps, although ones that deal no damage will generally be wasted on it.

This is a fun little idea, but it is not overpowered. It, however, very evocative.

An enemy minion that understands the ability might negate most of this subclass by standing around with a readied action to kill the duplicate as soon as it appears. It can also be problematic when fighting in a situation where damage is taken when something enters an aura or area of effect.

At this time, I'd warrant that most of the PCS on Beyond using these subclasses are ones that people created to test them out. Their filters do not identify all of the "fake PCs" accurately. I wish they'd add an "active" click box to the character sheet that allowed you to filter to see only active PCs on the character page and made it easier for them to pull these stats.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is a fun little idea, but it is not overpowered.

I mean, it totally is. All three subclasses in Wildemount are.

I love the concept to pieces though. It was also really funny to me because I was playing a totally bizarre character in Path of Exile, and thought "D&D could never do this", then the Echo Knight came out and is basically a very similar concept.

I agree with your assertion re: these likely being "test characters".

 

[Burnside]

Just the ability to have your actual character stay behind cover while your infinitely re-summonable dupe makes ranged attacks and draws enemy fire can get ridiculous in many dungeon situations. My player has so far spent two sessions mostly doing this. Particularly devastating against enemies who aren’t overly bright.

 

[jgsugden]

Just the ability to have your actual character stay behind cover while your infinitely re-summonable dupe makes ranged attacks and draws enemy fire can get ridiculous in many dungeon situations. My player has so far spent two sessions mostly doing this. Particularly devastating against enemies who aren’t overly bright.

A battlemaster will, generally, do more damage. They also do not have a risk of having their entire schtick negated by a damage aura or a readied attack from an underling.

Solid, but not overpowered.

 

[Burnside]

A battlemaster will, generally, do more damage. They also do not have a risk of having their entire schtick negated by a damage aura or a readied attack from an underling.

Solid, but not overpowered.

BUT a battlemaster's maneuvers are a limited resource. A readied action might take out a dupe for one round - but the echo knight will immediately re-summon them next round with a bonus action.

Even if the enemies understand that the dupe isn't "real", in many cases that won't matter because the dupe is still a threat - and if the enemy can't target the real character, the dupe is effectively an unkillable threat that will reappear every round. Better keep readying that action every single round. And that's assuming the enemies hit the dupe - it has a decent AC of 16, which means lower level enemies will sometimes waste a round or two just swinging at it.

And yes, an AOE effect will shut the dupe down - but how often are you really going to drop damage auras on a level 3 party?

Again, at level 5 I think this ability is fine. At level 3 it's OP compared to what most other characters are doing.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, it totally is. All three subclasses in Wildemount are.

I love the concept to pieces though. It was also really funny to me because I was playing a totally bizarre character in Path of Exile, and thought "D&D could never do this", then the Echo Knight came out and is basically a very similar concept.

I agree with your assertion re: these likely being "test characters".

All three Subclasses were put through the standard private playtest wringer, so I would bet they are in fact balanced, outside of white room scenarios.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

All three Subclasses were put through the standard private playtest wringer, so I would bet they are in fact balanced, outside of white room scenarios.

Yeah, no. Sorry mate. I don't know if you've looked the at the subclass-specific spells yet, but there absolutely no possibility they went through any kind of "wringer" of a playtest, unless it was the same exact team which "playtested" Healing Spirit. And Manifest Echo is just wackily better than any other L3 Fighter stuff. Even the ways you can "deal with it" don't actually mess with the Echo Knight much, and would mess with an actual Fighter way more (regularly round-on-round damage auras, for example - and a real Fighter wouldn't cause an enemy to ready an action, wasting a monster's entire round for 1 damage to a non-entity, they'd cause the enemy to actually attack the Fighter, possibly with multiple attacks).

But go look at the spells, and tell me again how this has been through a "playtest wringer".

Also no insult intended, but saying "white room scenario" without a demonstration of what is, in fact, the problem, has a near 1:1 correlation with "I can't actually argue my case".

