Feats & Fighters

[Nemesis Destiny]

I have not seen the Cavalier in play - are they similarly hindered?

 

[Aegeri]

I have not seen the Cavalier in play - are they similarly hindered?

Ironically no, because they are as ridiculously accurate and you also can toss on an extra effect that dazes. Many of the Knights problems are because a creature leaves and attacks your ally without taking any penalty. Most importantly, it has a free choice as to what to do when it's away - so if it wants that big burst that gets the rest of your allies after moving it can. The cavalier ensures that a creature is threatened with the looming doom of being dazed any time it does something stupid. If it moves or shifts - it practically loses the rest of its entire turn. It gets the choice of charging to make a guaranteed attack, or basically having to risk losing whatever other actions on its turn. This makes the cavalier a much harder catch 22 than the Knight, who can't force a monster into this kind of crappy choice without Defend the Line and World Serpents Grasp. Righteous Shield is also a really solid encounter, especially because it literally lets you save the life of a companion - I can't emphasize how good that is. At the same time, the Knights looming threat (IIRC, the burst that gives a penalty anyway) is also really good, albeit it only buys you a single turn usually (but it *is* better than nothing).

Plus cavaliers get access to valiant strike, which basically means if you can get some enemies around, you are just never going to miss. Admittedly I've not played a lot with the cavalier, but the daze power strike equivalent is just really attractive. Especially when you get multiple uses of it per encounter. Anything important can be locked down when required because of this. They do suffer many of the same disadvantages, but the ability to daze really helps and so I don't think they are anywhere near as bad off.

 

[pauljathome]

Hmm, that does seem to be technically true. My group has always considered the free rituals part of the wizard's class feature, though, and I wouldn't be surprised if other groups run it the same way.

The feat does give you "You gain the wizard’s Ritual Casting class feature"

To me that always implied that you got what was described under Ritual Casting. If they meant "you get the Ritual Casting feat" why wouldn't they
say exactly that?

I'd say that the intent is ambiguous at best.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The feat does give you "You gain the wizard’s Ritual Casting class feature"

To me that always implied that you got what was described under Ritual Casting. If they meant "you get the Ritual Casting feat" why wouldn't they
say exactly that?

I'd say that the intent is ambiguous at best.

Nope, not ambiguous. Cracking open my print copy of PHB1...

Ritual Casting

You gain the Ritual Caster feat (page 200) as a bonus feat, allowing you to use magical rituals (see Chapter 10).

No mention there of bonus rituals.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The problem is due to the Knights inability to hold those creatures attention, the wizard is already unconscious and won't be beguiling stranding anything.

See, that's just an absurd assertion. The only downside of the Knight's arua is that it doesn't give that persistent -2 to a non-adjacent ally. That -2 difference is just not going to lead to PCs being one-shotted. 4e is not that crazy-swingy.

I understand that you've been running a lot of Epic, and maybe, at that level, forced movement and the like is so pervasive that you really can F a Knight over to the degree you're implying. I don't know, I've never seen one in action beyond low level. But the objective mechanical difference is just not that extreme. Anything that can safely get a monster out of a Knight's aura can also safely get it away from the Fighter's mark punishement, to the difference is, at most, that -2. And, the aura applies much more easily than the mark (no attack required, it's automatic against any and every adjacent enemy!), which more than makes up for it. And, the aura-punishment is per /turn/ which much more than makes up for it.

If you're basing this on experience, fine - but your experience is frankly hard to credit. I can only assume that there are some playstyle or perception issues contributing to it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ironically no, because they are as ridiculously accurate and you also can toss on an extra effect that dazes. Admittedly I've not played a lot with the cavalier, but the daze power strike equivalent is just really attractive. Especially when you get multiple uses of it per encounter.

A daze as mark punishment? Damn, the cavalier at my Encounters table has not come through with anything that awesome! Is it build-specific, or higher level or a feat or something?

 

[Incenjucar]

Not going beyond low level is sort of an issue when judging the value of a class feature. Thing is, the issue can crop up at level 1 unless the DM doesn't make full use of 4E's movement-heavy design. Something as simple as a current can destroy a knight's marking ability.

 

[WalterKovacs]

A daze as mark punishment? Damn, the cavalier at my Encounters table has not come through with anything that awesome! Is it build-specific, or higher level or a feat or something?

He is talking about a combination of the cavalier's holy smite used with an OA (MBAs are technicall at-will weapon attacks). He's comparing what the knight can do if someone walks away instead of shifting away to what a cavalier can. The knight gets to make an OA, which is basically the same he would have done vs. a shift, except he doesn't deal half damage on a miss. For the Cavalier, he gets an OA, but if he hits, he dazes the guy he hit [assuming he hasn't already used up his holy smites]. The normal OA vs. shifting/attacking an ally is just auto damage, but the OA vs. moving away from the cavalier is a MBA, which he can boost with Holy Smite. So the Cavalier is stickier than the knight (just like the fighter is stickier than the paladin).

