Psikus
Explorer
Aegeri, after looking at some feat and power options for the knight, I think it may be possible to shore up the deficiencies you pointed out without resorting to dwarves, World Serpent Grasp, Warpriest, or any specific items. Admittedly, I haven't been able to play with or against a knight yet, but these seem like decent solutions to me:
On the knight getting screwed by forced movement - The paragon tier Roll with It (PHB3) lets you shift 1 after suffering any kind of forced movement, effectively mimicking the dwarf's racial trait. There's a handful of scenarios where it won't quite work (difficult terrain or immobilization come to mind), but most of the time this should work wonders to cover this particular weakness. While not as effective, a fighter utility that also helps in this regard is Hold Your Ground (Utility 10, HotFL), which negates one forced movement per encounter. Finally, if push comes to shove, there's a daily stance at level 6 called Rock Steady (MP), which turns you into a dwarf at the cost of leaving you without stances for an encounter - not the best of solutions, but it might be the ultimate answer to your Blizard Dragon encounter.
On enemies walking away - This is kind of build dependant, but no enemy should ever be able to walk away from a Hammer Knight of level 7 or higher. At that level, the weapon specialization bonus lets a hammer wielder immobilize his target (while it remains adjacent to the knight, at least), so saving up Power Strike until an enemy provokes, and then stopping it on its tracks looks like quite an effective tactic. It can even be used when the enemy shifts, for what it's worth. For this reason, I think that hammer knights don't have that much to envy their weaponmaster cousins when it comes to making OAs.
Admittedly, this doesn't do much to help sword knights, or characters under 7th level. But I really think that higher level knights, or at least some knight builds not requiring specific races or combos, are not as flawed as you suggest.
On the knight getting screwed by forced movement - The paragon tier Roll with It (PHB3) lets you shift 1 after suffering any kind of forced movement, effectively mimicking the dwarf's racial trait. There's a handful of scenarios where it won't quite work (difficult terrain or immobilization come to mind), but most of the time this should work wonders to cover this particular weakness. While not as effective, a fighter utility that also helps in this regard is Hold Your Ground (Utility 10, HotFL), which negates one forced movement per encounter. Finally, if push comes to shove, there's a daily stance at level 6 called Rock Steady (MP), which turns you into a dwarf at the cost of leaving you without stances for an encounter - not the best of solutions, but it might be the ultimate answer to your Blizard Dragon encounter.
On enemies walking away - This is kind of build dependant, but no enemy should ever be able to walk away from a Hammer Knight of level 7 or higher. At that level, the weapon specialization bonus lets a hammer wielder immobilize his target (while it remains adjacent to the knight, at least), so saving up Power Strike until an enemy provokes, and then stopping it on its tracks looks like quite an effective tactic. It can even be used when the enemy shifts, for what it's worth. For this reason, I think that hammer knights don't have that much to envy their weaponmaster cousins when it comes to making OAs.
Admittedly, this doesn't do much to help sword knights, or characters under 7th level. But I really think that higher level knights, or at least some knight builds not requiring specific races or combos, are not as flawed as you suggest.