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, no. Sorry mate. I don't know if you've looked the at the subclass-specific spells yet, but there absolutely no possibility they went through any kind of "wringer" of a playtest, unless it was the same exact team which "playtested" Healing Spirit. And Manifest Echo is just wackily better than any other L3 Fighter stuff. Even the ways you can "deal with it" don't actually mess with the Echo Knight much, and would mess with an actual Fighter way more (regularly round-on-round damage auras, for example - and a real Fighter wouldn't cause an enemy to ready an action, wasting a monster's entire round for 1 damage to a non-entity, they'd cause the enemy to actually attack the Fighter, possibly with multiple attacks).

But go look at the spells, and tell me again how this has been through a "playtest wringer".

Also no insult intended, but saying "white room scenario" without a demonstration of what is, in fact, the problem, has a near 1:1 correlation with "I can't actually argue my case".

No argument is needed: "Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur."

Any "problem" with Healing Spirit was fixed by a single Tweet by Crawford suggesting the proper interpretation of the Spell, it isn't broken either.

If you can provide specifics of how it is "broken" in play, please do so.

 

[Weiley31]

I like the Echo Knight. I wish the Echo could take more than one hit before going poof, but it's still awesome.

So far, I'm already planning a villain Echo Knight BBEG that is pretty much a Wraith Lord ala the Ring Wraiths from Middle-Earth: Shadow of War.

His personal guard would be his own Echos as they would be flavored to be all Wraith-like and the jumping between them would be the Wraith-like movement.

 

[Mercador]

Is there 28 million characters using the Explorers Guide to Wildemount? That seems a lot of people.

 

[Retreater]

Is there 28 million characters using the Explorers Guide to Wildemount? That seems a lot of people.

Wish I wasn't contributing to the number. I'm playing in a game where the DM wants to use D&D Beyond (so I had to reactivate my account with that awful service). And then the DM added Wildemount to my character options, and I don't want to use anything from that either.
But I've gotta hand it to them. They know how to synergize a brand.

 

[jgsugden]

Wish I wasn't contributing to the number. I'm playing in a game where the DM wants to use D&D Beyond (so I had to reactivate my account with that awful service). And then the DM added Wildemount to my character options, and I don't want to use anything from that either.
But I've gotta hand it to them. They know how to synergize a brand.

If you took a look at the functionality, like the ability to limit what you have access to in the character builder, you might like it better.

 

[Retreater]

If you took a look at the functionality, like the ability to limit what you have access to in the character builder, you might like it better.

I don't like the UI. I don't like how it can't compute my spell slots accurately (like counting cantrips against my prepared spells per day). The app is terrible and the functionality on desktop is questionable.
It is a strange beast, an online character builder that is somehow even worse than what we had a decade ago in 4e with DDI. It doesn't facilitate online play at all, so you still need a VTT, which already have built in character sheets that work better than D&D Beyond.
I can't see the point in it, unless it's some form of charity to give Wizards more money.

 

[Galandris]

Is there 28 million characters using the Explorers Guide to Wildemount? That seems a lot of people.

I guess they calculate the numbers out of characters with Wildemount content activated, so the 28M is misleading, since it's the total number of active character sheets (I am only repeating what I read here in earlier threads about that site).

What strikes me is that 2% or 3% percent have prepared Wildemount spells ranging from Reality Break to Ravenous Void. Those are 8th and 9th level spells, requiring PC of level 15+. Previous data from D&D Beyond, abundantly discussed here, showed nearly 0% or characters in that level range. I am surprised to see that many high-level characters in the Wildemount subset, especially from a setting that was published like, two month ago? I'd have expect an even greater representation of low-level characters (with campaign just started) than in the overall database of character sheets. Even if Wildemount spells are so atttractive that they become a "must memorize" type of spells, high-level players are flocking to this setting compared to their nearly statistical absence in the overall game.