 

[Aegeri]

See, that's just an absurd assertion.

Not really, because what else are a bunch of monsters going to do with no compulsion to attack anyone? Personally I would start eating the tasty looking guy without much armor with the big wooden stick first.

In all seriousness though, the fact that enemies can trivially walk away from a Knight is the biggest issue with the class. A monster effectively has all of its actions and can use its powers to best effect, instead of having incredibly sucky choices (like the original fighter). The knight presents a clear best option: Walk away. So unless you heavily optimize with defend the line and world serpents grasp, nothing is going to bother standing next to you in the first place.

The problem here is the Knight can't maintain that interest. He's a simple punt away from being irrelevant. Every other defender maintains relevance even in really difficult situations. In difficult situations, the Knight falls entirely to pieces. That's the problem.

That -2 difference is just not going to lead to PCs being one-shotted. 4e is not that crazy-swingy.

You've not seen owlbears obviously. Believe me, it takes one round and an owlbear (level 8 elite) will run through any squishy character faster than butter melts on molten lava. Or what the new dragons will do to a party when they can freely decide who to eat at their own whim.

I understand that you've been running a lot of Epic, and maybe, at that level, forced movement and the like is so pervasive that you really can F a Knight over to the degree you're implying.

Actually I'm not even talking about epic tier. The terror that ended the Knight in the encounter I described, the Blizzard Dragon is a mere level 7 controller.

Not that it would be better by epic for the Knight. The ancient blizzard dragon not only slides more with its aura, which the Knight is completely boned by but he ALSO knocks unconscious with his aura explosion. A Knight that ever gets knocked unconscious is the saddest thing in 4E (as they need to stand up, then take two minor actions to restore their stance and aura respectively). So it's only going to get worse.

Now I'm actually going to use only low level examples here, because they actually demonstrate my points far better than any epic tier example would. Also I've only tried knights at heroic and paragon. I don't view one off playtests at epic tier worthwhile for anything, because epic becomes a very complicated metagame that is hard to assess through any individual poops and giggles one shot to try stuff.

In my experience, where knights struggle are creatures like wraiths (level 5), shadows (level 3) and deathjump spiders (level 4). Wraiths turn invisible, so the Knight might not even bother turning up to that fight (as the Wraith can do what it wants and leaving while invisible means the knight gets no OAs against it anyway). The fighter has a time as well, in fact every defender does but - here it comes - the -2 penalty is at least there. The Knight of course does absolutely nothing to the wraith and the wraith enjoys delicious wizard A la carte.

The Shadow. Oh the shadow, how the Knight hates you. For one, they can teleport away if any creature drops to 0 HP, like the Wizard I keep mentioning the Knight fails to protect. So if the knight is marking a shadow, but someone goes down the Knight isn't going to be worrying the shadows much. Once there, they can meld with a targets shadow to gain +4 all defenses, move with them and gain +5 damage against them. Pretty nasty overall and very annoying for anyone to deal with. But again, at least normal defenders can impose a -2 mark penalty and the battlemind can force them to stay for a chat with loadstone lure.

Deathjump Spiders: How the Knight learned to hate things with eight legs, while weeping into his delicious morning coffee. A move action to jump 10 squares? Without provoking? Why yes, I'll take that and a side order of jumping 6 squares as a standard action without provoking to make an attack. Did I mention they can recharge one of those powers and are ridiculously mobile?

The point here is that mark penalties add up to a crapload more than "-2 to hit and that's not important", when it becomes important and you cannot hold the creature adjacent in the first place. The other thing is that in many cases, a simple push from a controller/artillery type creature ends the Knights relevance to a combat as well. Multi-marking for nothing is fine, but it also doesn't mean a lot when you have no way of holding the monsters interest. A mark always holds a creatures interest in some manner, by penalizing its attack.

I could list quite a few more monsters, but the point is that I don't have to cherry pick. It's a BIG list and the current environment means defenders have to deal with things a lot harder than even what the PHB fighter dealt with (back in the day). Monsters are, frankly, better designed and now believe in effects for things like movement (both sliding and shifting themselves). Many skirmishers are designed with move X squares and attack powers (ignoring slow incidentally).

Really, those -2 penalties start to look damn good when they are often the main thing you'll be using to protect your allies. That's kind of my point here.

Anything that can safely get a monster out of a Knight's aura can also safely get it away from the Fighter's mark punishement, to the difference is, at most, that -2.

That is 100% correct and the entire point. The fighter can tough through a situation that the knight can't, due to superior powers and indeed, being able to contribute through that penalty.

