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".