 

[Minigiant]

Fighters with flashy special attacks and positional trick have been very popular in media since the 90s.

It only makes sense that it would be in D&D. Especially with the influx of new players in 5e.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

Yeah, no. Sorry mate. I don't know if you've looked the at the subclass-specific spells yet, but there absolutely no possibility they went through any kind of "wringer" of a playtest, unless it was the same exact team which "playtested" Healing Spirit. And Manifest Echo is just wackily better than any other L3 Fighter stuff. Even the ways you can "deal with it" don't actually mess with the Echo Knight much, and would mess with an actual Fighter way more (regularly round-on-round damage auras, for example - and a real Fighter wouldn't cause an enemy to ready an action, wasting a monster's entire round for 1 damage to a non-entity, they'd cause the enemy to actually attack the Fighter, possibly with multiple attacks).

But go look at the spells, and tell me again how this has been through a "playtest wringer".

Also no insult intended, but saying "white room scenario" without a demonstration of what is, in fact, the problem, has a near 1:1 correlation with "I can't actually argue my case".

Have you tested them in actual play at all?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If you can provide specifics of how it is "broken" in play, please do so.

You're putting words into my mouth and then demanding I "prove" them? Please do not do that.

I said they're overpowered. Not "broken". I don't use those terms interchangeably. Those are two different things, at least by degree. Hence people often saying "broken overpowered" when describing stuff in computer games, to mean something isn't merely problematic (like a gun that does 10-15% more damage than other guns), it actually breaks the game (like a gun with infinite ammo, or a gun that does 100% more damage). I don't know if anything here "breaks the game", but there's certainly "overpoweredness" in the sense of stuff that's clearly better than typical options.

What is "it" in the subject of this sentence anyway?

I'm leery of going into deep examples, because in my experience, people who've demanded such things tend to do one of two things when they are provided:

1) Walk away from the thread and never comment on it again (let alone acknowledging the often significant time and effort that goes into providing the examples and accompanying math).

2) Dismiss the examples with terms like "white room" (necessarily any example on a messageboard will be vulnerable to this, just as examples from real games are vulnerable to the issue that the player may be holding back or not very mechanically adept), or with very weak arguments (c.f. the "well you can kill the echo pretty easily stuff", where in fact the resources being used to kill the echo are potentially pretty huge - forcing an enemy to make a pointless attack is like having Stunning them for a turn).

I'm not saying "I refuse", I'd just like you to acknowledge that these are valid concerns. I've seen too many times when people (not always me) have provided detailed examples which have simply been ignored or dismissed unreasonably.

As for Healing Spirit being fixed "easily", maybe, but not everything can be fixed that easily.

I also note your original wording re: "bet" that they are balanced - have you actually looked at them? You haven't answered on that. I'm certainly not going to bother with this until you have looked at them (including all the spells).

Have you tested them in actual play at all?

No. If you think that's a requirement to seeing that something is obviously overpowered, then, I'm afraid I don't think agree and I don't think that's a reasonable position, and I've been vindicated in this viewpoint so many times in my lifetime that it's not even funny. Some flaws only emerge in actual play. Many others are obvious even without it. In my long experience, here, in video games, wargames, card games, and RPGs, It's far more often the case that something seems fine on paper, and is broken in practice, than vice-versa.

Some people will always claim that "Well in my game it's fine!", no matter how unbalanced or badly-designed something is. That's a fact, and it's something anyone who has discussed RPGs significantly will have seen. The interesting thing is that it's often true - but the reason it's typically is that the player is either restraining themselves voluntarily, or isn't capable of understanding how to leverage what the ability in question is. The perfect example is LF/QW, which people swear blind isn't an issue in their games, and again, I'm sure that's true, but as a point of the rules design, it is a problem.

The spells in particular are frequently better than other spells of the same level (not all of them), to a degree that says not "This wasn't tested at all", but rather seems like clear power creep, which to me undermines any suggestion of rigour.