Of course it's worth noting in this discussion the Knight needs to be fairly reevaluated now by me. I am not sure, but the ability to pick up the odd fighter power like come and get it could be invaluable for the Knight. It could just be the little bit extra that pulls them from being particularly weak and vulnerable to forced movement/skirmishers to being more competitive.

And, the aura applies much more easily than the mark (no attack required, it's automatic against any and every adjacent enemy!)

The enemies have to care first and don't forget: The aura goes where you do. If you get slid off into the middle of nowhere, your mark does absolutely nothing. Similarly, a knight that is dazed can't do a thing but watch monsters shrug and walk away.

You severely overestimate the power of this, while ignoring the fact forced movement, multiple conditions (dazed), numerous monsters powers and similar make it rather hard for the Knight to actually use. Not to mention if the Knight gets unconscious he loses his aura and stance until he can take minor actions to bring them back.

If you're basing this on experience, fine - but your experience is frankly hard to credit. I can only assume that there are some playstyle or perception issues contributing to it.

I am indeed, but it seems most of the people who have played the knight for a bit (particularly later heroic/paragon) seem to agree with me. You really need to have a good optimized base to make an effective Knight. I keep saying this, but compare a Knight with Warpriest and a Weaponmaster? Who do you think is more uncompromisingly sticky? The guy every monster just walks away from, or the guy who is a black hole of absolute doom that you can never hope to escape from unless you have a power (Like many skirmishers).

He is talking about a combination of the cavalier's holy smite used with an OA (MBAs are technicall at-will weapon attacks). He's comparing what the knight can do if someone walks away instead of shifting away to what a cavalier can. The knight gets to make an OA, which is basically the same he would have done vs. a shift, except he doesn't deal half damage on a miss. For the Cavalier, he gets an OA, but if he hits, he dazes the guy he hit [assuming he hasn't already used up his holy smites]. The normal OA vs. shifting/attacking an ally is just auto damage, but the OA vs. moving away from the cavalier is a MBA, which he can boost with Holy Smite. So the Cavalier is stickier than the knight (just like the fighter is stickier than the paladin).

Precisely. I tried my usual "provoke an OA and who cares" thing on a cavalier once. Big mistake. Wasted the entire creatures turn after it got dazed on being hit from the OA.

 

[Aegeri]

See, that's just an absurd assertion.

Not really, because what else are a bunch of monsters going to do with no compulsion to attack anyone? Personally I would start eating the tasty looking guy without much armor with the big wooden stick first.

In all seriousness though, the fact that enemies can trivially walk away from a Knight is the biggest issue with the class. A monster effectively has all of its actions and can use its powers to best effect, instead of having incredibly sucky choices (like the original fighter). The knight presents a clear best option: Walk away. So unless you heavily optimize with defend the line and world serpents grasp, nothing is going to bother standing next to you in the first place.

The problem here is the Knight can't maintain that interest. He's a simple punt away from being irrelevant. Every other defender maintains relevance even in really difficult situations. In difficult situations, the Knight falls entirely to pieces. That's the problem.

That -2 difference is just not going to lead to PCs being one-shotted. 4e is not that crazy-swingy.

You've not seen owlbears obviously. Believe me, it takes one round and an owlbear (level 8 elite) will run through any squishy character faster than butter melts on molten lava. Or what the new dragons will do to a party when they can freely decide who to eat at their own whim.

I understand that you've been running a lot of Epic, and maybe, at that level, forced movement and the like is so pervasive that you really can F a Knight over to the degree you're implying.

Actually I'm not even talking about epic tier. The terror that ended the Knight in the encounter I described, the Blizzard Dragon is a mere level 7 controller.

Not that it would be better by epic for the Knight. The ancient blizzard dragon not only slides more with its aura, which the Knight is completely boned by but he ALSO knocks unconscious with his aura explosion. A Knight that ever gets knocked unconscious is the saddest thing in 4E (as they need to stand up, then take two minor actions to restore their stance and aura respectively). So it's only going to get worse.

Now I'm actually going to use only low level examples here, because they actually demonstrate my points far better than any epic tier example would. Also I've only tried knights at heroic and paragon. I don't view one off playtests at epic tier worthwhile for anything, because epic becomes a very complicated metagame that is hard to assess through any individual poops and giggles one shot to try stuff.

In my experience, where knights struggle are creatures like wraiths (level 5), shadows (level 3) and deathjump spiders (level 4). Wraiths turn invisible, so the Knight might not even bother turning up to that fight (as the Wraith can do what it wants and leaving while invisible means the knight gets no OAs against it anyway). The fighter has a time as well, in fact every defender does but - here it comes - the -2 penalty is at least there. The Knight of course does absolutely nothing to the wraith and the wraith enjoys delicious wizard A la carte.

