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.

 

[jgsugden]

One recent example is the poison moss/spores in Wave Echo Cave that trigger when a "creature" moves within 5 feet of them. The dupe, not a creature, could pass them harmlessly, and the echo knight could then switch with the dupe to avoid them. This DID require the foreknowledge that the moss was poisonous, which the ranger had learned by casting Detect Poison and Disease. The echo knight used the dupe to "attack" the moss, which I ruled would trigger the spores (which I viewed as the only sane ruling to make), which the dupe was then immune to. The party then simply waited until the gas dispersed.

I've run and played in this module a total of four times (played once, run 3 times).

Attacking the moss is not supposed to activate it, and it is supposed to trigger whenever someone crosses it. Regardless, they could have just gone around it. In all four passes through the WEC I experienced, the PCs triggered the fungi. However, in none of them was the entire party impacted by the initial cloud. In one of the four games the PCs pushed through, while in the other three they went around.

The dupe can move in any direction, including straight up into the air. There are things in LMoP that are 10'-15' feet high and need to be climbed up or down; this ability trivializes those.

What did they access that was not accessible through mundane climbing? Anything? Climbing is a trivial task all by itself.

Spellcasting enemies including Glasstaff, Mormesk the wraith, and Black Spider are all kitted out with spells and that require a "creature" as a target, so they effectively had almost nothing they could use against the dupe. Glasstaff was particularly embarrassing in this regard...

Glasstaff has never cast a spell. Fragile and low initiative... even with the shield spell he was killed before he went. However, had he charmed or held the fighter, the image would have been stopped.

Mormesk doesn't have spells, and his attack would kill the image if it hit... but given that it is a wraith and is so focused on snuffing life, as soon as it realized the echo was not alive it would likely have focused on another target. Mormesk was particularly effective in the games I DMed due to bad PC tactics. The scouting rogue ended up trapped in the closet and became a specter. A wounded sorcerer (maybe warlock? been a while) was critted and became a specter.

The Black Spider and his four allies pretty much followed the suggested tactics in the book. When I ran him, his first action was to use a suggestion spell to try to send the front line fighter away from the battle, then (returned) to invisibility and hid behind the spiders. He returned to visibility when there was a target that looked wounded enough that magic missile might finish them off. A suggestion on the fighter would have been just as effective. If he attacked the image, it would have wasted the spell, which is nice, but certainly not overpowered for a 3rd level prime ability of a subclass.

I went back and looked at your old posts on this thread. You were remembering that the image has no senses, right? If the fighter has total cover from the enemy, it often means they can't see the enemy. That means all attacks would need to guess the location and would be at disadvantage.

 

[Burnside]

I'm gonna go ahead and judge this based on my actual experience of seeing this subclass in play in my campaign for the past three months.

 

[Parmandur]

One recent example is the poison moss/spores in Wave Echo Cave that trigger when a "creature" moves within 5 feet of them. The dupe, not a creature, could pass them harmlessly, and the echo knight could then switch with the dupe to avoid them. This DID require the foreknowledge that the moss was poisonous, which the ranger had learned by casting Detect Poison and Disease. The echo knight used the dupe to "attack" the moss, which I ruled would trigger the spores (which I viewed as the only sane ruling to make), which the dupe was then immune to. The party then simply waited until the gas dispersed.

The dupe can move in any direction, including straight up into the air. There are things in LMoP that are 10'-15' feet high and need to be climbed up or down; this ability trivializes those.

Spellcasting enemies including Glasstaff, Mormesk the wraith, and Black Spider are all kitted out with spells and abilities that require a "creature" as a target, so they effectively had almost nothing they could use against the dupe. Glasstaff was particularly embarrassing in this regard.

I did have some fun with an evil rival party of adventurers that also included the brother of the echo knight who has the same abilities as the sister. The adventurers learned for themselves what a pain in the ass it can be to face somebody with those abilities. Also including an amusing dueling dupes exchange.

That actually all sounds awesome. Though you might be letting the echo do more than intended in the text.

 

[OB1]

Currently 6 sessions into a Wildemount campaign and the party fighter has been an Echo Knight for the last two. Certainly a powerful and useful ability, but haven't seen it harming the spotlight of the other players or making it more difficult to run challenging encounters. I DMd a Battlemaster Fighter for 20 levels in my prior campaign, and played an Eldritch Knight for 14 levels through Tyranny of Dragons, and I'd put the Echo Knight so far on par with them, just in a unique way.

 

[Azzy]

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

I think it's entirely reasonable. I cannot count the times that I've seen someone claim that such-and-such (in D&D, WH40K, or other games) is over/underpowered when in my experience in game it wasn't (and vice-versa with claims that something is not over/underpowered).