The Shadow. Oh the shadow, how the Knight hates you. For one, they can teleport away if any creature drops to 0 HP, like the Wizard I keep mentioning the Knight fails to protect. So if the knight is marking a shadow, but someone goes down the Knight isn't going to be worrying the shadows much. Once there, they can meld with a targets shadow to gain +4 all defenses, move with them and gain +5 damage against them. Pretty nasty overall and very annoying for anyone to deal with. But again, at least normal defenders can impose a -2 mark penalty and the battlemind can force them to stay for a chat with loadstone lure.

Deathjump Spiders: How the Knight learned to hate things with eight legs, while weeping into his delicious morning coffee. A move action to jump 10 squares? Without provoking? Why yes, I'll take that and a side order of jumping 6 squares as a standard action without provoking to make an attack. Did I mention they can recharge one of those powers and are ridiculously mobile?

The point here is that mark penalties add up to a crapload more than "-2 to hit and that's not important", when it becomes important and you cannot hold the creature adjacent in the first place. The other thing is that in many cases, a simple push from a controller/artillery type creature ends the Knights relevance to a combat as well. Multi-marking for nothing is fine, but it also doesn't mean a lot when you have no way of holding the monsters interest. A mark always holds a creatures interest in some manner, by penalizing its attack.

I could list quite a few more monsters, but the point is that I don't have to cherry pick. It's a BIG list and the current environment means defenders have to deal with things a lot harder than even what the PHB fighter dealt with (back in the day). Monsters are, frankly, better designed and now believe in effects for things like movement (both sliding and shifting themselves). Many skirmishers are designed with move X squares and attack powers (ignoring slow incidentally).

Really, those -2 penalties start to look damn good when they are often the main thing you'll be using to protect your allies. That's kind of my point here.

Anything that can safely get a monster out of a Knight's aura can also safely get it away from the Fighter's mark punishement, to the difference is, at most, that -2.

That is 100% correct and the entire point. The fighter can tough through a situation that the knight can't, due to superior powers and indeed, being able to contribute through that penalty.

Of course it's worth noting in this discussion the Knight needs to be fairly reevaluated now by me. I am not sure, but the ability to pick up the odd fighter power like come and get it could be invaluable for the Knight. It could just be the little bit extra that pulls them from being particularly weak and vulnerable to forced movement/skirmishers to being more competitive.

And, the aura applies much more easily than the mark (no attack required, it's automatic against any and every adjacent enemy!)

The enemies have to care first and don't forget: The aura goes where you do. If you get slid off into the middle of nowhere, your mark does absolutely nothing. Similarly, a knight that is dazed can't do a thing but watch monsters shrug and walk away.

You severely overestimate the power of this, while ignoring the fact forced movement, multiple conditions (dazed), numerous monsters powers and similar make it rather hard for the Knight to actually use. Not to mention if the Knight gets unconscious he loses his aura and stance until he can take minor actions to bring them back.

If you're basing this on experience, fine - but your experience is frankly hard to credit. I can only assume that there are some playstyle or perception issues contributing to it.

I am indeed, but it seems most of the people who have played the knight for a bit (particularly later heroic/paragon) seem to agree with me. You really need to have a good optimized base to make an effective Knight. I keep saying this, but compare a Knight with Warpriest and a Weaponmaster? Who do you think is more uncompromisingly sticky? The guy every monster just walks away from, or the guy who is a black hole of absolute doom that you can never hope to escape from unless you have a power (Like many skirmishers).

He is talking about a combination of the cavalier's holy smite used with an OA (MBAs are technicall at-will weapon attacks). He's comparing what the knight can do if someone walks away instead of shifting away to what a cavalier can. The knight gets to make an OA, which is basically the same he would have done vs. a shift, except he doesn't deal half damage on a miss. For the Cavalier, he gets an OA, but if he hits, he dazes the guy he hit [assuming he hasn't already used up his holy smites]. The normal OA vs. shifting/attacking an ally is just auto damage, but the OA vs. moving away from the cavalier is a MBA, which he can boost with Holy Smite. So the Cavalier is stickier than the knight (just like the fighter is stickier than the paladin).

Precisely. I tried my usual "provoke an OA and who cares" thing on a cavalier once. Big mistake. Wasted the entire creatures turn after it got dazed on being hit from the OA. I quickly discovered that I couldn't get away with the same tricks I used on the Knight.

In fairness I was very unfair to the cavalier. I just assumed it would have the same issues as the Knight - which it kind of does - but the ability to throw holy smite onto an OA to tell a creature "stay here or suffer" really took me by surprise. Wasting an entire round trying to move a couple of squares reinforces that you have to be a lot more careful of this cavalier fellow.