There are too many variables in actual gameplay that drawing conclusions from simply reading it or considering "white room" scenarios is inherently flawed. Also, the scientific method requires testing.

 

[jgsugden]

I'm gonna go ahead and judge this based on my actual experience of seeing this subclass in play in my campaign for the past three months.

As noted by myself and others: If you let them do more than they're allowed to do RAW, it isn't really fair to call them overpowered.

Your experience is one factor. However, you might wish to conider that a change of perspective and considering other views may be of use. Other people are having other experiences that conflict with yours. Some of us have been running them a bit closer to RAW and see them as effective, evocative, but not overpowered.

Further, when you have yet to express anything that shows them being able to do something more amazing in your game than other PCs can do with climbing, walking another path, etc.... it is hard to undersand why you think them overpowered.

 

[Burnside]

As noted by myself and others: If you let them do more than they're allowed to do RAW, it isn't really fair to call them overpowered.

Your experience is one factor. However, you might wish to conider that a change of perspective and considering other views may be of use. Other people are having other experiences that conflict with yours. Some of us have been running them a bit closer to RAW and see them as effective, evocative, but not overpowered.

Further, when you have yet to express anything that shows them being able to do something more amazing in your game than other PCs can do with climbing, walking another path, etc.... it is hard to undersand why you think them overpowered.

What am I allowing that isn't RAW?


As noted by myself, the person who had the rules wrong according to RAW (grappling, two bonus actions needed) was you.

 

[jgsugden]

What am I allowing that isn't RAW?


As noted by myself, the person who had the rules wrong according to RAW (grappling, two bonus actions needed) was you.

See my above post that addresses the concerns that you're playing it wrong.

You had it interact with the fungus, for one.

However, the main question you did not answer: Did you remember that the fighter needs to have LOS to the target of the Echo Knight? Otherwise there is guessing the square the target is in, disadvantage, etc...

And yes, my post from right after it was released had an error in it. We caught that error soon after. It can't be grappled and it can be resummoned if already in existence. I think our Echo Knight was impacted by these misunderstandings a grand total of one time before we caught them.

 

[Burnside]

Yes I know about LOS. I have to constantly remind my player about it as she frequently tries to use the echo as a scout.

I think my ruling about triggering the moss by hitting it was a fair call. Certainly if my players had hit the moss and nothing happened, and then stepped on it and gotten poisoned, there would have been understandable complaints.

Regardless, I’m just sharing my experience with this subclass. For whatever reason, it’s important to you to establish that my experience is invalid, or my interpretation of RAW is wrong (even though on the whole, it’s somewhat less wrong than yours). That’s kinda weird.

 

[jgsugden]

Yes I know about LOS. I have to constantly remind my player about it as she frequently tries to use the echo as a scout.

I think my ruling about triggering the moss by hitting it was a fair call. Certainly if my players had hit the moss and nothing happened, and then stepped on it and gotten poisoned, there would have been understandable complaints.

Regardless, I’m just sharing my experience with this subclass. For whatever reason, it’s important to you to establish that my experience is invalid, or my interpretation of RAW is wrong (even though on the whole, it’s somewhat less wrong than yours). That’s kinda weird.

This whole thread has been a series of people claiming the subclass is overpowered (without substantiating it) and other people telling them to simmer down, explain what you think is broken and what your experiences are, and then analysis that shows that there is very little going on here that is actually that special.

I always go back to the Mystic Theurge when these Hexblade/Echo Knight/Cleric of Order broke the game arguments. Mystic Theurge was a 3E option offered that blew people's minds. It gave you access to wizard AND cleric spells. Your spellcasting fell a few levels behind a pure spellcaster, but while they were casting 7th level wizard spells, you had access to both 6th level wizard AND 6th level cleric spells.

People claimed it was ridiculously broken. They swore it ruined the game. They said EVERY spellcaster would be a Mystic Theurge from that point on. The vast majority of people on Enworld, on the WotC boards, on other boards - they all called it insanely overpowered.... and then it actually hit the tables and people started to discover it felt weak. Very. It was playable, but you were playing with toys that other people got 10 to 15 sessions earlier. You were the 4th kid that never had any new clothes - just a series of hand-me-downs from your older brothers and sisters.

Echo Knight looks cool and creates some interesting and fun options. However, when you get down to it, there are only a few things you can do with it that you can't achieve in other reasonably accessible methods. It is cool to teleport over the pit (rather than jumping it). It is cool see an enemy waste a spell on a target that can't be impacted by it (rather than have someone make a saving throw). But it is not broken.

And it sounds like you have not put any battles in front of the PCs where the image is entirely negated, yet. Those happen. Then you feel a lot like a fighter with no subclass at all, which is kind of unfun.